From Chaos to Control With Power Platform

Adoption of Microsoft Power Platform has skyrocketed, with 30% YoY growth reported in 2023. And New Zealand organisations are playing an active role in this trend, as more and more businesses want to know how Power Platform can help them.

Power Platform includes the following apps:

• Power BI - to help you visualise data in dashboards and reports.
• Power Apps - allows you to build custom apps to solve specific business problems e.g. inventory management.
• Power Automate - enables you to automate workflows and repetitive tasks.
• Power Pages - allows you to build websites/pages that connect to your data e.g. customer portal.
• Virtual Agents - enable you to deploy chatbots on your website or integrate them into Teams, mobile apps, etc.

Whilst it’s great to see so many businesses getting on board with using one or more of these apps, this rapid adoption has also brought challenges, particularly for IT teams.

When Power Platform is used without the necessary controls in place, we often see a tangled web of problems within organisations – from inconsistent data and security vulnerabilities to integration issues. The lack of governance becomes highly problematic, very quickly.

Our advice to customers is always to have a robust governance plan in place before venturing into Power Platform. However, if you’ve already started using it, it’s not too late!

Here, we explain a bit more about the problems we encounter with lack of governance around Power Platform and discuss how partnering with Theta can support your journey to better governance and better outcomes.

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Problems created by poor Power Platform governance

The main risk of poor governance in Power Platform is the potential for inconsistent data, which can lead to unreliable insights and decision-making. Here are some of the other common issues we see:

Security vulnerabilities

• Without proper permissions management, unauthorised users could gain access to sensitive apps and data.
• Employees may unknowingly grant external contractors access to sensitive data, leading to data leaks.
• Without centralised auditing, suspicious activities may go unnoticed, allowing potential breaches or malicious actions to continue unchecked.

Integration challenges

• Information stored in separate, incompatible systems becomes difficult to consolidate and analyse.
• Different data formats and standards make reporting and data sharing more complex.
• Managing uncoordinated solutions requires significant IT resources, and disruptions may occur when data and processes fail to flow smoothly.

Data loss

• A critical Power App, such as one managing customer data, may be deleted without proper backup, causing permanent data loss.
• Unauthorised access or data corruption can result from lack of security controls.
• Data loss may lead to financial penalties for non-compliance and damage customer trust.

Lack of visibility

• Redundant or inefficient solutions proliferate.
• Enforcing security policies and standards is harder without visibility, increasing the risk of data breaches and regulatory non-compliance.
• Without proper monitoring, organisations may miss out on opportunities to optimise and innovate, leading to increased operational risks and costs.

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How Theta can support your governance

Here's how we can assist your organisation in developing a robust governance plan, while also helping to upskill your users.

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1. Awareness and education:

Building awareness and skills across your organisation is a first step.

We can implement comprehensive training programs and foster a culture of knowledge sharing to help empower your users to use the Power Platform effectively.

Initiatives include:

• Establishing a Power Platform Centre of Excellence (CoE) with Theta experts to guide your organisation.
• Conducting training sessions to enhance proficiency.
• Creating a Power Platform community on your intranet to facilitate collaboration, where employees could ask questions and receive expert guidance from Theta’s Power Platform specialists.

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2. Establishing guardrails:

To ensure quality, consistency, and security, we’ll implement robust governance practices. Key measures include:

• Drafting a governance framework document outlining development, testing, and deployment standards.
• Establishing Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies to restrict connectors to approved sets.
• Creating dedicated environments for development, UAT and production, each with proper access controls.

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3. Empowering users:

We provided the right tools and resources to support your staff:

• Offering sandbox environments where your employees can experiment with apps and workflows.
• Identifying champions within each of your divisions to lead the adoption and governance efforts.
• Developing templates, reusable components, and standards to ensure consistency and quality in app development.

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4. Monitoring and maintaining control:

Continuous monitoring and optimisation played a crucial role in sustaining success. While we encourage your staff to "do their thing" and innovate freely, we will ensure that robust guardrails are in place. This proactive approach enables you to balance creativity with control, focusing on:

• Utilising the Power Platform Centre of Excellence (CoE) to oversee platform usage.
• Conducting monthly governance calls to review adoption metrics, address specific requests, and ensure compliance.
• Enabling monitoring tools, audit logs, and health indicators to provide comprehensive insights and maintain control.

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Summary points

Governance shouldn’t stifle creativity; it should empower it. By implementing structured practices and maintaining a balance between innovation and control, we’re confident that you can harness the full potential of Power Platform while mitigating the risks.

Here are our key points:

1. Start governance early
2. Empower but with guardrails
3. Continuous education is key
4. Collaborate
5. Monitor, don’t just govern
6. Centralise and simplify
7. Involve an IT partner like Theta!