Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM is a highly recommended platform for businesses looking to build strong customer relationships. The platform brings robust customer insights, integrated compliance tools, and reporting capabilities. Therefore, making it the ideal choice for businesses looking for rapid expansion across business horizontals and verticals.
However, before you can go ahead with leveraging the potential of Microsoft Dynamics 365, you need a robust security strategy. Most companies fall for the Microsoft Dynamics 365 security pitfalls primarily because they lack the technical expertise. The expertise includes configuring security properly or simply being overwhelmed by the project’s complexity.
Nonetheless, by following best practices and keeping in view the most common security mistakes made by other businesses, you can develop the right security approach that will minimize the Dynamics CRM security risk and lower the licensing cost. Here in this blog, we have come up with some common mistakes to avoid when setting up security in Dynamics 365.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Security
It’s common for businesses to overlook the security aspect among various other aspects of the dynamics 365 implementations. It’s understandable since the complexities and intricacies involved with the Dynamics 365 implementation often overwhelmed business leaders; thereby, it’s easiest for them to overlook the security aspect of the system. However, this can prove lethal for the company in the long run.
Thereby, despite the challenges involved with Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementation, you can’t let your guard down for the system’s security. Also, don’t get frustrated with the security prompts (taking the easier way out won’t be a wise decision either) since it will only lend you even more trouble.
The key is to embrace the challenges involved with the dynamics 365 data security challenges and play along with the best practices.
Overpowering a user with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Security
One of the most common mistakes businesses make regarding Microsoft dynamics 365 security is overprovisioning the security control to a single user. Just remember, under no circumstances can you overprovision the security role in dynamics 365.
When pressed for time, it’s common for businesses to assign System Administrator Roles to users simply to allow them to perform high-priority jobs. However, in reality, this should never happen since you are essentially handing over the entire control of your systems to the person, and undoing this is extremely difficult.
Here’re what a user with a System Administrator Role can do;
- They can access all data and can perform any action
- They can bypass all security protocols
- Can retain that access for unlimited time (until you exclusively get it revoked)
Remember, keeping up with the dynamics 365 data security is more important than any quick fix to even the highest-priority task. Therefore, even when pressed against the wall to assign System Administrator rights to a user, think twice before provisioning the rights. At the very least, have some protocols in place to assign/revoke this access.
Thinking of Security as the exclusive domain of IT
Most businesses think that delegating the configuration and maintenance of the security system to the IT team is all they need to keep up with the organization’s security needs. In reality, this isn’t the ultimate guarantor of your organization’s security. That’s because while the IT team would have the expertise to set up and configure security, they won’t have any understanding of the users’ roles and what field security dynamics 365 roles should be provisioned to different users.
On the other hand, your business process owners (BPOs) have a precise understanding of roles and delegate them to each user to enable them to complete their daily tasks. However, they won’t have the required permissions or rights to configure users’ security in the above scenario. This simply leads businesses to a security dilemma.
Thereby, to ensure effective security implementation, you should have streamlined communication between IT and BPO departments. No one department can handle security on their own; rather, they need to collaborate to validate the security configuration for each user.
Security – Low priority for the implementation team
As mentioned above, it’s common for businesses to overlook the security aspects during dynamics 365 implementation. This is primarily because of the complexities and intricacies involved in the dynamic 365 implementation process. However, neglecting the Microsoft dynamics 365 security aspect will only make things more difficult for the organization.
Remember, when it comes to Microsoft dynamics 365, security and licensing relate directly. This means that the access level of a user is directly connected to the type of license and requirement of that user. This means that the higher the security level you assign to an employee, the higher the licensing cost you will pay for the application.
The cost of mitigating segregation of duties (SoD) risks is another reason businesses need to consider the security aspect when implementing dynamics 365. As the section above mentions, when a user overprovisions system access, they become vulnerable to creating risks (intentionally or unintentionally). This means that you are increasing the cost of mitigating segregation of duties when you overprovision a user with system access.
Take security as one time task
When it comes to Microsoft dynamics 365 security, it’s not a one-time task. Rather, it is a periodic exercise. That’s because your organization’s security isn’t static. Therefore, you will continuously be adding/removing users and role access. Periodic security reviews will help you unveil any overprovisioning of user access. Moreover, it validates if your organization’s security is at a desiring level.
Here’s why you need to perform periodic reviews;
- Check and validate that no user is overprovisioned with access
- Ensure access removal for employees who are no longer part of the team
- Remove any temporarily assigned access
- Validate the overall security level of the system
Takeaway!
Your organization’s security is one aspect that you will need to fix either before or when a crisis hits you. In any situation, you will need eventually need to fix it. It’s just that fixing it during the crisis is highly painful and costly. Thereby, you need to be proactive to save yourself from the pains of fixing it during times of crisis. Therefore, start today and get your Microsoft Dynamics 365 security under control today!
