Introduction
In the ever-evolving landscape of business technology, the importance of maintaining a secure and manageable digital environment cannot be overstated. Microsoft has introduced a significant update in Power Apps, aiming to bolster environment management and application lifecycle governance. The newly released feature, “Block Unmanaged Customizations,” is now generally available and is a strategic tool for system administrators.
Understanding the New Feature
The “Block Unmanaged Customizations” setting is a governance tool that restricts direct development within the production environments of the Power Platform. This feature prevents the application of unmanaged customizations and the importation of unmanaged solutions into production environments, ensuring that all modifications pass through the proper Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) processes.
Why Is It Needed?
Unmanaged customizations often bypass crucial stages of development such as testing and approvals, which can lead to inconsistencies and errors in production environments. By blocking these unmanaged customizations, Microsoft aims to:
- Ensure predictability and consistency in solution deployments.
- Enforce strict adherence to ALM processes.
- Reduce operational risks by eliminating ad-hoc changes and maintaining system integrity.
How It Works
To activate this feature, system administrators can navigate to the Features area of the environment settings page within the Power Platform admin center. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of how it functions:
- Blocking Imports: Once enabled, the import of unmanaged solutions into the environment is blocked.
- Restricting Customization: Creating new solution objects (such as apps, tables, and forms) and customizing existing objects are also prohibited.
- Handling Violations: Any attempt to implement unmanaged customizations will trigger an error message, informing the user that such actions are restricted.
What Remains Unaffected
Despite its restrictive measures, the feature is designed to allow certain administrative and operational activities to ensure that the environment remains functional and manageable:
- Environmental Variable Adjustments: Changes to environment variable values are permitted.
- Operational Control over Solution Objects: Enabling or disabling solution objects, like Power Automate flows, is allowed.
- Record Management: Assigning ownership or sharing table records can still be performed.
- Solution Management: Operations like removing active customizations and the creation and export of unmanaged solutions are not blocked.
Practical Example
Consider a scenario in a financial services company where regulatory compliance is critical. By enabling this feature, the company can ensure that any changes to their Power Apps environment are fully tested and approved before deployment. This not only helps in maintaining compliance but also enhances the security and reliability of their applications.
Conclusion
The introduction of the “Block Unmanaged Customizations” feature by Microsoft is a proactive approach to enhancing governance in the Power Platform environments. By ensuring that all changes undergo proper ALM processes, organizations can achieve higher operational reliability and governance, which are crucial in today’s digital-first business environment.
Implementation Tips
Before enabling this feature, it is important to review the known limitations to ensure that it aligns with your organizational needs and that certain application experiences may be limited. Additionally, as this feature cannot be enabled in the default environment, planning its implementation requires careful consideration of which environments would benefit most from such governance.
By embracing these advanced capabilities, organizations can significantly enhance the integrity and stability of their Power Apps solutions, paving the way for more secure and efficient digital operations.
Learn more
- Block unmanaged customizations: Block unmanaged customizations
- Solution layers and unmanaged customizations here: Solution layers
- Blog post from public preview: Announcing preview for blocking unmanaged customizations | Microsoft Power Apps