Power app user license based on entities access

[hubertg]

Hello,

I need to confirm something related to licensing of power apps and dynamics 365 entities.

The licensing approach that dynamics 365 has for its entities in the licensing guide is really clear, it says that sales entities. "Quotes, products, etc." require a D365 license, but I have a problem, I need to validate this but I don't know how.

Actually I have a sandbox environment with only 1 d365 sales license, the rest of the licenses are Power Apps Per App Baseline Access, if I access a model driven app that creates quotes with a user with only Power Apps license, the user can create the quote without any problem. I need to confirm when or how to verify access to entities based on user license because it is not really restrictive using apps. How MS is validating the license based on entities.

Thank you.

[EricRegnier]

Hi @hubertg,

There's no hard restrictions as of now, but MS has a lot of telemetry in the backend to analyze the usage and report any noncompliant usage. Suggest to get those get those users a proper D365 license to be compliant or completely remove those entities from your custom model-driven apps and the roles assigned to those users.

Hope this helps!

[hubertg]

Hi Eric,

I'm very concerned about this, I'm not experienced in CRM and Microsoft is releasing all dataverse and power apps as a new product , focusing on new customer, I can't believe that an important aspect like access and licensing is controlled under telemetria criteria.

I know the case of a company that is working on their apps without taking consideration licensing by entities, they believe only on what application allow to do the users what they have on their licensing. this can represent a miss understanding of 110 usd by user.

[EricRegnier · Accepted solution]

You don't need to be concerned. Microsoft understands it's not always easy to keep up to date and all, so it's more of a trust system. They will not come back to with a fine! The way I recommend to be on top of it, is part of your design, include analysis of licensing requirements to ensure you are compliant and adjust accordingly. You can have a mix of users that have D365 and some Power Apps per user/app licenses. Segregate your apps properly to try to facilitate and avoid restricted entities for non D365 users...

[Fubar]

Whilst they will not come back with a fine, what may happen is that when they do enforce that users stop being able to access some stuff (which is what occurred when they started to enforce the restrictions on the Dynamics 365 Team Member licence).

What you need to do is avail yourself of the details in the PowerApps licencing guide (link on this page https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/powerapps-flow-licensing-faq ) and make your best effort to comply with it.

You'll notice several things in the licencing guide (at the time of writing), Custom Apps allowed (Model and Canvas - but not standard Apps like Sales or Customer Service) and Restricted Entities (i.e. these are entities that you need additional Dynamics 365 licencing (these are not explicitly listed in the Guide but you can find them here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/data-platform/data-platform-restricted-entities )

[hubertg]

Hi Fubar,

Thank you for your help, I read the licensing guide many times and it's clear what it says, my actual governance is for FO, not for D365 and dataverse.  My concern it's because I see what customers with powerapps access are doing with their apps and the confusing they have. The point about not enforce the restrictions is valid, But still it's necessary that apps or a report tell you what kind of license the user need,  MS open the door with dataverse to any user to create apps and have their data, but there are big differences in price when refer to dynamics 365 vs Power apps and dataverse .

[dpoggemann]

Hi @hubertg,

As @EricRegnier mentioned, Microsoft currently does not have restrictions in place to specifically stop the a Power Apps Per App license from creating Quotes, Opportunities, and other Sales application related entities even though it is not within the rights of these licenses.  It is the customer's responsibility to keep within the licensing guidelines and provide roles to restrict this access.  You do have the ability to "read" these entities but not update / delete / etc.  

The approach we utilize with our customers is to make sure that we provide security roles with the appropriate table access that is following the licensing guide and they utilize custom model apps, not the Dynamics 365 for Sales app, for these users.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Drew

[Fubar]

I Understand it is not crystal clear - but if you look at Appendix B you will see that Fin & Ops also has some PowerApps use rights.

Microsoft have what they call 'True Up' but this is usually for those customers that are on their own Enterprise Agreement - basically when they go through it they find out what licencing you have in use (but my understanding is that it is not available outside of an EA - which generally only large customers have).