Environment strategy
Tags: powerplatform, powerapps, powerautomate, powerfuldevs
Published: 2023-08-09 13:16:00

The Power Platform environment has evolved significantly over time. New features and capabilities have emerged and as these capabilities become more prevalent, the need for a smart environment strategy becomes even more important.

## Here's a roadmap to consider when developing an environment strategy:

**Role Assignments:**
Allocate Power Platform service admin roles to dedicated administrators for optimal management.

**Controlled Environment Creation:** 
Limit the creation of production environments to administrators, preventing unauthorized sprawl.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/c00n2h9zqjm2nkt1x46f.png)

**Default Environment Purpose:** 
Clearly define and communicate the default environment's purpose, utilizing it for user and team productivity rather than mission-critical apps.

**Environment Creation request:** 
Establish a formal process for requesting new environments, fostering collaboration between developers and administrators.

**Tiered Environments:** 
Create dedicated development, test, and production environments for critical projects, ensuring data integrity.

**Individual-Use Environments:** 
Generate separate environments for proof of concepts and workshops, promoting organization and resource management.

**DLP Policies:** 
Implement robust DLP policies at both tenant and environment levels, safeguarding organizational data.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/481pt216cecmw7svauyr.png)

**Shared Environments:** Create shared environments to facilitate integration, onboarding, and resource conservation.

## Governance is an essential topic of Power Platform environment management 

The platform offers a range of tools to meet governance requirements, such as:

PowerShell cmdlets

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/d8kq7r5lw918fv9fsvgd.png)


...and Power Automate admin connectors. 


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/e0enzteb336kk2cx6kic.png)

## Additional recommendations for managing environments

- Utilize a service account for deploying production solutions, in order to improve control and resource management.

- Implement automation for environment creation, ensuring efficient provisioning and capacity utilization.

- Set deadlines for temporary development environments to avoid clutter and optimize resource allocation.

- Implementing Power Platform Pipelines for deployment of solutions to production environment and for improvement of governance capabilities.

## Communicating your organization's strategy
Make sure your organization's strategy for environments is easy to understand by the makers. You can do this by setting up a special place like a SharePoint site. In this place, you can explain:

- The purpose of the default environment.
- How to ask for access to these places.
- How to get one.
- Why developer environments are needed and how to make them.
- How to ask for special environments just for certain business teams or projects.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/5ta20cnkmlavp86dvhb9.png)

## If you're a maker, remember:

- If you're done with an environment, apps, or flows, get rid of them. 
- Use test spaces if you want to try something out.
- Be careful about sharing too much. Don't share too many environments, apps, flows, or connections.
- Keep important organization data safe. Don't move it to places that aren't safe or outside of the organization.

## Conclusion
Managing your Power Platform environments smartly is like a key to making awesome apps, keeping data safe, and getting things done faster. When you plan things well, you use resources better and help developers and administrators work together.