Announcing Public Preview for modernize business units

We have modernized the business units security concepts in Dataverse. Business units’ data access can now support matrix data access structure . The matrix structure is typical for sales organizations where a regional sales manager can access data in multiple regions, or retail organizations where a store clerk works at multiple stores.

Users are no longer restricted to accessing/managing data in their own business unit. They can now access and own records across business units. Security roles from different business units can be assigned to the users regardless of the business unit the users belong to. This feature enables the Owning Business Unit column of the record so that it can be set/updated by the users. The Owning Business Unit column determines the business unit that owns the record.

This feature is currently being rolled out for Public Preview during the months of November and December, 2021. Power Platform admins can enable this feature in their environment via the Power Platform admin center.

1. Select the Environments tab, and then choose the environment that you want to enable this feature for.
2. Select Settings > Product > Features.
3. Turn On the Record ownership across business units (Preview)

Note: for Public preview, please enable this feature switch for your non-production environments.

See Modernize Business Unit video for a demo of this feature.

Full documentation of this capability can be found:

1. Dataverse security concept on Business Units
2. Modernize business unit – Matrix data access structure
3. Introducing Owning Business Units
4. Assign security roles from different business units
5. Manager hierarchy direct report’s business unit and manager’s business unit
6. Change the business unit for a user
7. Change the owner and/or business unit of a record
8. Cascading effects for parental table relationship behaviors when owner and/or business unit of a record is changed

Try it out and let us know what you think!  And stay tuned for when it is released for General Availability.