Using contact ownership for row-level security

Introduction to Row-Level Security (RLS): Row-level security (RLS) is a data access feature that allows you to control access to data based on the user’s role or ownership of the data. In the context of Power Pages and Microsoft Dataverse, RLS is used to filter data on a per-record basis so that users only see the records that they are authorized to view. This can be achieved by associating records with users and applying security rules based on the ownership or other attributes of the record.

Contact Ownership and RLS: In Microsoft Dataverse, the Contact entity (representing a person or customer) is commonly used to manage individual data, such as customer information, user profiles, or case details. By assigning records to specific contacts and linking these records to a particular user, you can implement row-level security to ensure that only authorized users can view or edit specific records.

Here’s a step-by-step approach to implementing RLS using Contact Ownership:

Step 1: Set Up Ownership in Dataverse

1. Create Contact Records: The Contact entity in Dataverse typically holds individual customer or user information. When implementing RLS, it’s important that the contact record is correctly associated with a user.
2. Assign Records to Contacts: Many tables in Dataverse (e.g., cases, activities, opportunities) can be owned by specific contacts. This ownership is what determines access control.
   • For instance, you can set the owner of a case record to a Contact who represents the customer associated with that case.
3. Enable Ownership Field: Ensure the ownership field is set correctly for records. The ownership field links the record to a Contact or User.
   • In a case record, the ownership can be set to the contact representing the customer who owns that case.

Step 2: Configure Security Roles

1. Create or Modify Security Roles: In Dataverse, security roles are used to control what actions users can perform on records.
   • Modify or create new security roles that define permissions based on ownership.
   • Ensure that security roles are set up to allow read, write, delete, and append actions only for records owned by the contact or user.
2. Assign Roles to Users: Assign users the relevant security roles that allow them to access records owned by the specific contact. For example, if a customer service agent should only access cases assigned to their contacts, you will assign the appropriate role to the user.

Step 3: Implement Row-Level Security (RLS) Filters

1. Apply RLS Filter Logic: Implement filters in Power Pages, Power Apps, or Power Automate based on ownership. This can be done using custom views, FetchXML queries, or using predefined permissions.
   • For instance, you can create a FetchXML query to only retrieve cases where the Owner of the case matches the logged-in user’s contact.
2. Set Filtering Rules: The filtering rule can be based on ownership. For example, you can use Contact ownership to filter the rows of a table so that users only see records where the contact in the Owner field matches their own user’s contact. Example of FetchXML query:
   <fetch> <entity name="incident"> <attribute name="title" /> <attribute name="incidentid" /> <filter> <condition attribute="ownerid" operator="eq" value="{UserContactID}" /> </filter> </entity> </fetch> This example ensures that users only see records of incidents (cases) where the Owner is the logged-in user’s contact ID.

Step 4: Apply Security Policies

1. Set Row-Level Security (RLS) Policies: In Power Platform, RLS policies are defined in the Dataverse tables. You can create RLS policies to enforce data visibility rules across various tables.
2. Associate Users with Contact: Ensure that users have a Contact record associated with them. This Contact record serves as the key for identifying ownership and controlling access.
   • This can be done by setting the Owner field for the Contact record, which then relates back to the user. This allows the system to enforce access control policies for data visibility.

Step 5: Testing and Validation

1. Test Security Role Permissions: Test the RLS configuration by logging in as different users and verifying if the data access matches the defined security roles and ownership permissions.
2. Audit and Monitor Access: You can audit user activity and monitor access to ensure the row-level security is enforced correctly and users are only able to access the data they are authorized to view.

Best Practices:

• Least Privilege: Apply the principle of least privilege to ensure that users have access only to records they own or have been granted explicit access to.
• Ownership Best Practices: Use contact ownership where possible, as it provides a more granular level of security for scenarios where users need to access records tied to specific individuals or customers.
• Use Teams for Shared Access: In some cases, you might need to grant access to multiple users (e.g., a team). You can use Teams in Dataverse to allow multiple users to have access to the same records without changing individual record ownership.
• Data Masking: For sensitive data, consider implementing data masking techniques to ensure that only authorized users can view sensitive information.