xRM Insights · by xRM Products

Data governance in Microsoft Dynamics 365

Data governance in Microsoft Dynamics 365 ensures that business-critical data remains accurate, secure, compliant and reliable across its entire lifecycle.

As Dynamics 365 environments grow in complexity, governance becomes more than security roles or native audit logs – it requires structured visibility, controlled change management and proactive protection directly in Dataverse.

xRM Insights provides practical, vendor-level guidance based on real-world experience building enterprise-grade Dynamics 365 solutions.

What is data governance in Dynamics 365?

Data governance in Dynamics 365 defines how data is created, modified, validated, protected and recovered across users, integrations and automated processes.

It combines transparency, control and prevention to ensure that Dataverse data supports business processes instead of becoming a source of operational, compliance or security risk.

Core goals of data governance

  • Transparency across data changes and user actions
  • Prevention of invalid or unwanted modifications
  • Consistent enforcement of governance rules
  • Compliance with internal and external requirements
  • Trustworthy data for reporting and decisions

The three pillars of data governance in Dynamics 365

Visibility

Visibility & auditability

Understanding who changed what and when is the foundation of data governance. Full transparency enables audits, analysis and reliable recovery.

  • Field-level change tracking
  • Complete before/after history
  • Restore of overwritten or deleted data
Control

Language & metadata

Consistent language and metadata management is a critical aspect of governance in multi-language and multi-environment Dynamics 365 deployments.

  • Centralized translation management
  • Controlled metadata changes
  • Consistency across languages and environments
Prevention

Protection & validation

Effective data governance prevents problems before they occur by enforcing rule-based validation directly at the point of change.

  • Pre-save validation in Dataverse
  • Prevention of critical data changes
  • Governance rules across users and integrations

Data governance is not a single feature

Effective data governance in Dynamics 365 combines transparency, control and prevention. Explore how these governance pillars are addressed in practice across audit, localization and protection.