Minimum Privileges Required to Log in to Model-driven Apps in Dynamics 365/Microsoft Dataverse

One of the security best practices in Dynamics 365 is to use the base security role as a baseline and apply that role to all Users. The base security role will include all the common/basic permissions that are required to have access to the system (you can read more details in  Tip #2 of Power Platform / Dynamics CRM  Tip of the Day). The advantage of using the base security role is to allow the administrator to add/remove privilege for all users by just updating the base security role instead of having to go through all the security roles. The base security role is different for each project depending on what the user with the minimum permission should be able to perform in the system.

🛈 Note

Microsoft has documented the minimum privileges for common tasks and you can download the Microsoft Dataverse minimum privilege security role from the Download Center. It can be used as the base security role in your system or can be copied to start your custom security role.

To set up the base security role for the first time

1. create a new empty security role.
2. add the minimum privileges required to access the system.
3. add the privileges required for the basic functionalities.
4. test the role with the test user account.
5. add the permissions to the entities that all users can access (e.g. reference data).

If you are not sure what are the privileges required, step 2 and 3 can be time-consuming since those two need to be identified by trial and error. Microsoft has added a new standard role called Common Data Service User and that is the ideal role for your base role instead of the empty role in step 1. But that role has quite a lot of privileges for standard CDS entities and if your organisation requires a really strict base security role, it might be better off starting with an empty role.

In that case, there are a few old articles by Inogic and Goutam Das which contains the template for the base security role. This post will be similar to those two posts but I will try my best to describe why each of those privileges is required for each particular functionality. At that same time, I hope that will be helpful for those who are looking for the solution of a particular function not working well due to the missing privilege. (e.g. unable to run an on-demand workflow, Business Rule is not working, etc.)

In today's fast-paced Power Platform world, the structure of the security role keeps changing and more privileges are added in each major updates. My plan is to keep updating this post whenever there is an additional privilege added in the future updates which need to be part of the base security role. Please also leave a comment if you identify any privilege which is not part of the list below.

CDS and Dynamics 365 Privileges

So, what are the minimum privileges required to log in to the model-driven app?

- Read privilege to the Model-driven App entity. Voilà... You can log in to the model-driven app as long as the user has the security role with Organization level 🟢 prvReadAppModule.

But wait, prvReadAppModule is just the minimum privileges required to log in to the model-driven app. That does not mean the app will be functional only with that privilege. You will just see the Sitemap with Recent, Pinned, Dashboards, etc. clicking on any of those will just show an error page. These are the minimum privileges required to log in to the *functioning* model-driven app

The following table was last updated in July 2020 based on CDS version 9.1.0000.20151.

These are the hidden privileges and you do not specifically need to add in the security role.

Privilege Name	Privilege	Access Level
prvReadSharePointDocument	Read	Organization
prvCreateSharePointData	Create	Organization
prvReadSharePointData	Read	Organization
prvWriteSharePointData	Write	Organization

These are the privileges required to load the UI components of the model-driven app and they are all in the Customization tab of the security role form. And make sure the base security role has access to that particular model-driven app.

Privilege Name	Entity	Privilege	Access Level
prvReadAttributeMap	Attribute Map	Read	Organization
prvReadCustomization	Customizations	Read	Organization
prvReadEntity	Entity	Read	Organization
prvReadEntityKey	Entity Key	Read	Organization
prvReadEntityMap	Entity Map	Read	Organization
prvReadAttribute	Field	Read	Organization
prvReadAppModule	Model-driven App	Read	Organization
prvReadOptionSet	Option Set	Read	Organization
prvReadRelationship	Relationship	Read	Organization
prvReadSavedQueryVisualizations	System Chart	Read	Organization
prvReadSystemForm	System Form	Read	Organization
prvReadQuery	View	Read	Organization
prvReadWebResource	Web Resource	Read	Organization

The following privileges are required for some common basic functionalities in the model-driven apps as specified in the Required For column

Privilege Name	Tab	Entity	Privilege	Access Level	Required For
prvReadUserSettings	Business Management	User Settings	Read	Business Unit	Personal Options
prvWriteUserSettings	Business Management	User Settings	Write	Business Unit
prvCreateUserEntityUISettings	Core Records	User Entity UI Settings	Create	User	Getting/Saving UI setting for the user such as Recent Items, Pin Items, etc.
prvReadUserEntityUISettings	Core Records	User Entity UI Settings	Read	User
prvWriteUserEntityUISettings	Core Records	User Entity UI Settings	Write	User
prvCreateUserQuery	Core Records	Saved View	Create	User	Managing personal Saved Views
prvReadUserQuery	Core Records	Saved View	Read	User
prvWriteUserQuery	Core Records	Saved View	Write	User
prvDeleteUserQuery	Core Records	Saved View	Delete	User
prvAssignUserQuery	Core Records	Saved View	Assign	User
prvShareUserQuery	Core Records	Saved View	Share	User
prvFlow	Customization	Run Flows	N/A	Organization	Running On-demand Power Automate flows and showing On-demand workflows in Unified Interface
prvWorkflowExecution	Customization	Execute Workflow Job	N/A	Organization	Running On-demand workflows
prvReadWorkflow	Customization	Process	Read	Organization	Business Process Flow, On-demand workflows, Business Rules
prvAppendToWorkflow	Customization	Process	Append To	Organization	Business Process Flow, On-demand workflows
prvReadAsyncOperation	Customization	System Job	Read	User / Organization	On-demand workflows / To view status of the run flow in BPF
prvCreate*BPFEntityName*	Business Process Flows	*BPF Name*	Create	Organization	Business Process Flow
prvRead*BPFEntityName*	Business Process Flows	*BPF Name*	Read	Organization
prvWrite*BPFEntityName*	Business Process Flows	*BPF Name*	Write	Organization
prvAppend*BPFEntityName*	Business Process Flows	*BPF Name*	Append	Organization
prvAppendTo*BPFEntityName	Business Process Flows	*BPF Name*	AppendTo	Organization

Dynamics 365 Specific Privileges

The privileges above might be enough for the model-driven app in the CDS but in Dynamics 365, there are some system scripts which query certain data in the backend. Some of those WebAPI calls will fail silently but some may throw a generic error as below in Unified Interface.

You do not have {0} permission to access {1} records. Contact your Microsoft Dynamics 365 administrator for help.

In that case, open the Developer Tools of the browser and check the descriptive error in the Network tab (with Result "Forbidden" / Status "403" errors) to find out which privilege is missing. You can read more about deciphering the Unified Interface generic permission errors in this blog post by Alex Shlega.

The descriptive error message will say that the user is missing prvActionEntity. If you are not sure where that privilege is located in the security role form, one of the methods is to check this old Dynamics CRM 2016 documentation. I am not sure why "Security role UI to privilege mapping" is no longer included in the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (on-premises) documentation or Power Platform documentation. If you see the privilege but not sure if it the prvActionEntity specified by the error message, you can open up the Developer Tools of the browser and inspect the element (Ctrl + Shift + C in Chrome) to see the backend privilege name.

You can also identify those scripts which fail silently due to the missing privileges by checking the error lines in the Network tab of the browser's Developer Tools. Another alternative way is checking the network request details in the recently announced monitor tool for model-driven apps.

Here are some examples of the privileges required by the system scripts.

Privilege Name	Tab	Entity	Privilege	Access Level	Required For
prvReadOrganization	Business Management	Organization	Read	Organization	Dynamics 365 environment with Microsoft Teams integration Script Error for Web Request: /api/data/v9.0/organizations(xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx)?$select=ismsteamsenabled,ismsteamscollaborationenabled
prvReadUser	Business Management	User	Read	Business Unit	System script to read azureactivedirectoryobjectid of current user Script Error for Web Request: /api/data/V9.1/systemusers()?$select=azureactivedirectoryobjectid&$filter=systemuserid%20eq%20xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
prvReadSdkMessage	Customization	Sdk Message	Read	Organization	System script to read SDK Message Names Script Error for Web Request: /api/data/v9.0/sdkmessages(4c53ccbd-bbfa-4aad-a725-ffba2246d683)?$select=name
prvReadRoutingRule	Service Management	Routing Rule Set	Read	User	System scripts for routing rules Script Error for Web Request: /api/data/v9.0/routingrules?$filter=msdyn_entitylogicalname%20eq%20%27ENTITYNAME%27
prvReadmsdyn_PostConfig	Custom Entities	Post Configuration	Read	Organization	System scripts for activity feed Script Error for Web Request: /xrmservices/2011/OrganizationData.svc/msdyn_PostConfigSet?$select=msdyn_EntityName,statecode&$filter=msdyn_EntityName%20eq%20%27ENTITYNAME%27
prvReadActivity	Core Records	Activity	Read	User	System scripts in Omnichannel for Customer Service Script Error for Web Request: /api/data/v9.0/msdyn_ocliveworkitems?$filter=_regardingobjectid_value%20eq%20%27xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx%27%20and%20statecode%20ne%203%20and%20statuscode%20ne%204