Introduction
As organizations expand their low-code adoption with Power Platform, maintaining control, visibility, and governance becomes essential. Enter the Center of Excellence (CoE) Starter Kit — a powerful solution by Microsoft that enables organizations to monitor usage, nurture best practices, enforce governance, and drive adoption at scale.
This blog explores how to implement and extend the CoE Starter Kit to meet enterprise governance needs, complete with architecture, advanced use cases, and key metrics.
🔗 Problem Statement
Organizations embracing Power Platform often face challenges such as:
Lack of visibility into who is building what
Shadow IT with unmanaged apps and flows
DLP policy violations going unnoticed
Inconsistent app quality and ownership
Difficulty in tracking app usage, value, and lifecycle
Without a centralized governance strategy, innovation can spiral into chaos.
🎯 Solution Goals
Enable centralized visibility of Power Platform assets
Streamline governance through automation and policies
Empower makers through structured onboarding and nurturing
Provide executive-ready dashboards on platform adoption
Detect and remediate non-compliant behavior .
📊 Solution Overview
The CoE Starter Kit is a Microsoft-developed solution that delivers:
A catalog of all apps, flows, makers, and environments
Governance automation (e.g., app archival, DLP enforcement)
Maker enablement tools like welcome emails, training trackers
Adoption insights via rich Power BI dashboards
Tools to manage innovation, app reviews, and sentiment surveys
📄 Real-World Use Case
Scenario: A multinational manufacturing firm with 5,000+ employees noticed:
900+ Power Apps and 1,500 flows deployed with no central tracking
200+ orphaned apps still active
Multiple DLP violations causing compliance concerns
Duplicate apps solving the same business problem
Action: They implemented the CoE Starter Kit to:
Inventory and classify all assets
Set up automated inactive app cleanup
Create a governance team with review workflows
Onboard new makers with learning paths
Outcome: Within 6 months, they reduced app sprawl by 30%, enforced DLP policies across 100% of environments, and improved maker productivity with a structured support process.
🧩 Key Components
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| Dataverse Tables | Central repository for assets, makers, and policies |
| Power BI Reports | Visualisation of adoption, usage, DLP, risk |
| Power Automate Flows | Automation for cleanup, alerts, and onboarding |
| Power Apps Admin Portal | App to manage sharing, ownership, and risk review |
| Welcome & Survey Emails | Nurturing flows are triggered for new makers. |
🥇 Result/Benefits
| Outcome | Benefit |
| ✅ Visibility | All assets catalogued with owner & status info |
| ✅ Compliance | Automated DLP enforcement & policy alerts |
| ✅ Maker Engagement | Welcome emails, surveys, and a feedback loop |
| ✅ Risk Management | Detection of orphaned/inactive/risky apps |
| ✅ Decision Support | Executive dashboards for prioritization |
🧠 Technical Insight
CoE kit relies heavily on scheduled flows and PowerShell to extract metadata
Best deployed in a dedicated CoE Environment with proper security roles
All automation is built on top of Dataverse tables (e.g., App, Flow, Maker)
Custom connectors can be added to monitor 3rd-party tool usage (e.g., Jira)
CoE Power BI dashboards can be extended into Microsoft Fabric workspaces
🔐 Governance Insight
Use role-based access to restrict control: CoE Admin vs Maker Coach vs Viewer
Customize app risk classification logic to align with internal compliance standards
Extend audit logging to include change history per environment, user, connector
Use Environment routing to isolate dev/test/prod with separate DLP enforcement
Monitor integration queues and consumption with DLQ visibility integrated into CoE reports
✅ Governance Tip
Add a scheduled audit process to identify apps not launched in 90 days and notify owners. If no response within 2 weeks, archive or flag them for CoE team review. This keeps the ecosystem clean and encourages active ownership.
🔚 Final Thought
The Power Platform CoE Starter Kit is the cornerstone for scaling low-code responsibly. It empowers organizations to strike the right balance between agility and control. With CoE tracking integration touchpoints (like Azure Service Bus and DLQ), platform leaders gain the observability needed to ensure compliance, reliability, and performance.
By operationalizing governance and empowering makers, you don’t just build apps — you build a culture of innovation that lasts.
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