Dynamics 365 Segregation of Duties 101
Segregation of duties, sheesh? Am I right? How does a business control this beast? Are auditors crawling all over your system noticing scads of users accessing areas that should be off-limits? Is your ownership glowering from its ivory tower, wondering if Brad in accounting is cooking the books because he has all the abilities from creation to approval! Fear not friends, Brad can be stopped, and the auditors and owners appeased by implementing the proper use of Segregation of Duties rules in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance.
Check out the robust functionality in Dynamics 365
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance is built to handle violations of Segregation of duties rules. The system administrator can set up client level rules and processes to avoid impropriety from the likes of Brad!
Get ready for this security adventure by navigating to System administration > Security > Segregation of duties > Segregation of duties rules.
When this module is open, create a new rule, just one rule to start. No need to get crazy just yet! Bestow a name on the rule that appropriately describes the concern. From here you can select the first duty to check for the rule, and heck, go ahead and select a second duty that could be a conflict for the rule. Next, you can figure out just how severe the risk is for this rule/process, low, medium, or high. The end up with a Security mitigation value (What wrath occurs when a violation is detected).
Now that you have that first rule done, you can go wild! Take an afternoon off and create rules, glorious rules! Cover all the business processes you need! Then, call in Copilot or your BFF to chip in on the fun until to you ensure the proper segregation of duties have been attained!
When this exercise is complete, simply click on the Validate duties and roles at the top of the page and abracadabra, violations will show.
The structure is in place for Segregation of Duties, now what?
Once the rules solidified you must turn the attention to a verification of user-role assignment compliance. This wonderful action will provide a list of violations that the admin can take action on to allow or deny rights. This process can be started here: System administration > Security > Segregation of duties > Verify compliance of user-role assignments and click OK to run the process.
Once this is complete, it is time to get brutal and decide who gets to do what. How, go ahead and mosey on over to System administration > Security > Segregation of duties > Segregation of duties conflicts; this is where the fun happens. Brad is approved to create a vendor but denied the ability to approve a check run. Poor Brad, happy auditor! Go through this for each user, to establish the desired outcome until all the allow or deny violations that have been identified. If you are overriding a violation, be prepared to provide a reason in order to proceed.
Bonus: System administrators can remove users from specific roles that are causing a conflict.
As a double check, look over any unresolved conflicts here: System administration > Security > Segregation of duties > Segregation of duties unresolved conflicts.
All done segregating, sit back and let Dynamics 365 take over!
With all great power comes responsibility and if you have mastered this module within Dynamics 365 for Finance, Segregation of duties will bring sweet joy and content to all users, management, and auditors, a peace of mind that no one user has enough access and authority to be able to run roughshod through the organization, flexing power. The Admin Team has the tools to ensure all parties involved that the system is highly configurable and will provide proper protection with Segregation of duties so that the Company can pass any audit, hands down, whether it is internal or external.
Let us know if you have any additional needs, contact us! Also, read on for more on D365 auditing!
