Power Platform Development — Overview
How the COMET team delivers Power Platform at CMS — OIT-built apps and Developer-as-a-Service under governed GCC Entra tenants, environment-level DLP/connector guardrails, and dev→test→prod per-app environments.
#Scope
Two delivery modes:
- OIT projects — application development for CMS OIT, end-to-end
- Developer-as-a-Service — enabling other CMS teams to develop their own Power Apps under our guardrails
Building a Power Pages site (or supporting Dataverse / Power Automate) in the GCC tenant? Start with the Power Pages build guide — environment specifics, access/roles, the CMS Design System integration, and the gotchas (especially the Private-site read limitation).
#Operating model
- Identity via GCC Entra
- Tenants / environments managed under our governance
- DLP policies and connector restrictions enforced at the environment level
- Per-app environments: dev → test → prod
#Common questions
- Approved connectors — per environment DLP policy
- Data residency — depends on connector and M365 tenant region
- Publishing an app — submit to the relevant environment's app catalog after review
#Reference: Government Dataverse data models
Before designing a new Dataverse schema, check the Microsoft Government Solutions repo — official pre-built table schemas for federal agencies. Covers Core (people, organizations, documents, approvals, legal authority, compliance), HR, case management, incidents and inspections, programs and services, personnel security, and more. Using an existing module avoids rebuilding common structures from scratch and improves consistency across solutions.
#Open items
- License assignment automation
- Citizen developer training curriculum
- Standardized environment templates