What happens to your data when automation fails?How Keepit secures data in Microsoft Dynamics 365
Companies are increasingly choosing Microsoft Dynamics 365 as their primary sales, customer service, and marketing platform, along with AI and Copilot…
Companies are increasingly choosing Microsoft Dynamics 365 as their primary sales, customer service, and marketing platform, along with AI and Copilot tools to accelerate processes. Low-code technologies and a citizen development approach enable application development, automation, and integration without the involvement of traditional IT departments. This often results in a shorter testing process, simplified change management, and less formal quality assurance. A single-modification approach allows for the transition from prototype to production, accelerating innovation and increasing the risk of errors. However, the rapid development of automation, integrated, and generative AI means that a single configuration, workflow, or connection error can distort data in minutes, impacting the entire company.
When “intelligent” CRM starts to hurt
Imagine an organization implementing a new sales process in Dynamics 365 and integrating the system with an external invoicing platform. A minor error in field mapping or a Power Automate flow causes a massive overwrite of contact and opportunity data – some records disappear, and others are incorrectly linked to the wrong customers. Copilot, which is supposed to support the sales team, begins generating summaries, email proposals, and forecasts based on already corrupted data, which only amplifies the error. In such a situation, the traditional „undo change” approach ceases to work, because changes are scattered, affecting thousands of records, and resulting from multiple automations. Without a well-designed backup strategy, the organization risks not only losing customer relationship history but also reduced forecast reliability, billing issues, and the risk of regulatory compliance violations.
Shared responsibility: what does Microsoft protect and what is the client's responsibility?
Microsoft ensures high availability of the Dynamics 365 infrastructure, data replication, basic backups, and platform-level security. However, this does not mean that the vendor is responsible for all data loss scenarios resulting from user errors, faulty integrations, malicious actions, or incorrect business process configuration.
In the „shared responsibility” model, the cloud provider protects the infrastructure and core mechanisms, but the organization is responsible for what happens to the data within the application. In the case of Dynamics 365, native backup mechanisms are limited: full instance copies have relatively short retention, there is no convenient, granular restore of individual objects directly to the production environment, and full recovery of the instance to the sandbox requires additional administrative work.
Why is native Dynamics 365 backup insufficient?
Dynamics 365 offers instance copies based on Azure SQL, stored for a limited time, without the option to extend retention on the client side. This means that after the retention period expires, some historical data becomes irreversibly inaccessible, which can be problematic both in the case of delayed security incidents and in the event of audits or legal disputes.
Furthermore, native mechanisms allow for the entire instance to be restored to a separate environment (e.g., a sandbox), without the option of simple, in-place restoration of individual records, entities, or configurations directly to production. The administrator must manually locate the required data in the restored environment and migrate it to production, which extends recovery time, increases the risk of errors, and generates additional operational costs.
Keepit – Independent Backup for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform
Keepit was designed as an independent, specialized SaaS backup and recovery solution for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. Backup data is stored in a separate cloud infrastructure that meets regulatory and security requirements, with a focus on immutability and ransomware resistance.
A key advantage is the granularity and flexibility of restore: Keepit allows you to recover individual records, entire entities, as well as related objects and relationships, without having to recreate the entire CRM instance. It is also possible to restore data to different environments (e.g., sandbox or production), making it easier to test changes before returning to production.
Scope of protection: not just sales
Keepit covers a wide range of Dynamics 365 applications based on a common data platform, including Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, Project Service Automation, and Marketing. This ensures data protection for both core CRM records and more complex service or project processes, where data loss could disrupt field operations or projects for key accounts.
The solution also supports Power Platform artifact backup, which is particularly important for organizations using Power Apps and Power Automate to extend standard processes. Preserving the history of configurations, flows, and low-code applications helps you recover more quickly from erroneous changes or failures.
Immutability, blockchain and compliance
One of Keepit’s distinguishing features is its tamper-resistant architecture – backup data is encrypted and stored immutable, and the platform uses blockchain-like mechanisms to detect attempts to tamper with backup history. This provides organizations with an additional level of protection against scenarios in which attackers attempt not only to corrupt production data but also to destroy or modify backup copies.
Keepit supports organizations in meeting regulatory requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, and other local data protection and document retention regulations. The ability to maintain long-term, configurable retention and easily search historical data facilitates preparation for audits, inspections, and data access requests.
Copilot, AI and Data Quality: Why Is Backup Critical?
Copilot in Dynamics 365 uses the data in the system to generate summaries, content, and recommendations, meaning the quality of AI results is directly dependent on the quality of the CRM data. If data becomes distorted by user error, faulty automation flow, or poor integration, Copilot will only amplify these errors in its suggestions.
Having an independent backup allows for a quick return to a „healthy” version of data before the organization makes strategic decisions based on faulty models and reports. In practice, this means Keepit becomes a critical element of an AI implementation strategy in CRM – securing the foundation upon which generative and analytical models operate.
Checklist for CIO / CRM Manager
It’s worth asking yourself a few simple questions:
- Does our organization rely solely on native Dynamics 365 backup mechanisms, or do we have an independent data protection solution?
- How quickly can we restore a single record, entity, or process configuration after an erroneous change—in minutes, hours, or days?
- Does our data protection strategy account for the growing number of integrations, low-code/no-code applications, and AI features in Dynamics 365 and Power Platform?
- Do we have a clearly defined procedure for dealing with a „data disaster” in CRM: who makes the decisions, what tools do we use, what is the expected RTO?
- Can we document to an auditor or insurer that we have an independent, unchanging backup of critical business systems, including Dynamics 365?
If the answer to any of these questions is „I don’t know” or „probably not,” it’s a sign that our data protection strategy needs review.
Mini case: how backup saves the sales pipeline?
A typical B2B company decides to redesign its sales process by implementing a new sales funnel model and integrated invoicing based on Dynamics 365. After implementing the new data flow, some sales opportunities are mistakenly marked as „won,” others disappear from the pipeline, and customer records lose their contact history.
The management team loses confidence in sales reports and forecasts, and Copilot generates summaries based on incomplete data. Thanks to the previously implemented Keepit, the administrator can quickly identify the correct point in history from which to restore data, recreate missing and overwritten objects, and restore consistency between record relationships—all without having to halt the sales team’s work for days.
How can KTBnet help?
For many organizations, the first step isn’t choosing a tool, but rather understanding the current risk level and gaps in their Dynamics 365 backup strategy. KTBnet can help conduct a short environment assessment – from a configuration and integration review, through an assessment of regulatory requirements, to recommendations for a backup architecture using Keepit.
The next step can be a collaborative demo of Keepit for Dynamics 365, based on real-world customer scenarios: migrations, Microsoft 365 and Dymamics 365 rollouts, Power Apps development, integrations with external systems, and audit requirements. This makes the decision to implement backup not an abstract „just in case” investment, but rather a component of a specific plan for building business resilience and secure AI development within the organization.