As Microsoft Dynamics AX mobile options evolve, security requirements gain importance

Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM, like much of enterprise IT today, is shifting to accommodate mobile devices in the workplace. And bring-your-own-device - allowing for more and varied devices accessing company data from more and varied locations - can present new enterprise security challenges.

In a previous post we considered some of the changes companies may want to consider at the server level.

Here we'll look at security for mobile solutions related to Dynamics AX. Security can be particularly challenging with Dynamics ERP systems, in part because of the varied levels of access to financial data that different people have within an organization and in part because financial data is also subject to laws dictating corporate disclosure.

The Role of Roles

Security solutions must walk a tightrope of IT, legal, technical and organizational challenges, says Nima Bakhtiary, CEO of Arbela Technologies. And the deployment of mobile solutions become one more element of the overall security initiative.

Bakhtiary says AX leaves open an important question that requires input from both IT and human resources teams. In brief: What is everyone's role?

"Microsoft has given us some standard roles," he says. "However, we're finding out that standard roles are a great start, but the ability to change roles based on each business's needs and vertical industry is very critical. And then of course after you change your roles, maintaining it, and then because of auditing requirements, you want to prove that these roles had access to only the data that they're supposed to."

For example, workers in a company's warehouse will ...