Microsoft Dynamics 365 Data Masking: The Complex Made Simple

If you’re using Microsoft Dynamics 365 — whether it’s for enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), or any other business application — data privacy and compliance on the platform should remain a top priority. 

Day to day, your Dynamics 365 environment handles a wide range of business and customer data, and there’s always a risk that this information could be compromised by an authorized user, during a data breach, or through an accidental leak. 

One of my past customers learned a tough lesson about protecting sensitive data in Dynamics 365. The organization’s sales team was preparing a performance report and, without realizing it, shared a version that included real customer names and contact details with an external consultant. It was an honest mistake with no bad intent — just a moment of oversight — but that slip caused a wave of concern about how easily sensitive information could leak, even from within trusted users.  

The company decided to mask its data going forward, which became key in resolving this issue, giving leadership peace of mind, and preventing future mishaps. In this blog, I’ll tell you how you can protect sensitive data in Microsoft Dynamics 365 and maintain customers’ trust in your organization. 

What is Microsoft Dynamics 365? 

Simply put, Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a suite of interconnected applications, which you can mix and match to fulfill your business needs. It houses both CRM and ERP applications such as:  

Customer Relationship Management: 

• Sales
• Customer Insights (Marketing)
• Customer Service
• Contact Center
• Field Service 

Enterprise Resource Planning: 

• Supply Chain Management
• Finance
• Commerce
• Project Operations
• Human Resources 

Organizations use Microsoft Dynamics 365 — also known under the name of its data management platform Microsoft Dataverse — to bring together their business operations, customer management, and analytics in one unified platform. It helps teams streamline processes across departments (like sales, finance, marketing, and supply chain) while working from shared, real-time data.  

With its cloud-based design, Dynamics 365 improves collaboration and accessibility from anywhere. It also integrates seamlessly with Microsoft tools like Teams, Power BI, and Outlook, to enhance productivity. Most importantly, it enables organizations to make data-driven decisions, deliver better customer experiences, and scale efficiently as their business grows. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 remains a complex network due to the multitude of applications it deploys. This makes data masking for it a potentially complex process.  

The 2025 State of Data Compliance and Security Report 

Out of 280 enterprise leaders worldwide, 20% protect sensitive data in Microsoft Dynamics 365. Find out about these organizations’ masking methods and more in our annual State of Data Compliance and Security Report. 

Get Data Masking and Security Insights 

What Data Does Microsoft Dynamics 365 Have Access to? 

Across all its applications, Microsoft Dynamics 365 garners a variety of sensitive information. This includes: 

Customer Relationship Management Sensitive Data 

Enterprise Resource Planning Sensitive Data 

How to Mask Data with Microsoft Dynamics 365 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 has its own set of precautions for protecting private information, such as its data masking rules as well as its sensitive data redaction for the Dynamics 365 Contact Center. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365’s embedded data masking capabilities will replace sensitive information based on your preferences and settings. You can set up to 10 masking rules to disguise specific information — anything such as credit card information, Social Security numbers, email addresses, profanity, etc.  

Following the implementation of your rule, a Social Security number, for example, would appear as ###-##-####. Microsoft administrators can create, modify, or delete masking rules as appropriate. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers great value by providing user-friendly tools native to its applications. Perforce Delphix can also provide an additional, comprehensive layer of data masking with its solutions. Delphix automates compliant data for DevOps, so you don’t have to worry about sensitive data reaching your non-production environment. Delphix Compliance Services, as a software-as-a-service option, will help you mask data in Microsoft Dynamics 365. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Data Masking: Things to Consider 

Since Delphix Compliance Services is a solution native to the Microsoft Cloud and runs on Microsoft Azure, it can provide data masking consistent across all applications in Dynamics 365. It also can work in tandem with Delphix data masking solutions for other Microsoft ecosystem platforms, such as Microsoft Fabric. 

Using Delphix Compliance Services, you can apply static data masking to Dynamics 365 without the 10-rule cap. Static data masking, as opposed to dynamic data masking, is irreversible and leaves the data realistic and actionable.  

Our 2025 State of Data Compliance and Security Report shared that 91% of respondents were at least moderately concerned about personal data re-identification — a worry that can be addressed by using static instead of dynamic data masking. 

By ensuring the Microsoft data masking is irreversible and realistic, Delphix enables you to use this masked data in non-production and sandbox environments. In Microsoft Dynamics 365, data is highly interconnected with different modules and records rely on one another through complex dependencies and multiple entities.  

For example, a customer in Dynamics 365 Sales might link to Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, Invoices, and Orders, while in Finance and Operations, those records could connect to Vendors, Projects, or Payment Journals. These relationships ensure data consistency across the system but make masking sensitive information a real challenge.  

Simply changing or scrambling data can easily break these links and corrupt business logic. That’s where Delphix Compliance Services will mask data deterministically, meaning the same values are consistently replaced across all related entities therefore preserving referential integrity. This ensures that Dynamics 365 environments remain fully functional and realistic for testing, training, or analytics without exposing any real customer or financial data. Delphix simplified the process — something we can do for 170+ data sources including Oracle, SQL, Snowflake, Databricks, Fabric, and more.  

Make Data Privacy Easy: Mask with Delphix Compliance Services 

According to the IDC white paper Business Value of Delphix, 77.2% more data and data environments are masked with Delphix. Delphix is a trusted data masking provider by some of the world's largest enterprises, with 34% of Fortune 50 companies using it. You, too, can automate compliant test data at enterprise scale, remove bottlenecks to innovation, and reduce the risk of data loss. 

Make Data Privacy and Masking Consistent and Comprehensive  

Delphix makes masking easy, for Dynamics 365 and so much more. Not only does it mask for Dynamics 365, but you can also use Delphix to mask other platforms you may be leveraging, to ensure data masking continuity, privacy and protection across the board. In turn, you'll receive realistic, production-like compliant test data. 

Now’s the Time to Revitalize Your Dynamics 365 Data Masking 

With Delphix Compliance Services, you can protect and manage sensitive data across Microsoft Dynamics 365 effortlessly. In collaboration with Microsoft and supported by our partner LevelShift’s Dynamics expertise, Delphix delivers trusted, enterprise-grade data masking and compliance solutions. 

Ready to take your Dynamics 365 data to the next level? Discover how Delphix can provide your organization with high-quality data and quick, effective data masking processes that enable you to innovate. 

Mask Microsoft Dynamics 365 [Demo]