Ownership

BasicProfessional

Without clear ownership, applications become orphaned—nobody knows who created them, why they exist, or who should fix them when something goes wrong. This creates security risks, compliance gaps, and operational chaos when credentials expire or policies require action.

The business problem:

• Orphaned applications with unclear accountability pose security risks
• IT teams struggle to identify who can fix credential issues
• Business sponsors are disconnected from technical management
• Over-granting Entra ID ownership creates security exposure
• Compliance audits fail when ownership documentation is missing
• Application portfolios grow uncontrollably without business justification

Benefits

Clear, multi-faceted ownership delivers governance and operational value:

✅ Improve accountability - Every application has clearly defined technical and business owners
✅ Reduce security risks - Limit Entra ID ownership while maintaining operational coverage
✅ Accelerate incident response - Know immediately who to contact when issues arise
✅ Support compliance - Demonstrate ownership documentation for audits and governance
✅ Enable informed decisions - Business owners can justify application existence and costs
✅ Maintain continuity - Multiple owners prevent single points of failure
✅ Optimize delegation - Technical teams can operate without excessive Azure permissions

How ownership works

Ownership in EasyLife 365 Identity defines who is accountable for an application and who is allowed to take action when something requires attention. The model is designed to reflect real-world responsibilities without over-granting permissions in Microsoft Entra ID.

An application can have three distinct ownership roles, each serving a different purpose:

• Application owners: full control, sourced from Entra ID
• Technical owners: delegated, permission-scoped operators
• Business owners: accountability without technical permissions

This separation allows organizations to combine governance, security, and operational efficiency.

Ownership roles at a glance

Role	Defined in Entra ID	Can perform technical actions	Primary purpose
Application owner	✅	✅	Full lifecycle control
Technical owner	❌	✅ (scoped)	Operational responsibility
Business owner	❌	❌	Business accountability

Application owners

Application owners are the owners defined directly in Microsoft Entra ID for an app registration or enterprise application.

Characteristics

• Synchronized automatically from Entra ID
• Can be users or service principals
• Have full control over the application in Entra ID
• Always retain full access in EasyLife 365 Identity

Responsibilities

Application owners:

• Manage application configuration
• Add or remove other application owners
• Appoint technical owners and business owners
• Manage credentials (certificates and secrets)
• Control notification and delegation settings

Application owners form the root of trust for all other ownership roles.

Technical owners

Technical owners are users appointed by application owners to handle day-to-day technical responsibilities without being granted full ownership in Entra ID.

Technical owners are not owners in Entra ID. Instead, EasyLife 365 Identity acts on their behalf, within the permissions explicitly granted to them.

Characteristics

• Always user accounts (no service principals)
• Assigned per application
• Permissions are explicitly scoped and configurable
• Ideal for platform, DevOps, or operations teams

Permissions

Each technical owner can be granted a subset of permissions by the application owners or by admins. The permissions that can be granted are:

• Managing certificates and secrets
• Adding and removing application owners
• Adding and removing technical owners
• Adding and removing business owners
• Updating application-specific settings

Keep in mind that for certain operations, such as modifying credentials or owners, EasyLife 365 Identity may require itself to be listed as an owner in Entra ID to act on behalf of the technical owner.

Business owners

Business owners represent non-technical accountability for an application. They exist to answer the question:

Who is responsible for this application from a business perspective?

Business owners do not have technical permissions and are not owners in Entra ID.

Characteristics

• Always user accounts
• Assigned per application
• No direct permissions to modify the application
• Used for documentation, reporting, and accountability

Typical use cases

• Identifying the business contact for audits or reviews
• Confirming whether an application is still required
• Providing context during compliance or risk assessments

Business owners may be referenced in workflows such as usage confirmation, but they are intentionally kept separate from technical operations.

Bottom line

Ownership determines:

• Who can be assigned tasks
• Who is eligible to complete credential remediation
• Who is accountable for unresolved issues

Tasks, permissions, and ownership are tightly coupled to ensure that responsibility and authority always align.

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The ownership model intentionally separates authority, capability, and accountability. This makes it possible to scale application management across teams without weakening security or governance.