Ever have a Flow suddenly stop working—and the only clue is a cryptic DLP policy message? You’re not alone. Today, we unpack what’s really happening when your Power Platform project gets blocked, and more importantly, show you how to avoid it next time.If you want to build smarter—without running into roadblocks—you’re in the right place. Let’s turn DLP policies from mystery obstacles into tools you can use to keep projects on track.Why DLP Policies Feel Like a Stop Sign—But Aren’tIf you’ve ever stared at a failed Power Automate run with nothing but a vague “DLP violation” error to guide you, you know the feeling. It’s not just frustration—it’s a kind of developer déjà vu. Whatever you build, no matter how well you plan, there’s always that lingering risk: something in the security layer is going to pull the rug out from under your process. Power Platform loves to show you how fast you can go, and then, out of nowhere, it drops a stop sign right in the middle of your project. And when that happens, you’re left piecing together clues in audit logs at two in the morning, while users are already asking why their monthly numbers aren’t updating.Let’s call it what it is: DLP policies can feel like an invisible hand pushing back every time you try to ship something useful. It’s not about developers ignoring security either. Most people working on Power Platform projects know their organizations care about keeping sensitive data safe. Nobody wants internal files uploaded to Dropbox by mistake. What catches people off guard is how unclear the boundaries actually are. You might spend days wiring up a flow, testing edge cases, handling permissions—only for it to break because it tried to use two connectors Microsoft’s policy engine decided don’t play well together. The message that appears gives you maybe three words of real information, and the rest might as well be lorem ipsum.A lot of us have been there—a Friday rollout, everything set, only to get a Teams ping at midnight. “Flow failed. We’re back to manual entry.” You check the run history and the only error is a line about “DLP compliance checks failing,” with no hint if you broke a policy or just tripped up a rule nobody in your org knew existed. That’s the thing—it’s rarely obvious what caused the block. Microsoft’s documentation does explain, in theory, what each DLP policy does. There’s pages about how you’re “enabling secure data boundaries” and “protecting business-critical information,” which is great in principle. The trouble starts when policy theory bumps into reality. Documentation tells you, sure, you can separate business and non-business connectors. But nobody warns you that adding a single non-business connector to a business process flow can bring everything to a halt.And here’s where the disconnect really sets in. The official line is DLP is your friend. Secure by design. Making sure your flows and apps keep company data safe. But the ground truth is, for developers, DLP policies often feel like a set of rules constantly playing hide-and-seek. It’s not just that they limit what you can build—it’s that they don’t always tell you what the rules are. Or, even better, the policy can change while you’re still mid-project, which means something that worked yesterday might be fully blocked today. Plenty of organizations swing too far. Instead of using DLP as a tool to guide smart connector usage, they just lock down everything. Suddenly, Outlook and SharePoint are your only choices in Power Automate, and even Excel Online access is questionable. Productivity tanks, users come back to IT begging for exceptions, and the security team is flooded with tickets that sound the same: “Can we please enable this connector for just one project?”But what if DLP policies weren’t just a blunt instrument to say no? There’s a world where they actually help you build more reliable and future-proof solutions. Think of them less like roadblocks and more like guardrails. You’re still driving, but now you’re less likely to end up in the ditch at the edge of what the platform can safely do. When you understand how DLP shapes what’s possible, you can design your apps and flows knowing not only what’s allowed today but what’s likely to keep working next month. Instead of reacting to another failed run at midnight, you start building with policy in mind from the beginning. You spend less time firefighting and more time building.Of course, this idea sounds good… in theory. Microsoft says, “When configured correctly, DLP policies allow for agile development and secure data flow across your organization.” The catch? “Configured correctly” does a ton of heavy lifting in that sentence. Most developers are never shown what “correct” looks like during onboarding to Power Platform. You learn it the hard way—one late-night troubleshooting session at a time, hoping you don’t miss a critical connector classification in some admin’s spreadsheet.Here’s the thing: nobody is suggesting you turn off DLP or hope for a free-for-all. But organizations that treat these policies as an afterthought usually pay for it later. If DLP is a conversation between platform, security, and business users, most shops just set it once and forget it—until it blows up. You can flip the script, though. Instead of waiting for the next surprise, developers who get comfortable talking about connector classifications, policy groups, and usage analytics can build smarter right from the start.So, sure, DLP gets a bad reputation for grinding projects to a halt. Underneath all the confusion and friction, though, it’s possible to make these policies work for you. They’re meant to give you confidence your solutions won’t scatter sensitive data across the internet—if you treat them as part of your build strategy instead of yet another obstacle.Understanding theory is a helpful start. But the real pain—and opportunity—shows up with custom connectors. And that’s where things get interesting.Custom Connectors: Where DLP Surprises LurkIf you've built a custom connector and watched it vanish from your flow after everything seemed fine, you’re definitely not alone. That disappearing act isn’t a bug or a bad save—it’s your DLP policy at work, but it rarely announces itself. Custom connectors are the secret sauce for a ton of Power Platform projects. Whenever your team wants to talk to an internal API, connect to a niche SaaS tool, or simply bridge two systems that don’t natively handshake in Power Automate or Power Apps, a custom connector usually gets the call. For many organizations, these connectors unlock all kinds of business automation that would be impossible otherwise. It feels a bit like finding a cheat code—until the day the connector stops showing up in your list, and nobody’s really sure why.The strange part? Custom connectors often sail through initial testing. You build, you connect, you prove the integration works. Your dev and test environments are happy. Everyone signs off on the business logic, and the demo goes well. But the real fun starts right as you hit production or scale up usage. One day, you set a new Flow live that uses that custom connector, and it fails straight away, sometimes without even throwing a proper error. Power Platform’s feedback isn’t always generous. Sometimes, you get a red warning: “Connector is not available due to DLP policy.” Other times, it just quietly removes the connector as an option in your Flow editor. Developers start the wild goose chase—checking permissions, reviewing API keys, and even blaming network issues—only to realize the root cause is a policy setting nobody reviewed since the connector was first published.This isn’t just a theoretical headache. Here’s a real scenario: A developer builds a connector for the company’s custom CRM built fifteen years back. Everything seems smooth in staging. They showcase the automation to leadership, triggering records, syncing contacts, the works. But when deployment hits, the Flow that ran perfectly on Friday refuses to recognize the connector on Monday. The error in the Flow run simply says it’s been “disabled by policy.” IT support gets pulled in, and after a half-day of cross-checking, they find the custom connector was classified as “non-business” in the company’s DLP settings. That label alone means any Flow combining it with a “business” connector, like SQL Server or Outlook, instantly breaks the data boundary limit. The developer had no idea labels like this carried so much weight—or that they even existed. The result? Lost time, rework, frustrated users, and a workflow that’s suddenly back on a spreadsheet.Connector classification within Power Platform DLP is one of those backend admin screens most developers never see until it causes a problem. Inside the Power Platform admin portal, every connector—built-in, custom, or premium—gets assigned a category: “business,” “non-business,” or “blocked.” The screenshots from the admin side show a list with three columns, but what those labels mean to your project isn’t always self-explanatory. “Business” connectors are supposed to touch company data, typically internal systems or approved platforms like SharePoint and SQL. “Non-business” means consumer-facing services or anything not officially blessed for business workflows, like Twitter or Gmail. And “blocked” is exactly what it sounds like—connectors nobody should touch through Power Platform flows.And here’s where things slip through the cracks. Many teams roll out custom connectors and leave the classification as whatever the default was when they first published it. Sometimes, an admin might slap “non-business” on a new connector just to play it safe, not realizing it ties the hands of downstream developers. Others forget to update the classification when a connector is proven safe or essential. It’s not always clear who owns the decision, especially when connector use crosses app teams. The classic mistake? Failing to align con

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