Microsoft Entra ID often becomes the control plane for workforce identity, Microsoft 365, Azure, SaaS access, external collaboration, and privileged administration. A good review should look at more than whether features are enabled. It should ask whether controls are intentional, governed, monitored, and sustainable.

1. Tenant and Administrative Model

  • Are administrative roles assigned using least privilege?
  • Are emergency access accounts documented, protected, and monitored?
  • Are privileged administrators using separate accounts?
  • Is there a clear model for delegated administration?

2. Conditional Access and MFA

  • Are Conditional Access policies organized, documented, and consistently named?
  • Is MFA enforced for users, administrators, risky sign-ins, and high-value apps?
  • Are legacy authentication and weak authentication methods blocked?
  • Are exclusions limited, owned, reviewed, and justified?

3. Privileged Identity Management

  • Are eligible roles used instead of standing privileged assignments?
  • Are activation requirements aligned to risk, such as MFA, justification, and approval?
  • Are role assignments reviewed regularly?
  • Are Azure resource roles included in the privileged access model?

4. External Access and B2B Users

  • Are guest users reviewed and removed when no longer needed?
  • Are external collaboration settings aligned with business risk?
  • Are sponsors, owners, or business contacts assigned for external access?
  • Are high-risk external users subject to stronger controls?

5. Identity Governance

  • Are access reviews used for privileged roles, groups, apps, and guest users?
  • Are entitlement management and access packages used where appropriate?
  • Are lifecycle workflows aligned with HR-driven joiner, mover, and leaver processes?
  • Can teams produce reliable audit evidence from Entra controls?

6. Roadmap Decisions

An Entra review should produce a prioritized improvement plan, not just a list of settings. Quick wins might include policy cleanup, admin role review, and MFA gap closure. Larger initiatives may include lifecycle workflows, entitlement management, guest governance, or Azure RBAC redesign.

StratIAM provides Microsoft Entra and identity platform advisory to help organizations improve platform controls without overcomplicating the roadmap.