Business units
The hierarchical scope unit in the Dataverse security model — every user and record belongs to one.
A business unit (BU) in Dataverse is a hierarchical organisational scope that every user and every record belongs to. Each environment has a single root BU and a tree of child BUs beneath. Security roles combine table-level privileges with scopes that reference business units — user-owned, business unit, parent: child business unit, or organisation — determining whose records a user can act on. Business units typically map to organisational structure (divisions, regions, subsidiaries) but should be kept simple; overly deep trees complicate administration. Teams, field-level security profiles, and row sharing layer on top of the BU foundation for finer control.