Skip to content

Cloud Apps

Often abbreviated to MDCA or MDA, this tool provides insight into the cloud apps (mostly websites, not just installed "apps"). It has had a few different names in the past, most notably Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS).

I like to sum up MDCA as a combination of three tools tailored towards "apps".

  • Cloud app usage tracking
  • OAuth or Entra ID Enterprise app governance
  • Cloud app activity tracking and alerting

If you have not used MDCA before, I suggest starting by making sure Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 are both connected to MDCA. Then if you are utilizing MDE in your environment, ensure the MDE Advanced feature to enable the connection to MDCA is turned on. Both of these will allow MDCA to start populating some data on app usage in your environment.

There are a few settings you can adjust that would impact your users but you can view a ton of information without impacting your users.