Fabric, Power BI, Power Platform, Data Platform

Quick Tip: Get Ready for Changes in OneLake Operation Reporting

2026-03-30T23:43:00.000+02:00

Check Your Capacity Metrics App

Just a quick heads-up for anyone using the Fabric Capacity Metrics app to monitor OneLake usage.

One of the upcoming features from the Fabric Roadmap I'm watching is OneLake Storage Lifecycle Management Policies. The idea is straightforward: rule-based policies that automatically move data between hot, cool, and cold storage tiers based on last access or modification time. So data you haven't touched in months stops costing you the same as data you query every day.

A recent message in the M365 Admin Center got me thinking (you need an Admin account to access this, or check out this Message Center Archive website instead):

Changes to OneLake operation reporting in Microsoft Fabric
Starting April 1, 2026, Microsoft is rolling out changes to how OneLake compute operations are reported in Fabric. This is tied to the (later) introduction of the mentioned OneLake storage tiers (hot, cool, and cold), and while billing rates are not changing, the way operations appear in your dashboards and reports is.

So what is changing?

The following changes are being applied:

Operation names now include the storage tier. "OneLake Read via Proxy" becomes "OneLake Read (Hot)", for example.
Proxy and Redirect operations are consolidated under a single operation name. No billing impact, but the names you're used to will disappear.
Operations are now grouped by workspace in the Capacity Metrics app, under a new OneLake item. So plan for workspace-level reporting. If you rely on item-level operation details in the Capacity Metrics app, you'll have to use OneLake diagnostics going forward.

Units of measure and consumption rates stay the same, so no surprises on the bill.

A preview of how the reporting in the Metrics app will look like:

What should you do before April 1?

This change is rolling out in phases:

Operation name changes start April 1
Consolidation and Metrics app updates follow in the next weeks. Keep an eye on your tenant.

Steps you should take:

Check if you have any custom reports, dashboards, or scripts that reference OneLake operation names, update those to match the new naming convention (think FUAM or others)
If you rely on item-level operation detail in the Capacity Metrics app, set up OneLake diagnostics now so you don't lose visibility
Share this with your helpdesk or anyone on your team who monitors capacity or cost analytics

You can find more details in the OneLake compute consumption documentation and track the rollout via the Microsoft 365 Message Center (MC1259829).

My Take On The Fabric Conference Updates

2026-03-23T04:44:35.215+01:00

I am sure you have seen, there has been a lot of Fabric and Power BI news lately. Not surprisingly, Fabric Conference was also last week! 😀

I won't list all the updates here, you can read Arun's blog, or either of the Fabric or Power BI monthly feature summary blogs to go through the whole list:

Instead, I will highlight what are the biggest game changers for me, and what you definitely should dive in deeper.

Platform

Database Hub (Early Access)

This is a new control plane for everything database: so Azure SQL, Cosmos DB, PostgreSQL, MySQL and Fabric Database, offering estate-wide observability, delegated governance and Copilot-powered insights. I haven't seen or used it yet, but does this really take away the need to use the Azure Portal and / or SSMS?

Planning in Fabric IQ (New)

A new enterprise planning capability that brings financial and business planning directly into Fabric. So we're talking budgets, forecasts, scenarios and targets. To me it sounds like this is aimed at replacing disconnected planning tools (like Anaplan)? It's a co-operation / acquisition with Lumen, but as far as I got from the sessions and community notes, you don't pay Lumen directly but instead it just costs you CU's from the already present capacity.

OneLake + Databricks Unity Catalog (Preview)

They now added the capability to natively read from OneLake through Azure Databricks Unity Catalog. As I see more and more companies use Databricks combined with Fabric, as either bronze/silver or the whole data platform, I reckon this integration will have advantages for people using both platforms. It still looks like Microsoft is keeping their promise of keep developing an open platform.

Fabric Remote MCP (Preview)

If you haven't looked into MCP servers yet, I highly recommend you do. I also haven't dived deep into it, but I started doing some dabbling around with the Power BI modelling MCP server, for minor tweaks and measure creation, and that was already awesome.

Kurt Buhler and Eugene Meidinger have some good posts about the theory, inner workings and how to get started.

Power BI

Translytical Taskflows (GA)

Translytical taskflows (TT) a.k.a. writeback for Power BI, although that doesn't paint the whole picture because it can do much more. It uses User Data Functions (Python notebooks) in Fabric to update data in a data store of you choice (e.g. Azure SQL, Fabric SQL Database, Lakehouse) from within certain elements in a Power BI report. Now that TT is GA I reckon much more companies will be able / are allowed to explore this. This will be a game-changer, you don't need seperate licenses for e.g. Power Apps or other 3rd party software that can do writeback.

Be aware though, because there are still some limitations, a.o. PBIR (Power BI enhanced report) and PBIP (Power BI Project) formats cannot be used together with TT.

Direct Lake on OneLake (GA)

Direct Lake now works better with OneLake security and it has more modeling features. The guidance is now clear: use Direct Lake on OneLake by default, unless you have a specific SQL endpiont security dependency. For me, import is still the default, but if you have specific requirements around data freshness or loading very large datasets into memory, you could have benefit by using Direct Lake.

TMDL View in web modeling (Preview)

Finally, we have TMDL view in the web! That makes the web modeling so much more complete, you can copy measures, tables or whole models over. Or adjust sources, parameters, anything! They also implemented a side-by-side diff view before applying changes.

Custom Totals in Tables / Matrices (Preview)

I know a few people that will be very pleased with this... :-) There's been a lot of complaining over the years that "my totals are off!". No, that's just the way DAX works... Well, now you can at least decide for yourself if you want to change it.

Modern Visual Defaults (Preview)

I wanted to call out this one, because I'm not sure if I'm actually a fan of this feature. The new default will be smoothed lines, which can sometimes give false data points in a graph. I'd have to check wether this will turn out good.

Developer

Git integration now has selective branching, where you can branch out for a specific feature and only pull items you need.

Furthermore, two new open-source projects have been added:

• Agent skills for Fabric: these are natural language plugins for GitHub Copilot terminal. This sounds like plugging into the Matrix and learning a new skill :) It also means you can use and share skills from and for the community.

• Fabric Jumpstart: these are reference architectures and single-click sample deployments. These look familiar to the earlier industry solutions, but now completely set up with data inside your own tenant.

Closing

With everything taken into account, Microsoft is betting hard on Fabric as the AI data operating sysem. I'm curious what the coming weeks and months will bring.

As I am typing this blog, I'm now actually in the plane to the MVP Summit in Redmond, Washington at the Microsoft HQ! Hopefully I can dive even deeper into a lot of these topics while I'm there!

Power BI Gebruikersdagen 2026

2026-03-05T10:34:00.000+01:00

Today, it's that time of year again! The Dutch Power BI Gebruikersdagen are here :-)

Last year's keynote, photo credits by PBIG

Today is Master class Thursday, all day workshops, tomorrow is Deep Dive Friday, with 90 minute deep dive sessions, and Saturday is Community Saturday

This conference is a must see for me and my colleagues at Powerdobs. Although last year I had to miss it, because it coincided with our annual family ski-ing trip. I was really sad I had to miss out.

There are workshops on Thursday, those cover a whole day deep dive on one topic.
Then there are deep dive sessions on Friday, 90 minute (mostly technical) sessions on one topic.
And last, we have community Saturday, with sessions of 60 minutes, with also a lot of less technical and more business focused sessions. This year, there are 11 (!) simultaneous sessions, so it will be very hard to pick one session per slot!

You can find the agenda with the full list of sessions here.

I'll be heading to the conference tomorrow. This year, I will present a 90-minute session on Friday, where I'll deep dive into the Direct Lake (pun intended).

It will be fun to see so many familiar faces again. And it's always good to meet new ones too.

Come say hello or ask a question in, before or after my session on Friday. I'll also be present the whole day on Saturday!

Fabric Workspace Settings Update: "License Type" Renamed to "Workspace Type"

2026-02-13T15:02:00.001+01:00

Just a quick post because I noticed a change in the Fabric UI, specifically in the Workspace settings.

I am working on a demo for my Power BI Gebruikersdagen session, and wanted to switch a workspace to Fabric capacity. I noticed that the setting License type has changed, and is now called Workspace type.

You can see the new layout in the screenshot below.

The new setting called Workspace type

As you can see in the screenshot, there are now 2 groups of workspaces (= licenses):

Power BI only workspace types
Fabric and Power BI workspace types

The 1st category is for a Pro or PPU user license or an embedded SKU.

The 2nd type is for capacity licenes only, with an F or FT (trial) SKU, or an old P-SKU

There's no change to the licensing itself (at least as far as I know), it is just a slight rewording of the already available types of user and capacity licenses. The documentation on Workspace types is already updated to reflect these changes.

I've checked 3 different tenants, and in all of these I saw the same new setting being displayed. All these tenants are in the West-Europe region, and because it might not be available in all regions worldwide your tenant may still be showing the old License type.

I like the new categories and more clear distinction between Power BI and Fabric workspace types.

Let me know: Do you like this change?

Transitioning to the New Power BI Enhanced Report Format (PBIR) - What You Need to Know

2026-02-06T10:12:00.003+01:00

Let me be clear: I really like and support the updates that Rui Romano has been pushing the last years!
In short, it brings:

Better support for CI / CD and source control
Better integration for programmatic report updates, e.g. with LLM's
More reliable merge outcomes with the PBIP and PBIR structures

With that being said, I do think some customers do not want to have preview features in production, so they will be cautious with the recent developments. Since the end of January, the PBIR format will be the default if you don't take action.
If you don't want to enable PBIR yet, or just want to know more about the transition, read on.

A little bit of background

Let's start with the basics, what is PBIP, TMDL and PBIR?

PBIP
PBIP turns Power BI into a real project instead of a single magic PBIX file. Files on disk, folders, source control that actually works. If you’ve ever tried to diff a PBIX and felt pain: PBIP is the fix.

TMDL
TMDL is the semantic model as text. Tables, measures, relationships: readable, reviewable, automatable. This is Microsoft finally saying “models are code”, not artifacts you click together and hope for the best.

PBIR
PBIR does the same, but for reports. Visuals, layout and interactions stored in a format that Git can understand. PBIX still exists, but the report inside it stops being a black box. That’s why PBIR becoming the default is a big deal.

So, PBIP is the structure, TMDL is the model, PBIR is the report.
Together, they move Power BI away from file-based BI and closer to proper software development, whether you asked for it or not. 😊
And to be clear, PBIX is still here and not moving away either, I will expand on that later.

Why This Matters Now

PBIR will become the default report format starting January 25th, 2026 in the Power BI Service, with Desktop adopting it in March 2026, but it will still be in preview.

This will affect developers using PBIP workflows, admins managing enterprise tenants, and teams relying on legacy formats.

Because a lot of clients don't want to use preview features, you can opt out during preview: let me explain how and why you might want to...

M365 Message center PBIR announcement

Legacy Format vs. Enhanced Report Format

The Legacy format is the older JSON-based metadata structure inside reports, which contains 1 big, unreadable JSON file for all things reports in your Power BI Desktop file, whether it's PBIX or PBIP.
This legacy format poses limitations on readability, CI/CD, automation, source-control and working with AI / LLM's.

As I mentioned earlier, and Microsoft is also explicit about that, PBIX isn't going away. It will still be the primary developer format.

What will change is the metadata inside a PBIX file: from PBIR-Legacy to the new PBIR structure.

Official Timeline

Changes will hit the service first, and Power BI Desktop later.

Power BI Service, starting January 25:

New reports in the service will default to PBIR
Existing reports will auto-convert to PBIR when edited and saved in the service

Power BI Desktop, starting with the March 2026 release:

Desktop switches to PBIR as the default for both PBIX and PBIP-files. Until then, PBIR must be explicitly enabled in the preview features

General Availability (GA) & Beyond:

PBIR remains in Preview during the transition and becomes mandatory at GA (right now: expected in Q3 of 2026, check the roadmap for latest info)
At GA, PBIR-Legacy will be removed and PBIR will be the only supported report format

What You Need To Do Today For Opting Out

In Power BI Desktop:

Disable the PBIR preview features (under Options > Preview features).

In Power BI Service (Tenant Setting):

Turn off Automatically convert and store reports using Power BI enhanced metadata format (PBIR).
Important: this tenant setting already existed for quite a few weeks but only took effect in the end of January 2026

PBIR tenant setting to opt out before GA

What about rollback?

If a report is already converted to the new format, you can still go back, but you have to do it with a backup of your report. Backups are automatically created for you, both in Desktop and in the service, but they will only be available for a limited time window.

Desktop

In Desktop, a backup is automatically written to disk and kept for 30 days. Depending on which version you have, the location differs a little bit:

Microsoft Store version:
%USERPROFILE%\Microsoft\Power BI Desktop Store App\TempSaves\Backups
Executable installer version:
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Power BI Desktop\TempSaves\Backups

Service

When a report is automatically converted in the service, a backup in legacy format is retained for 28 days. You can restore it from the workspace in the report settings.

For both the desktop and service reverted versions, it won't prompt again to upgrade for that specific file.

Wrap-Up & Call-to-Action

While the transition to PBIP and PBIR in general is a good thing, and I'm already using it for most of my projects, there might be some clients that rather do not want to, or just aren't allowed to use preview features in production.

If you are in the last group, I suggest you:

Check the Power BI Desktop preview settings
Check the Tenant settings in the Fabric Admin portal

Quick Tip: Analyze the Fabric Capacity Metrics App Easily

2025-11-28T16:16:00.000+01:00

Just a quick tip for anyone using the Fabric Capacity Metrics App.

If you find yourself checking the Metrics app and see a spike in usage you might want to analyze that. How many times did you have to click to get exactly the column you needed? Or before you were able to click any column at all? 😁

You can of course filter on the dates, but sometimes that's not enough detail.

Let's say I want to analyze the spike around November 19th, but I can't click that one red bar that has the highest peak?

When you hover over the visual you can select Focus mode.

This brings up the visual on the entire screen, making it much easier to click on individual bars.

When you select the single bar you are looking for, and click Back to report on the top left you go back to the normal page view, but with that bar still selected.

You can then click Explore and go to the timepoint details.

Making sense in case of huge spikes

Sometimes you may hit a big spike in usage, either by high usage of the capacity, or because the capacity was paused.

In the above case I had a severe throttling issue, where the capacity would have been unavailable for multiple hours and the client decided to pause / unpause the capacity. This effectively takes all the future CU-usage and makes you pay it off at once, hence the enormous spike in usage on November 12th.

Note

Pausing a capacity will almost always increase your Azure bill, next to the Fabric capacities you already have.

The downside is that this immediately renders this visual useless, because now you can't see anything other than that 65000% spike anymore.. 😁

If you want to make this visual meaningful again, you can filter out the date with the very high %, in the filter pane on Date.

Change the selection to Basic filtering and select only the dates without the spike!

Power BI - Requirements to Use Analyze in Excel

2025-09-23T22:09:00.006+02:00

I think I now got this question 4 times in the last months, so I thought I'd write it down so I can reference it later, and point people to it 😄

Good question, let me break it down.
In general, I think it's also better to use Analyze in Excel than Export to Excel!
Reza Rad also wrote about why that's important earlier.

Prerequisites to use Analyze in Excel

Power BI license
You either need a Power BI Pro or PPU license, or the semantic model you connect to must be in a workspace backed by a Power BI Premium / Fabric F-capacity, this needs to be an F64 or higher SKU. Although I have seen some instances where it might have (temporarily) worked with a lower F-SKU, this is not supported/allowed (see Power BI licensing).
Tenant Setting
Your Power BI / Fabric Administrator needs to enable the Tenant setting in the Admin Portal: "Users can work with Power BI semantic models in Excel using a live connection". You can learn more about that setting on the admin portal documentation.
Semantic Model permissions
The user needs at least build permissions on the semantic model, or at least the Contributor role in the workspace. Ideally you put people in an Entra ID group and give that the appropriate permissions.
Excel
You obviously need Excel Desktop or Excel for the web installed for it to work. You might have to install some updates for it to work.

A few things to be aware of:

Analyze in Excel creates a dynamic, live connection to the Power BI dataset, so any changes to the dataset will be reflected when the Excel report is refreshed

Free users can analyze data from Premium workspaces without needing a Pro license, provided they have the appropriate role (at least build permissions or Contributor role) assigned in that Premium workspace

You'll need to use measures in the PivotTable's values area, as you can't directly drag numeric columns like 'cost' into that area. It's anyway better to create explicit instead of implicit measures

Fabric Quality of Life Update: No More Default Semantic Models!

2025-09-03T14:21:00.004+02:00

Another quick post, because today is an important day for everyone working with Fabric and Power BI!

Last month, Microsoft announced they are Sunsetting Default Semantic Models: Yaay! 😀
Today marks that day: No more automatic child semantic models!

The info message also states only a SQL endpoint is created

So now whenever you create a warehouse, lakehouse, SQL database, or mirrored database, you only will get that item, and the SQL analytics endpoint connected to it.

No more default semantic models!

This means from now on you always have to manage the semantic model yourself, whenever you create one of the above items.

What about my existing default semantic models?

To be clear: existing (default) semantic models are not affected (yet!). But by the end of December (2025) they will be decoupled from their connected item, and you will have to manage that model manually.

Conclusion

Now that Fabric is getting more widely used, the demand for stronger governance and greater control over semantic models was growing. This change takes away the auto/generated models and gives you more control in the creation of your semantic models.

To read more about this:

Take a look at the documentation of semantic models
Or at the blog post announcing the deprecation

There's more information in those links about the exact changes and menu-items going away, the timeline and future updates/blog posts.

Changes to Fabric Tenant Settings for API's

2025-08-22T14:41:00.003+02:00

If you are a Fabric Administrator, either for your own tenant / company or for customers, you might get the weekly emails from Microsoft 365 Message center. I've mentioned this briefly in an earlier post about Changes to default values for a tenant setting for SQL Database.

I advice you to at least have a look through that weekly email and check for any Fabric or Power BI updates. An example update you can get is like the below. This screenshot is actually from the Message Center itself, not from the email.

The problem with the M365 Message Center is that only people with privileged roles can access it. And not all updates shown there are communicated in other ways by Microsoft. Sometimes they write a blog post, like this one: Cognitive services and Azure ML will be fully retired, sometimes there's a specific info message in Fabric, or there might be a new tag in the tenant settings, but more often you don't see any other communications around the topic.

So if you are not a Fabric Admin, you probably haven't seen the message I want to inform you about today, so that's why I'm writing this post!

Call To Action

TL;DR

Two new admin toggles are live in the Fabric Tenant Settings, under Developer settings. Check your Tenant Settings and see how they relate to your policies and governance!

Action Required on API Access Setting Split

Microsoft Fabric is changing how service principal access to public APIs is controlled. The existing all-or-nothing tenant setting was split into two separate settings — giving us admins more granular control, but also introducing a change you might need to act on after August 1, 2025.

The previous setting

What Has Changed?

From mid-May to early June 2025, the previous admin setting for public API access via service principals was replaced with:

Service principals can create workspaces, connections, and deployment pipelines
→ Governs “global” APIs not tied to specific Fabric permissions (e.g., workspace creation).
→ Disabled by default.
Service principals can call Fabric public APIs
→ Governs APIs protected by the Fabric permission model (CRUD access to workspaces, folders, etc).
→ Enabled by default.

The new settings

Why This Matters

This split is a long-needed improvement: previously, disabling API access to protect core resources also blocked developers from using safe, permission-based APIs.

Now, you can lock down the high-risk parts (like workspace creation) without blocking everything else.

But: Microsoft may have enabled the second setting (permission-based API access) by default in your tenant unless you opted out.

Why should I care? You might have service principals running scripts to create workspaces, deploy certain items or manage workspace objects for example.

What You Should Do Now

Check your Fabric admin portal for the two new settings under Developer Settings
Before August 1, 2025, you could've shown a checkbox labeled "Accept Microsoft’s change to enable...", and you want to keep permission-based API access disabled, uncheck the box and hit Apply
Check the values of both settings

Timeline Recap

May–June 2025: Settings split rolls out
July 31, 2025: Last day to opt out of automatic enablement
August 1, 2025: Microsoft finalizes the transition

Conclusion

In case you are running a monitoring solution that keeps a history of Tenant Settings, for example FUAM, you can check the Tenant Settings history and see when the change became active in your tenant. If you don't have such a monitoring solution, I highly recommend checking FUAM out. You can get started with setup and deployment of the solution with a few hours of work.

I spotted this setting shift on telemetry around June 1 in my tenant:

There were some changes in how tenant settings can control access for Service Principals to API's. Make sure to check your settings and adjust them accordingly.

If you want to read more info on the exact workings of the tenant settings, have a look at the Tenant Settings documentation.

Did you already notice these changes and take action?

Let me know in the comments.

My session at Fabric Week by ESPC - Q&A

2025-06-06T12:15:00.007+02:00

On Tuesday, May 27th, I had the honor of presenting a session for the Fabric Week at ESPC:

A Day In The Life Of A(n Accidental) Fabric Administrator.

The session was recorded and is already available on YouTube, but unfortunately we ran out of time before I could answer all the questions during the session.

Thanks to ESPC and Seán Colleran I got hold of all the questions asked during the session, and I will provide answers in this blog post where I can.

Q&A

Without further ado, let's go to the questions:

How do you enable Fabric mirroring from the tenant settings?
You don't have to enable mirroring specifically, but you do need to enable the creation of Fabric items in general: Enable Microsoft Fabric for your organization. You also need a workspace with an active Fabric capacity (trial or any F-SKU).
Can we mirror PostgreSQL with that option?
Yes, you can mirror PostgreSQL, but only Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server. Keep in mind that currently mirroring doesn't support Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server behind an Azure Virtual Network or private networking.
As a Fabric admin, can I scale Fabric Capacity from F64 to F128, for example?
For scaling only, being a Capacity admin should be enough, as explained in scale capacity.
What’s the best way to implement stop/start on Fabric Capacity?
You might be able to, depending on the rights you have in the Azure Portal.
To be specific, you need to have at least contributor rights on the Azure subscription. Specific permissions (to create a capacity) for an RBAC role are explained here.
You can use the Fabric Capacities REST API's to Pause/Resume the capacity. You can call these API's with PowerShell, but also with Azure Data Factory, a Logic App, or from within a Fabric notebook. For the latter, you need a different capacity then the one you want to pause/resume though.
I want to manage capacity units. How can we manage the autoscaling function?
If you mean Autoscale Billing for Spark, that is currently in preview and only controls the spark compute. There is no other option for autoscaling the SKU-size in Fabric.
We have multiple customers on one tenant. Each wants to monitor their own Fabric capacity. What’s the best practice for setting up the Capacity Metrics App?
In the Capacity Metrics workspace, you can create multiple copies of the report and put a report filter on a specific capacity. Then give a user specific permissions to only view that report.
Is there a way to reset tenant settings to “default” or Microsoft-recommended settings?
Unfortunately not. You can check the documentation for the Tenant settings index, some settings mention a default value.
If you are able to set up a totally new (test) tenant in Azure you could check the default values for the Tenant settings in that tenant.
On the permissions level, how do you differentiate between non-production and production environments?
Usually this is done by using workspaces for dev-test-prod. On a workspace level you can easily manage permissions. Within Fabric you can use Deployment Pipelines to transfer items between the dev-test-prod stages.
I’m a user. Our new admin has set up Fabric Capacity (F2 pay-as-you-go). I have permission to create workspaces, but the Fabric Capacity option is greyed out.
To be able to assign workspaces to a capacity you need at least Contributor permissions. The admin of a capacity can assign users on the Capacity settings page in the Admin portal:
Who can we scale up Spark clusters? How can we ensure only admins can do this?
So go from a small Spark pool to a medium Spark pool.
A workspace Admin can change the settings for Spark workloads in the workspace settings:

They can adjust the current pools and create new ones. You can't limit it further, so every workspace Admin can do this.
If you uncheck the last option, Members or lower can't change the settings on a session-level.
What’s the best way to implement a stop/start schedule for Fabric — e.g., only running during the day?
Please see question 4.
For notification activities in a pipeline: I want to use Teams notifications. Do I need an Office license or a specific Teams license?
To actually set up a working Teams activity, you need a Teams license, and a channel or chat to post it to. I was able to add the activity without a Teams license, but I can't select a channel to post to in that way.
Can a workspace admin restrict a tenant admin from accessing a specific workspace?
No. A tenant (Fabric) admin can always go to the Admin portal and gain access to any workspace in the tenant.
What is the best alert mechanism? As a Fabric Admin, I want to know about overloads as soon as possible.
There are a few options, I'll let you decide on the best one to use.
On the Capacity settings page you can set up a notification for X% capacity usage.
Somewhat similar, but more customizable, you can also set up an alert on the Capacity Metrics app with Activator (Real-Time Intelligence) and send a Teams or Outlook message.

Not an alert mechanism per se, but on the capacity settings page, you can also set up Surge Protection, which lets you limit the compute consumed by background jobs. This way you can make sure the capacity doesn't overrun from background jobs.
Is there a way to kill a process in interactive operations?
For most interactive operations you can't, like DAX or XMLA queries. Lakehouse or Warehouse queries can be stopped with the KILL command used in T-SQL.
If I pause a capacity with over-usage, will I see in advance how much I'll have to pay?
No, not out-of-the-box. You could calculate the amount of overage, CU's and thus price, mainly from the Capacity Metrics app. But that's a manual calculation you'd have to do upfront.
Is there a way to connect that monitoring to a running Grafana?
Apparently you can connect a Managed Grafana instance to a KQL database (eventhouse) in Fabric. It's explained in this post.
Do you need to be paying for Purview to use the Fabric Purview Hub reports?
The Purview Hub reports are included as part of the Admin Monitoring workspace, so you don't need to pay extra or for a Purview license.
Is there a way to monitor the count of accesses per user on a report (like in PBI Report Server ExecutionLog3)?
You can get this data from the default Usage Metrics Report, generated when clicking the below option on a report.

You can also get all activity data (from all reports) out of the Activity Log, for example with the REST API - Get Activity Events. Keep in mind though, this has a data retention period of 30 days.
I understood the admin monitoring semantic models were locked — how did you create a custom version?
You can indeed not edit the model itself, but as a Fabric Admin you do have Member access to the Admin Monitoring workspace, and thus Build permissions. So if you connect to the semantic model from Power BI Desktop, you can extend it (create a local model) with your own data. You would also be able to do this with Viewer access and build permissions.
Pro vs. Premium per-user license: What are the three most important reasons to choose Premium per-user over Pro on a Fabric capacity?
It depends? 😉 In most cases, I would say if you already have Fabric, PPU is not necessary anymore. But of course, there are edge cases where it might benefit to have a PPU, I can think of one: Model size limits in low F-SKUs are pretty low (3 GB), in PPU it's 100 GB
Have you seen examples where the 30-day limit for admin monitoring has been extended by updating a custom Lakehouse and running reporting off that?
Yes, you can export the Admin monitoring data to a Lakehouse. The solution I called out in my presentation is FUAM, which doesn't specifically extract the data from the Admin monitoring workspace, but it gets similar data from the rest of the tenant.
If I am not a Fabric admin, how can I get access to admin monitoring?
By default, only users with the Fabric admin role (or higher) will have access. But the Fabric admin can also give other people (Viewer) access to the workspace.
Is there an API to extract user views on each Power BI report page?
Yes, the Activity Events API, see question 19.
The 30 days... is that the same as the Dashboard Usage Metrics?
Yes, right now, the retention is similar in all the Power metrics reports, except for the Capacity Metrics, which holds 14 days of data.

There's No Free Lunch - (Billing of) Preview Features in Fabric

2025-05-02T13:50:00.002+02:00

Another post on my favorite topic: Governance and Administration!

I decided to leave "Governance & Administration" out of the titles of my blog posts from now on.
The titles were getting a bit lengthy, just because I wanted to include the focus on Governance & Administration. I am already using labels which you can use for that: Governance, Administration, etc..

Today, let's talk about preview features in Fabric!

Preview features

First of all, when using Preview features in Fabric, you should be aware of the small print.

Next, we all know, there's no such thing as a free lunch, right?

Because: preview does not mean free! Let me explain.

Two of those preview features - SQL Database and Workspace Monitoring - have recently moved to a charging model as Fabric develops further. It's essential to understand these adjustments if you want to maximize your resources, govern your capacity and efficiently control expenses.

Fabric SQL Database

I wrote about it earlier when they were about to change the tenant setting for SQL Database: you should be aware that billing for SQL Database already started.

Compute and data storage for SQL databases are now charged according to your Fabric capacity beginning of February 1, 2025. The start date of backup billing is April 1, 2025. You can only pay for the resources you use because compute charges only apply when you are actively using the service. Automatic backups and storage are priced individually each month. Check Microsoft Learn for more details on billing and utilization reporting.

If you check the doc's on the usage of SQL Database you can see that:

Compute is billed by the minute, but the database is also kept alive for 15 minutes afterwards. So if you use it for 4 minutes, you are actually billed for 19 minutes!
Storage will be billed per hour, regardless of usage.

Workspace Monitoring

Workspace Monitoring gathers and arranges logs and metrics from different Fabric components by building an Eventhouse database inside your workspace, providing insightful data about workspace performance and usage.
You can use this tool to optimize queries, minimize data downtime, investigate mistakes, and fix performance concerns.

As of February 2025, Workspace Monitoring billing has begun. Make sure you have a Power BI Premium or Fabric capacity and that the required tenant settings are set up in order to enable monitoring in your workspace. Check Microsoft Learn for a detailed tutorial on how to enable and use Workspace Monitoring.

Check your usage after this changeover

It is crucial to examine your present and anticipated consumption in order to foresee any expenses now that invoicing for these functions has been activated. To keep an eye on capacity utilization across all workloads and make sure it fits your organization's demands and budget, use the Fabric Capacity Metrics app.

See Fabric capacity billing guidelines for a more thorough explanation of how these modifications affect your Azure bill.

Are you using these preview features in your tenant?

And did you know they are already billed?

Let me know in the comments!

Microsoft Fabric Documentation (for Admins)

2025-03-23T13:01:00.000+01:00

Maybe this topic is not the most sexiest of them all, but it certainly has the same (or maybe even more) amount of value for YOU!
And.. another post on my favorite topic: Governance and Administration!

Earlier I wrote about the default domain settings, changes to the default tenant setting value for SQL database and I also covered the (rights of the) Fabric Adminsitrator role. Today I want to talk about a more meta-topic: existing documentation on Microsoft Learn, and of course specifically for Admins.

Microsoft Fabric documentation

By this point, I assume you've read this far (and perhaps a few other posts as well), I guess you've heard of Microsoft Learn. 😁

If not, go there now: Microsoft Fabric documentation!

It is full of so much good content, to name a few:

Overview

What is Fabric: The B.A.S.I.C.S.
Security in Fabric: You might not be aware, but there's so many things you can do to tweak and adjust security for your organization!

Concepts

Choose a Fabric data store: Choose between a Lakehouse, Warehouse, Eventhouse, or SQL Database
Copilot in Fabric: In what workloads can you use Copilot and what are the prereqs?
Capacity and license types: This explains concepts like a tenant, capacity, workspace, SKU's, Power BI licenses, etc.

Tutorials

Use taskflows to build solutions: I'm curious, who really uses these in their environment?
End-to-end tutorials: Those tutorials where the corner-stone of getting started with Fabric after it was announced. They still provide enourmous value, although sometimes the steps can be very basic.

And there's so much more:

Ok, I know... Sometimes the documentation is, let's say, a bit behind the latest features in Fabric, right?

It may be outdated, there might be typo's, it might even be wrong in some points.

Instead of (only) complaining, you should do something about it! 😏

Did you know you can edit those pages (make sure you're logged in to your MS Learn account):

After clicking that pencil on a doc page, you end up at GitHub where you can make changes to the document. You do need a GitHub account, know how to fork the repo and create a Pull Request when you're done (if you don't know how to, read this tutorial on GitHub 101).

Microsoft Fabric documentation for admins

Now on to my favorite part: the Admin stuff! 😁

Go to Microsoft Fabric documentation for admins to learn all about admin settings, tools, the admin portal, admin roles, and monitoring and management to name a few.

What is the admin monitoring workspace

It recently got a revamp on the design side and now looks way better.

The information contained in the report is on a fairly basic level, but you can still get some good insights out of it.

Next to that, you can also connect to the semantic model and extend it.

Closing

As you see there is a lot of information available on Microsoft Learn.`

Do you think the documentation on Microsoft Learn is valuable? Have you used it?

Does it need improvement? If yes, on what points?

Let me know in the comments!

Changes to the Default Tenant Setting value for SQL Database

2025-02-28T17:00:00.002+01:00

Another post on my favorite topic: Governance and Administration!

UPDATE 2025-03-12:

Microsoft released an update on the rollout of the changes to this setting. The actual enablement is postponed for 20 days to March 28. The timelines mentioned in the blog below are now:

February 28, 2025 - Checkbox notification rolled out globally.
March 8, 2025 - Infobox will display this as the enablement date.
March 28, 2025 - Actual enablement date for tenants that take no action.

Extending flexibility: default checkbox changes on tenant settings for SQL database in Fabric

Microsoft 365 Message Center

In case you have access to the M365 Admin Center, or more specific the M365 Message Center, you might have seen this message. I reckon not many people did.. That's why I'm blogging about it here 😁

I'm specifically talking about this message in the Message Center, being a major update and with admin impact:

Communications on default checkbox changes on tenant settings and billing start for SQL database in Fabric.

Changes to SQL Database Tenant Setting

Recently, there's been a change to the tenant setting for SQL Database, but only in case you haven't changed the setting before.. 😉

Below is the setting in my own tenant, where the setting is still disabled, which was and still is the default option (hint: this is about to change!).

So if I do nothing, then after March 8, the default value will change to ON, or Enabled for the entire organization.

If I decide to opt out before March 8, so if I uncheck the checkbox Accept Microsoft's default selection (Off for the entire organization), this tenant setting will stay disabled, also after March 8.

To be clear, as I mentioned, you only see this message if you haven't changed the default setting (off).

In the Powerdobs tenant we already enabled SQL Database, so I only see the below:

M365 Message Center for Non-Admins

In case you don't have access to the Message Center, I found another site, called the Microsoft 365 Message Center Archive, where all those messages are replicated, set up by Merill Fernando, Principal Product Manager for Microsoft Entra.

Direct link to the message: https://mc.merill.net/message/MC996579.

I have been searching for a (regular) blog post on this topic, but I haven't seen anything:
Multiple other blog posts were written on the Fabric blog, but none of them explicitly mentioned any of this:

Feb 12: Govern your data in SQL database in Microsoft Fabric with protection policies in Microsoft Purview
Feb 19: Enhancing SQL database in Fabric: share your feedback and shape the future
Feb 26: Why SQL database in Fabric is the best choice for low-code/no-code Developers

There's a little link to Billing and utilization reporting for SQL database hidden in this blog post, which explains billing started at February 1st, but no mention of the tenant setting

Billing for SQL Database (preview)

Last thing I want to explicitly call out in accordance with the changed tenant setting:

While SQL Database in Fabric is still in preview, billing already started at February 1. Furthermore, billing for backup starts after April 1.

So when the setting is changed to ON, and you don't run a trial, you can start seeing SQLDbNative on your Capacity Metrics App as explained here. 😉

Governance & Administration - Default Domain settings

2025-02-17T11:43:00.000+01:00

I'm picking up my favorite topic again: Governance and Administration!

Last week I wrote about the rights of the Fabric Administrator.

Today I want to make you aware of a default value of the domain settings inside Fabric.

This default value might not be the best value for you.. 😉

Domains in Fabric

A short introduction to Domains: they are essentially a way of managing and structuring your data across the organization. You can logically group together data in workspaces. A logical grouping can be business units, areas, fields, solutions or actually whatever works for you. It shouldn't be something a Fabric Admin decides on his own. Ideally business and / or enterprise architects with the data owners (if any 😐) should implement the design of domains, subdomains and owners. People from you Center of Excellence (again: if available..) would be a good fit to include in this discussion.

In case you need some help or guidance on how to set up your domains, there's a nice article that can help you get started: Best practices for planning and creating domains.

Default Domain Settings

Check your defaults! I've said it multiple times, always check default settings in your tenant, be it in the tenant settings or the domain settings.

When you create a domain (either with or without adding a domain admin explicitly), you end up with the default settings applied to that domain. Let's check what that involves.

After creating your domain and navigating to the settings you ~~can~~ SHOULD set the Contributors of the domain.

By default, it is set to The entire organization. I would limit it to either of the other options. Preferably tenant and domain admins, but if you have a group of people from Finance that you want to allow to add workspaces to the Finance domain, I'm happy with that too. Just don't use the default setting 😀

Luckily there's one more caveat to this that restricts it to hopefully a sligthly smaller group: the documentation points out you also have to be a workspace admin to be able to use this feature, so that limits it to people that have an admin role in the workspace.

One more reason to not give everyone the admin role in your workspace by default!

Next to that, you can also audit for these changes by checking the audit log for Fabric, specifically the UpdateDataDomainFoldersRelationsAsAdmin operation, which gives you the activities when someone assigns (or unassigns) a workspace to/from a domain.

Conclusion

Domains give you a good option to manage and group the content in your organization.

Just be aware of the default settings when you create one. Set the contributors to the tenant and domain admins, or a security group, just don't use the default!

Let me know what you think, have you seen this default setting and more importantly, did you change it in any of your domains?

Governance & Administration - Fabric Administrator Role

2025-02-10T08:51:00.001+01:00

It's been a while since I've written on a regular cadance, so I'm picking up my favorite topic again: Governance and Administration!

Today I want to talk to you about the Fabric Administrator (role).

What rights does an Admin have?
Are there more people that also have these rights? (Hint: YES! 😉)

Toady, I'm not talking about the governance aspects of the Admin, the Tenant settings or the Admin portal in general. I'll leave that for a next time. Or read other posts, for example by Marc on other roles and controls in Fabric or the delicate balance of governance and collaboration.

Manage Fabric Administrators

Users with this role can manage everything in Fabric, so from the Admin portal, to workspace access, and have also read access to various other parts in the Office and Azure ecosystem.

I encourage you to check who are assigned this role, because it should only be a handful of people in my opinion. You can check this in the Azure portal, under Entra ID > Roles and administrators.

Alternatively you can also search for it in the top search bar and go there directly.

Looking at the description of the role, we can see a few interesting things:

(As an Admin,) You can go to Azure and O365 Service Health to check for potential status issues with those services. You can also check and file (Premium) support tickets, depending on the license/capacity you have.

I especially want to call out the last row in the permissions:

The link there reads: microsoft.powerApps.powerBi/....

Power Platform Administrator

Now let's take a look at the Power Platform Admnistrator role description:

You might have noticed the same path there: microsoft.powerApps.

So this means, everything "below" PowerApps is also accessible, so the Power Platform Admin can also access and manage the same things the Fabric Admin can!

I also encourage you to check the people assigned to this role 😀

Just In Time Access Roles

Depending on your organizational settings, Privileged Identity Management might be enabled.
This means that people might need to activate the Fabric Admin role (for a period of time) before it becomes active. In the below screenshot you can see that Ernst and me have the role permanently assigned for Powerdobs.

But if I'm working as a consultant it usually is on a need-to-have bases, so I can e.g. activate it for 1, 2 or 8 hours.

Looking at the picture above, you can see that there's Active and Eligible assignments. Depending on the settings and activity, people might have the PIM-role, but not activated at the moment.

Wrap up

To complete the list of access to Fabric, the Global (tenant) Admin role also has access to everything in Fabric:

Global Admin
Power Platform Administrator
Fabric Administrator

People with the above roles have the same rights as the Fabric Admin.

Did you know the Power Platform Administrator has those rights?

Do you think I missed any information in this blog?

Please let me know in the comments below.

Governance & Administration - Ownership Takeover for Fabric Items

2025-01-29T12:12:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I've written on a regular cadance, so I'm picking up my favorite topic again: Governance and Administration!

Today I want to quickly show a new feature that was just introduced, but long awaited for!

Ownership takeover for Fabric items!

Yes, you read it right, you can now TAKE OVER OWNERSHIP in Fabric! 😁

In a workspace, go to the ellipsis of the item (the 3 dots), and go to settings.

In the settings of the item you can see the Take over button:

Clicking that will show a pop-up and will start the transfer of ownership.

After a few seconds (that was my experience for the handful items I tried) you will get the notification it succeeded.

After that the (Take over) button has disappeared and will show up for the original (and other) users.

A few things to be aware of:

You need read and write permissions to the item you want to take over
That means a Contributor or higher role in the workspace
Depending on the item you transfer, you might need to set up/refresh credentials for connections, as explained here
The old way of taking ownership of Power BI items will still remain the same
Mirrored databases are not supported (yet)
If you're taking over a pipeline that execute's other items (like a notebook), you have to take over ownership of that item separately

For more info check the MS Learn docs: Take ownership of Fabric items.

Wrap up

This is of course especially helpful when the creator of an item left the company or that account is locked for whatever reason.

What's next you ask? The API for takeover is not yet available, and you also can't switch to a Service Principal yet. It only switches ownership to the current user at this moment.

Have you tried this feature yet?

Let me know what you think!

Closing out on 2024

2024-12-31T13:10:00.002+01:00

It's the holiday season again, already!

This year has been marked by significant advancements in Microsoft Fabric, and Power BI in specific, and I've had the privilege of engaging with these developments both personally and professionally.

Blogging

I can say I haven't been that active on my blog, I always have a lot of plans for the new year, but motivation is still not easy.. 😆 Let's not make plans this year, but just start blogging for myself and not for others or the views, and see what that brings.

5th Year MVP

One of the highlights of the year was being recognized once again as a Microsoft MVP. It’s a privilege to be part of this amazing program, and I’m very grateful for the opportunities it provides, to share knowledge, collaborate with brilliant minds, contribute to the data community and create new friendships.

Microsoft Ignite 2024: A Glimpse into the Future

One of the biggest events this year was Microsoft Ignite 2024, held in Chicago. The conference had some great innovations, with the number one being the introduction of Fabric SQL Database (in preview). This developer-friendly, transactional database, based on Azure SQL Database, offers seamless creation of operational (OLTP) databases within Fabric. Its integration with OneLake ensures near-real-time data replication, bridging the gap between transactional and analytical processing.

Another noteworthy feature introduced was the Metrics Hub (also in preview), setting a new standard in how organizations define, track, and share KPIs. This centralized management system integrates effortlessly with Power BI, promoting consistency and enhanced collaboration across teams.

Community Engagements and Speaking Opportunities

This year also provided new opportunities to connect with the data community through various speaking engagements. Events like DataGrillen in Germany and the 1st Fabric Conference in Europe were particularly memorable. Sharing insights on topics such as Administration and Governance in Fabric, and engaging in lively discussions with fellow data enthusiasts, was both fulfilling and inspiring. This extended beyond sessions, with early morning runs and social gatherings strengthening the relationships with old and new friends in the community.

Looking Ahead

As we are moving into the new year, my agenda is already filled with promising developments. The upcoming Fabric February 2025 event in Oslo, Norway, is an occasion that promises to bring together the best minds in the industry. And in March the MVP Summit in Redmond will be another highlight!
It's an exciting time to be part of the data community, and I look forward to continuing this journey with all of you, exploring new technologies, sharing knowledge, and fostering the collaborative spirit that defines our field.

Thank you for being a part of this year's journey. Wishing you all a great New Year's Eve and an insightful 2025 ahead!

Nicky. Out.

P.S. I should mention that I did use AI to create a summary of events of my blog and my LinkedIn posts. I used that as a basis for this post.

Microsoft Ignite 2024 - My Key Highlights

2024-11-30T11:49:00.012+01:00

Last week was the annual Microsoft Ignite conference in Chicago. In this blog, I will take you through my most important highlights of the sessions.

Fabric SQL Database (Preview): The future of SQL in the cloud

Let's get straight to the point with the biggest announcement: Fabric SQL Database!

SQL Database in Microsoft Fabric is a developer-friendly, transactional database, based on Azure SQL Database, with which you can easily create an operational (OLTP) database in Fabric. In addition to the Fabric Lakehouse and the Warehouse, you now also have an efficient SaaS SQL database at your disposal as a developer with the performance of a transactional database and under the hood a(n extra) storage that is optimized for analytical purposes (Delta Parquet).

SQL Database in Fabric is:

The home of OLTP workloads in Fabric
Easy to configure and manage
Set up for analytics by automatically replicating data to OneLake in near-real-time
Based on the underlying technology of Mirroring in Fabric
Under the hood, the same as Azure SQL Database, plus you have a web-based editor in the Fabric portal

With the introduction of Fabric SQL Database, Microsoft is taking traditional database management to a new level:

Simple and secure architecture: Automated management and scaling optimizations
Source control integration and CI/CD support: Essential for modern DevOps processes
Capacity billing: Pausable compute resources ensure cost efficiency
Unique cross-platform capabilities: Perform JOINs across databases, warehouses, and lakehouses

In addition to SQL Database in Fabric, the next version of SQL Server was also announced: SQL Server 2025. It is currently in Private Preview. It also supports mirroring to Fabric.

Metrics Hub: Standardized Metric management in Fabric (Preview)

The introduction of the Metrics Hub in Fabric is a new standard in how organizations define, track, and share KPIs. This new approach integrates seamlessly with Power BI and provides centralized management for metrics, enabling consistency and better collaboration. You might be thinking, this sounds familiar? You are! 😊 First there was Metrics, then Goals, and now the Metrics Hub where you can create Metric sets.

The advantage of being able to create and share metrics centrally is that you still have that one single version of the truth. Users can then use these measures in Power BI reports. But developers and data scientists can also use them in notebooks, using Semantic Link (Labs)!

Fabric AI Capacities

There will be an option to run all AI (=Copilot) compute on a separate capacity, so that other Fabric workloads are not affected by the use of Copilot. You still need at least an F64, and it's not available in all Azure regions, so be sure to check the Copilot FAQ for all your questions.

Fabric Org Apps

Org apps is a new item in your workspace, which now allows you to create an app as you did before by publishing an App in your workspace. One of the benefits of this is that you can create multiple Org apps per workspace!

In addition, you can customize more things like the design and behavior of the app. However, you can still only add items from the current workspace.

It is important to know that there is a tenant setting for Org apps that you need to activate. You can also use Org apps with a trial capacity.

Some other important updates for org apps compared to workspace apps:

In addition to Power BI reports, you can now also add Fabric notebooks and real-time dashboards
The distribution of org apps has been simplified, because access to underlying items (e.g. semantic models) is also applied, even in other workspaces. Users will therefore receive read access to all items that are dependent on the items in the app. These rights will also be removed when a user is deleted. There are a few exceptions, so check this.
The items in an Org app are no longer a copy of the item, but the original items from the workspace
Check all the differences between workspace and Org apps here

This week, an extensive blog about Org apps was also published where you can find even more information.

Power BI

The biggest update by far: write-back with User Data Functions: native write-back integration with reusable functions and new options to link these to buttons in Power BI, with which you can update data in a source
In the Pipeline activity, you can now refresh a semantic model at table and partition level
Dataflow Gen2 updates: this item will soon also be supported in CI/CD (in source control and deployment pipelines)

OneLake

At the heart of Fabric is OneLake, a single central repository for all data, regardless of format. Some new developments:

Shortcuts with Iceberg tables: Direct integrations with Snowflake and other platforms
Mirroring: Support for Azure SQL and Snowflake (GA)
Cross-cloud JOINs: Analyze datasets spread across different clouds and formats: You can combine SQL Database, Lakehouses and Warehouses in one query
Open mirroring (preview): this allows you to write change data from any application directly into a mirrored database in Fabric. Open mirroring is based on the open Delta Lake table format

Platform

Workspace monitoring (not to be confused with the Admin Monitoring workspace, this is intended for tenant insights): a database in your workspace that records log data and metrics about all items in that workspace. All of this is recorded in a real-time intelligence Eventhouse database. There are example queries in the Fabric samples GitHub.
Surge protection for capacities: This capability is coming soon, and it allows you to set a cap on the background workload of a capacity. This helps to better guarantee the availability of interactive workloads (such as Power BI report usage). You can set this per capacity.
OneLake catalog: This is the new central hub to find, search, and use all Fabric items. You can use all available filters, including new ones like domains and tags. You can explore in-place items and view details.

Conclusion

Ignite 2024 showed that Microsoft is strongly committed to an integrated and future-oriented data platform, with AI and Copilot as a common thread. Innovations such as workspace monitoring, improved security through service principal support, and the advanced capabilities of the OneLake Catalog make it easier than ever to manage data effectively.

I believe that with these developments, the Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform is ready to support organizations in an increasingly data-intensive world.

Do you have any highlights from Ignite that I missed? Then let me know in the comments!

Items that are being worked on now and in the future are often public via the Fabric roadmap. There you can find per workload the items that will be worked on in the coming 6-12 months.

Some examples:

My DataGrillen Adventure: Speaking, Connecting, and New Friendships

2024-05-31T15:16:00.000+02:00

I just got back from an incredible trip to DataGrillen, and I can’t wait to share my experiences with you. If you haven’t heard of it, DataGrillen is this amazing community-driven conference in Germany, where data professionals from around the world gather to share knowledge, ideas, and, of course, some good BBQ and beers. This year was special for me because I had the honor of speaking again at the event.

A special thanks goes out to Ben (@bweissman) & William (@sql_williamd) for organizing the event! But let's start from the beginning.

The Journey Begins

The anticipation was building as I packed up the car, later picked up Eduard Koekkoek (@heartforarts) and set off on our road trip to Germany. Eduard, a great friend and fellow data enthusiast, was the perfect companion for the journey. We spent some time on the road discussing everything from the latest in data technologies to our expectations for the conference. The drive was quite long, but the conversation made it fly by.

Stepping onto the Stage

The highlight of my trip was undoubtedly my speaking session. I had the first session at the first day, just after the opening "ceremony". The preparation that goes into a talk is always intense, but the passion I have for the subject kept me going. The topic was close to my heart, Administration and Governance in Fabric, and I was thrilled to see a room of fellow data enthusiasts ready to dive into the discussion.

The audience was incredibly receptive, and the interaction was great. There’s something deeply fulfilling about sharing knowledge and seeing that spark of understanding and curiosity in others. The Q&A session that followed was lively, with thoughtful questions. It’s moments like these that remind me why I really like what I do.

Reconnecting with Old Friends

One of the best parts of conferences is the chance to reconnect with friends and colleagues from the industry. DataGrillen was no exception. With the change of forgetting someone, I won't call out names here 😀
It was like a reunion of sorts, seeing familiar faces, catching up on the latest in our professional and personal lives, and talking about past conferences and projects. There’s a special bond that forms when you share experiences and challenges over the years, and DataGrillen provided the perfect backdrop for these reunions.

A smaller group of people, specifically people into running, like to get together for an early run on days of a conference. We created a very special, long-running thread on Twitter (a.k.a. X), that actually started 2 years ago at DataGrillen!

Furthermore, we exchanged ideas over beers and BBQ, debated the future of data technologies, and shared a lot of laughs. These moments are invaluable, and they remind me of the strength and warmth of the data community. It's not just about the work we do, but the friendships we forge along the way.

Making New Connections

While reconnecting with old friends was wonderful, making new ones was equally exhilarating. DataGrillen attracted a diverse crowd of professionals, each bringing unique perspectives and experiences. I met so many passionate individuals, each conversation was a learning opportunity, and a chance to see the data world through a different lens.

The DataGrillen Vibe

What sets DataGrillen apart is its atmosphere. The organizers have created an environment that fosters learning and networking in the most enjoyable way possible. The BBQ element adds a fun twist, making the conference feel more like a community gathering than a formal event. It’s the perfect balance of professional development and relaxation.

Looking Ahead

As Eduard and I drove back home, I felt a great sense of satisfaction and inspiration. DataGrillen was more than just a conference: it was a reminder of the incredible community we’re all part of. I left with new knowledge, strengthened friendships, and a bunch of new connections that I’m excited to nurture.

If you ever get the chance to attend DataGrillen, don’t hesitate. It’s an experience that goes beyond the sessions and keynotes – it’s about the people, the conversations, and the community. I’m already looking forward to next year’s event!

Session materials

My slides were already shared with the conference, but in case you haven't found them, you can find them at my GitHub.
I've also uploaded the template file I used in my demo for Admin Monitoring to the above page.

First page of my demo file

You can also find slides of previous conferences there. I generally follow this pattern: https://github.com/NickyvVr/talks/tree/master/slides/YYYY/yyyymmdd [Conference name]

Until next time, keep learning, keep sharing, and keep grilling!

Deprecation of Legacy Power BI Apps!

2024-04-26T17:10:00.004+02:00

In case you missed the official blog post 2 months ago, I suggest you read my blog post :)

Or if you want you can refer to the official blog here: Announcing the retirement of legacy Power BI Apps (pre-audiences).

Already on March 6, 2023(!), Power BI apps with multiple audiences went Generally Available.

TL;DR

If you still have a pre-audience app, that is: an app that was created before app audiences where a thing, you ~~can~~ should upgrade your app now. Support from Microsoft will stop after April 30.

One other way you could also do the upgrade, is to unpublish your app and create the app again.

N.B. Be aware that:

You will get a different URL (AppID)
Any custom changes that users did are gone, so e.g. personal bookmarks and comments

💡 Pro Tip: Only unpublish an app if you need to remove it!

What does this actually mean?

Legacy apps will continue to work, also after May 1st. But technical support from Microsoft will stop after this date. So I do think it is a wise step to upgrade old apps.

Why do I want to upgrade?

Content Management: In the new Power BI apps with audiences, you ~~can~~ have to add content via the Update app feature by navigating to the Content tab and clicking Add content. In the legacy app you used to include content by using the app toggle in the workspace. This toggle will not be supported anymore, although it is still shown in the workspace.

Audiences: You can use different audiences for separate authorizations to a subsection of reports from the workspace. If you are using the default access request method, you also need to provide an audience group in the drop-down button with a pending access request before you can approve it.
Content visibility: By default, all newly added content to an already published app is marked as invisible. App authors must manually unhide content for each audience group.

More information on publishing apps, using audiences or current limitations can be found here: Publish an app in Power BI.

Upgrade process

In case you still have the legacy app, or if you haven't created an app in a workspace, the workspace might still show the old toggle button:

After you upgarde or create an (new) app, it will show either Yes, No or blank depending on the eligibility of the item to be in an app. That's because only Power BI items can be included in an app.

After you click upgrade, you'll get a notice the app was updated.

Be aware that after the upgrade your app is created withouth any audiences. So be sure to check the authorizations and shared content in the upgraded app.

Other updates to apps

Other recent updates to apps where announced here:

The number of audiences has been increased (from 10) to 25
You can now enable custom messaging for handling app access requests
At the Fabric Community Conference in Las Vegas: Multiple apps per workspace coming soon!

Governance & Administration - Tenant Settings: Searching

2024-04-19T15:50:00.008+02:00

So in the next weeks I am going to highlight a few things with short, informative posts.

You can find other posts in the series here:

Searching - The Old Way

You probably also use the same method as I did to search through the Admin portal and tenant settings: CTRL + F from your browser. It does the trick, but not very well.

For example, it only searches the titles of the settings, not the descriptions.

Next to that, you also can get a lof matches that you have to scroll or loop through, which makes it not very clear because more often than not, you don't know in what section of the tenant settings you ended up.

Searching - The New Way

Keyword-Based filtering to the rescue!

Last year Microsoft introduced the option to use Enhanced Keyword-Based Filtering.

First thing I'd like to mention: don't confuse the new search box (highlighted in red), with the (old) global search bar on the top (highlighted in blue). 😀

The new search box provides a few benefits to the old way of CTRL+F-searching:

When you start typing it live filters the tenant settings with results to your search
The results will still keep the subsections of the settings
With the search, the descriptions of the settings are also taken into account, as you can see with the 3rd arrow in the screenshot above

One thing to keep in mind, sometimes you need to know what the exact term is that you have to search on:

By searching for preview, you see all settings that are in preview (obviously 😏)
If you're looking for all settings related to B2B, search for guest
If you're looking for endorsements, try searching for "certifi", this includes both certification and certified

To complete the overview: the blue global search bar is a way to search your whole Power BI/Fabric tenant.

Feedback

I do have one suggestion for the product team:

I think it would help if that search box will always stay on the top of my visible window.

What I often do is scroll down because I (think I) know where the setting that I'm looking for is located 😀 After a while I figure out it's not exactly where I thought it was, so I decide to use the search box instead. But then I first have to scroll back up before I see and can use the search box.

Conclusion

Going forward, I'll recommend using the new search box provided at the top of the Tenant settings page. It makes it easier to search through the settings. Especially when Microsoft keeps adding new tenant settings every month, that list will only grow bigger!

Governance & Administration - Tenant Settings: Visual Cues

2024-03-04T10:37:00.004+01:00

So in the next weeks I am going to highlight a few things with short, informative posts.

You can find other posts in the series here:

Visual cues

Today I want to talk about a new little addition Microsoft made to the Fabric Admin portal.

This change has actually been here for quite a while now, but I still think it's worth mentioning because (1) I really like it, and (2) it's also an important change that the community, and MVP's in specific, has been requesting for quite some time.

Radhakrishnan Srinivasan and (members of) his team added visual cues to the Admin portal of Fabric. These are green (or teal 😀) little pop-ups that show besides a menu item or tenant setting that has recently been changed, or added to the Admin portal.

Visual cues in the Fabric Admin portal

I think this is really important so Administrators at least know that settings have been added (or changed) when they visit the Admin portal (which they should do regularly anyway in my opinion 😁).

There is also a sub-menu on the top of the Tenant settings page that you can expand, showing all the newly added settings. This overview also has links to the corresponding setting so you can easily navigate there.

Conclusion

I'm not sure how long a new cue is visible, it looks like the cut-off is around 30 days.

The Domains cue is an exception I guess, it has been there since Domains have been added in the beginning.

Take advantage of this added funtionality, it helps you as an Administrator to prepare and be ready for new tenant settings:

Sometimes a setting can have a default state that is not desirable for your organization, so you need to change it within a certain period
Or you want to pro-actively communicate to your users that a certain settings is going to be enforced in the future. This could either be making a new feature available, disabling a new or existing feature for certain people, or slowly rolling out a feature to groups of people

To look beyond the visual cue and what is possible, you could even build yourself a solution by actively searching the Admin portal for new options and automate that process.

If you are new to the Fabric Admin portal, you can get more info here:

Governance & Administration - Fabric (Tenant Settings) API's

2024-02-26T08:44:00.005+01:00

With all the Fabric announcements in the last months, some of the Admin announcements might have slipped through. As you might know, the Admin part of Fabric is dear to my heart. I've posted about it earlier here, here, here, and here, to name a few 😀.

So in the next weeks I am going to highlight a few things with short, informative posts.

This first post in the series is focused on the Tenant settings API and other Fabric API's available at the time of writing.

You can find other posts in the series here:

Get Tenant Settings API

Obviously, to use the Get Tenant Settings API you need to have at least Tenant.Read.All permissions, or have the Fabric Administrator role (or higher) in Azure.

There are a few use cases I see for getting these settings exported with this API:

Documentation purposes when you have multiple Fabric Administrators
Distributing tenant settings to users, and explaining why we (as a team of Administrators/within the Center of Excellence) made certain choices
Get notified of the changes in the tenant settings, without having to use Microsoft Defender or M365 Security & Compliance center like mentioned here

Get Capacities Tenant Settings Overrides

With the introduction of Fabric, there has also been the ability to have capacity admins override certain tenant settings.

Example of a tenant setting that can be delegated

Some settings in the Admin portal are automatically delegated to capacity admins, like shown above.

Other Fabric API's

Next to the API's on the tenant settings, there are already a lot more API's in the Admin section for you to check out, for example to handle workspaces, users, domains, and items as a Fabric Admin.

Next to that, so not as a Fabric Admin, you can also interact with Lakehouse tables, and there's a bunch of Core API's, for example to use Git or OneLake Shortcuts.

Preview note

Please note that at the time of writing this post, most of the API's are still in preview and subject to change.

Except for the Get Tenant Settings API, all the API's are currently in preview:

The Conference Season Has Begun!

2024-01-25T08:42:00.002+01:00

The conference season is kicking off again! I have quite some events and sessions already lined up for the next months, so I though I'll update you here.

First up is Data Community Day Austria, in Vienna. I'm actually at Schiphol Airport now, waiting to board my plane 😀 I'm presenting a new session on Direct Lake in Microsoft Fabric.

In March, 7-9, the Dutch Power BI Gebruikersdagen are in Utrecht and I'm presenting a session on Saturday: How to use Power BI External Tools.

After that is SQLBits, which I'm skipping this year. MVP Summit is unfortunately also online for me this year, but that has a very good reason...

Because, in the last week of March the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference is happening in Las Vegas, and I'm delighted and excited to say I am presenting 2 sessions there!
The first session is with Ulrich Christ, Program Manager Azure Data Factory at Microsoft, and we are going to talk about Connecting to SAP Data with Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric.
Because the second session is still in the works I can't share any details yet, so you'll just have to wait a bit longer for that.

After that, there's also DataGrillen in Lingen, Germany on May 16 & 17. I'm presenting a session dear to my heart: Fabric Admin in a Day. Do check the amazing 2-day schedule on their site. It's also happening during the Kievelinge Fest, which happens the weekend right after DataGrillen, how convenient... 😁

I'm very excited for the coming months and hope to see many of you there, meeting up with old friends and making new ones! 💛

Ignite News: Microsoft Fabric is Now GA (and more)!

2023-11-15T20:01:00.164+01:00

Over the (roughly) last 6 months we all had the ability to play with Microsoft Fabric, when it went Public Preview at Microsoft Build.

Now that the keynote of Microsoft Ignite by CEO Satya Nadella has been delivered, and also the amazing in-depth Fabric session by Amir Netz, Arun Alagaratchagan: Make your data AI ready with Microsoft Fabric and Azure Databricks. Back then at Build, Satya called it:

Generally available

But now, Satya went one step further and announced GENERAL AVAILABITIY of Fabric!

Also, Copilot in Fabric is now in public preview.

More updates

There's a ton of updates inside Fabric on existing features on the latest Fabric blog here.

And there are also some exciting new features:

Seamlessly connect your data sources to Fabric
The ability to create shortcuts was already there, where you virtualize data in OneLake without having to move or duplicate that data.. You can create shortcuts to another Lakehouse and Warehouse, but also to files on ADLS or even Amazon S3 or Google storage.
The newest feature just announced is called Mirroring, where you can add and manage existing cloud data warehouses (and databases) in Fabric's Data Warehouse experience. The way this works, is like replication in SQL Server. Fabric replicates a snapshot of that database to OneLake in Delta Parquet files and keeps that in sync in near real time, which relies on the Change Data Capture feature of the underlying source. Initially it's supported for Azure Cosmos DB, Azure SQL DB and Snowflake, more sources will follow next year.
Copilot in Power BI (public preview)
Just be aware that Copilot will be rolling out in stages,

Smart Narrative is an existing visual in Power BI Desktop, now rebranded to Narrative with Copilot
The November Desktop update let's you generate synonyms for your fields, measures and tables using Copilot.
In the future, there's also going to be:

a report creation experience
a DAX writing experience

Direct Lake support on Data Warehouse
There's also an update on the size limits of your Fabric capacity and when it will fallback to Direct Query.
Stored credentials for Direct Lake semantic model
You can now specify a fixed identity (like a service principal) for a Direct Lake mode semantic model
Pricing on Fabric is updated!
Reserved pricing is now available, with a rough discount of around 41% off of Pay-As-You-Go pricing.
OneLake integration for Import-mode semantic models is coming!
This allows for a seamless (at least that's what Microsoft claims 😄) integration for your import Power BI Desktop models into OneLake. I wonder if this also implies that you can convert your import report to a Direct Lake mode model afterwards. It's not totally clear to me at this point.

[update on November 16th]

Power BI Desktop November is also out!
Power BI November 2023 Feature Summary

DAX query view
Stored credentials for Direct Lake
Explore

Conclusion

Will I now go all-in on Fabric? "It depends", but probably not 😀

I think it still depends on a case per case basis. Is it a newish customer with not too many investments in other data platform services like Synapse/Data Factory. Then it makes sense to evaluate the requirements and see if it's worthwhile to start with Fabric, considering a lot of features are still in preview, and others are not there yet.

On the other hand, if it's an existing customer with real estate in Synapse and databricks for example, where they implemented a medaillon structure and have infrastructure running there, I'd seriously reconsider if it's worth moving to Fabric. I'm leaning towards a no for now.

Keep a look out on the official Fabric and Power BI blogs and Microsoft Learn for all new content:

I'm updating this post live while the updates are rolling out, so come back later for more updates!😀