Configuring compliance for Microsoft Fabric

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In this post I want cover how you can test configuring compliance for Microsoft Fabric in your own private environment. So that you get a better idea of the compliance story for Microsoft Fabric.

I thought I better write this post since I got asked about compliance during a Microsoft Fabric session I did at Data Saturday Croatia over the weekend.

Compliance is a very important aspect when working for data. Especially when you must work to standards like PCI-DSS. With this in mind I looked into the compliance story for Microsoft Fabric.

By the end of this post, you will have a better idea of how to test configuring compliance for Microsoft Fabric. Along the way I share plenty of links.

To clarify, this post focuses on the compliance aspect for Microsoft Fabric, not the full governance aspect. However, I do mention the Microsoft Purview Governance Portal to give the other portal some context.

One key point to note is that Microsoft Fabric is now generally available. You can read more about this in detail in the official post by Ryan Majidimehr.

Enable your own Microsoft Fabric environment

Before I cover compliance, I want to cover quickly how you can enable your own Microsoft Fabric environment.

So that you can be a Microsoft tenant administrator in a private environment. Which gives you the freedom to experiment with both Microsoft Fabric and the rest of the compliance story.

In my last post about spreading your Power BI wings with Microsoft Fabric I mentioned that there are a few different ways to join the Microsoft Fabric (Preview) trial.

One of those ways was the step-by-step guide to enable Microsoft Fabric for Microsoft 365 Developer Account.

Once you have registered Microsoft 365 Developer Account, you get provisioned a new tenant for use.

You will know when this has worked because you will receive an email and access to the below dashboard. Which shows that you have a Microsoft 365 E5 subscription for a limited period of time.

You can then login through either the Power BI website or the Microsoft Fabric website using the created administrator account. So that you can activate the trial. I highly recommend that you do a couple of things at this stage.

First of all, I suggest you sign into the website using an incognito or private window to avoid any issues.

Secondly, I strongly recommend that you add the additional security requested when you login with your administrator account as soon as possible. To avoid any anomalies.

One key point to remember is that once you are at this stage you have full control in the Microsoft Fabric Admin portal.

Anyway, once that is done you can follow the rest of the step-by-step guide to enable the trial within Microsoft Fabric.

Afterwards, you can look to configure compliance for Microsoft Fabric.

Microsoft Purview compliance portal

Now it is time to talk about compliance. Because once you have registered for your Microsoft 365 Developer Account and deployed your tenant you can sign in and start using the Microsoft Purview compliance portal.

I know most people associate Purview with the Microsoft Purview Governance Portal. Which is the service you use mostly for your governance needs, such as scanning assets. Like in the below example.

However, the Microsoft Purview compliance portal is an element of Microsoft Purview that comes with the Microsoft 365 E5 subscriptions.

Now, those of you who are looking to go through the get started with Microsoft Fabric learning path in Microsoft Learn will have an immediate use for this portal.

Due to the fact that you can add sensitivity labels within Information protection solution. Which you need to do as part of the data warehouses module.

However, this is just one example of what you can do in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal. In reality, you can do a lot more with it. For example, configure Microsoft Purview Compliance manager to assess and manage compliance.

Viewing compliance within Microsoft Fabric

One final part of the compliance story is the Microsoft Purview hub. Which you can access within the Settings menu in Microsoft Fabric.

Once selected it can provides you with an overview about various governance and compliance details. In addition, it provides tiles at the top of the screen that you can use as useful shortcuts.

You can gain even deeper insights by clicking on the “Open full report” button.

Final words

I hope this post has inspired some of you to test configuring compliance for Microsoft Fabric in your own private environment. Because you get the chance to test more capabilities in your own private environment.

After dealing with compliance for so many years I am pleased that I finally get to do a post about it.

Anyway, if you have any comments or queries about this post feel free to reach out to me.