Modern Data Architecture in Practice: Lessons from a Collaborative Fabric Rollout

When a plastics manufacturing company committed to scaling its Microsoft Fabric pilot into a production-ready analytics platform, they stressed that it would require collaboration, clarity, and continuous alignment. Knowledge transfer and upskilling were extremely important to them – they knew Concurrency had the experts, but they wanted to also have that domain expertise to be able to support the platform long-term. That’s why over the course of several months, we worked side-by-side with this client’s business and IT teams through a series of workshops and working sessions that shaped every step of this transformation.

What We Discussed & Why It Mattered

Our engagement was structured around interactive sessions designed to tackle the most critical priorities. Here’s a snapshot into what those conversations looked like:

• Discovery Workshops: We started by validating the current state and identifying gaps. These sessions were both technical and strategic, allowing us to align on objectives and what current state looked like.
• Security & Governance Deep-Dives: Row-Level Security (RLS) was a major focus. Through detailed discussions, we mapped out direct, indirect, and exception-based relationships, ensuring that every user would see only the data they were authorized to view. These meetings also covered naming conventions, role assignments, and Active Directory integration.
• Logic App & Entra Integration Sessions: We collaborated on extracting security group data from Microsoft Entra and automating its flow into Fabric. These conversations helped us design dynamic pipelines that could adapt as the organizational structure evolved.
• Production Deployment Workshops: Later on in the project, we shifted gears to deployment. These meetings covered everything from provisioning Fabric capacity and configuring Spark pools to setting up CI/CD pipelines and validating data flows. We worked through real-world challenges like adjusting permissions, troubleshooting gateway connectivity, and optimizing refresh schedules.

These sessions gave our client confidence in the solution and clarity on how to evolve it for future needs.

What We Accomplished Together

By the end of these collaborative workshops, our client had:

• A production-grade Fabric environment with dynamic RLS and automated pipelines.
• A secure on-prem data reconciliation process for trusted reporting.
• Comprehensive documentation and training to sustain and grow the platform independently.

This last bullet point is the most important. Throughout the entire engagement, we were continuously documenting everything we were covering in our sessions so that the client’s team could own and extend the solution long-term – this included platform runbooks, lineage documentation, and best practices. We knew from the beginning that the success of this project would be equally attributed to technical execution and engagement. Because of this foresight, every milestone was intentionally shaped by open dialogue, shared problem-solving, and a commitment to transparency.

Looking Ahead

As a direct result of this project, our client has a modern analytics foundation ready for advanced workloads like AI and predictive modeling, and they’re only getting started. Here’s a snapshot of what they’re currently working on with us:

• Fabric Adoption: Modernizing legacy reporting by migrating from multidimensional SSAS cubes to a streamlined Tabular reporting model, integrating with Power BI, and deploying a hybrid on-prem/Azure Fabric architecture.
• Dynamics 365 Security Roles & Regional Workspaces: Enhancing the D365 environment by addressing legacy JavaScript code, implementing granular security roles, and initiating regional workspaces and reporting.

For organizations navigating similar challenges – complex security requirements, hybrid data environments, or the need for scalable governance – this journey offers a blueprint for success & upskilling your workforce. If you’d like to explore a similar engagement, let’s chat!