Microsoft Fabric Updates Blog

Fabric + Microsoft 365 Data: Better Together

Announcements

Microsoft Graph is the gateway to data and intelligence in Microsoft 365. It provides a unified model to access the tremendous amount of data in Microsoft 365 including Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, Viva Insights, and more. Use the wealth of data in Microsoft Graph to build forward looking business insights to unlock insights on customer relationships, business processes, security and compliance, and people productivity.

At Build 2023, we demonstrated how you can bring all your Microsoft 365 data into Microsoft Fabric which enables you to manage your Microsoft 365 alongside your other data sources in one place with a suite of analytical experiences that seamlessly work together to transform your data into competitive advantage.

And this just got better! With this update, we are announcing Microsoft Graph Data Connect Fabric Native Integration in public preview. This means that Microsoft 365 data is natively integrated to OneLake (via Data Factory in Fabric) in the Delta Parquet format, which is the optimal format for data analysis. Previously, Microsoft 365 data was only offered in JSON and Parquet format. Your Microsoft 365 data can now be seamlessly joined with other data sources in OneLake. This also means that AI capabilities like Copilot in Microsoft Fabric can now directly access Microsoft 365 data within OneLake.

Get Started

We are excited to announce Streamlined Onboarding for Microsoft Graph Data Connect now in Public Preview. The simplified onboarding experience includes unified application management by Microsoft 365 administrators (approvals) as well as azure application management by data analysts and engineers (creating/authoring/executing the data requests). Microsoft 365 administrators can now approve data access directly from the Microsoft 365 Admin Center (admin.microsoft.com). This means that Microsoft 365 administrators will be able to directly enable Microsoft Graph Data Connect without using Privileged Access Management (PAM) to authorize the application’s data usage. This also removes the additional E5 license requirements that our customers originally needed with PAM to approve MGDC data access requests.

Learn more about the onboarding experience.

Access all your Microsoft 365 data though Microsoft Graph Data Connect

To access your Micrsoft 365 in the Microsoft Graph for enterprise analytics, we use Microsoft Graph Data Connect which a secure, scalable solution that enables you to copy relevant Microsoft 365 datasets into Microsoft Fabric.

In the below diagram, you can see just some types of Microsoft 365 data that organizations get though Microsoft Graph Data Connect. There are datasets available from a wide variety of Microsoft 365 sources, including Entra ID, Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Viva Insight, and Microsoft Groups—and the list is growing. For the full list: Datasets, regions, and sinks supported by Microsoft Graph Data Connect

New Datasets

We are continuing to expand the library of Microsoft 365 datasets available through Microsoft Graph Data Connect. Here are some of the latest datasets:

OneDrive Sync Health dataset. Use the information in the upcoming OneDrive Sync Health dataset (combined with the existing SharePoint Sites dataset) to help understand if the devices in the tenant are successfully syncing. You can also see if users configured folder backups (known folders move) and identify any errors preventing devices from syncing. Learn more about this dataset.

SharePoint Files dataset. This upcoming dataset will offer detailed information about every file in your tenant, including site, folder, name, extension, author, size, creation date, modified date, sensitivity label, and more. Filter, group, and create insightful reports about files in SharePoint and OneDrive. Learn more about this dataset.

SharePoint File Actions dataset. Get detailed information about how files are being used in SharePoint and OneDrive. This upcoming dataset includes information about every time a file has been accessed, uploaded, downloaded, deleted, moved, renamed or modified. This also has details about the file and the user performing the action. Learn more about this dataset.

SharePoint Capacity template. Use the information in SharePoint Sites dataset and the upcoming SharePoint Files dataset to understand how storage is being used by the tenant. This template offers information on how to leverage Synapse and Power BI to create common dashboards and includes a sample Power BI file to get you started. Learn more about this dataset.

Intune Licenses and devices registration dataset.

- Owned Devices. Get detailed information related to all the devices that are owned by each user in the organization.
- Registered Devices. Get detailed information related to all the devices that a user is registered on in the organization.
- License Details. This dataset provides details for user’s licenses that are directly assigned and those transitively assigned through memberships in licensed groups.

Customer Stories

JLL brings together data from the company’s multiple customer relationship management (CRM) applications to create a unified, at-a-glance dashboard that scores broker relationships for each of their clients and prospects. By adopting Microsoft Graph Data Connect, JLL gained the ability to add email activity and calendar events to its relationship scores, creating a more holistic view of broker and customer or prospect relationships.

JLL brokers can easily determine which of their colleagues is currently in conversation with a given client. “With the addition of Microsoft Graph Data Connect, JLL’s One Client View now provides a more powerful, unified view of client and prospect relationships across multiple CRMs and lines of business,” says Brendan Jayagopal: Principal Product Manager, JLL Technologies.

Learn more: Microsoft Graph Data Connect Customer Stories

Security

Microsoft Graph Data Connect provides secure access to your enterprise Microsoft 365 data at scale. Today, we are releasing custom encryption with customer owned keys in public preview for datasets offered by Microsoft Graph Data Connect.

Microsoft Graph Data Connect honors the compliance assurance made by Microsoft 365 services for encryption in transit. With this new release, customers can now apply an additional layer of data security to ensure data lands in their destination storage account encrypted.

Customers can enable encryption during app registration or by editing their existing app properties. Once enabled, Microsoft Graph Data Connect encrypts selected datasets using RSA 2048 and AES 256 keys. Finally, datasets are delivered to the customer’s storage account encrypted along with an encrypted symmetric key for decryption.

Learn more about data governance and security in Microsoft Graph Data Connect.

Conclusion

Microsoft Graph Data Connect empowers organizations to make data-driven decisions and gain valuable insights that can drive growth and innovation. With Microsoft Graph Data Connect, organizations can quickly access and extract Microsoft 365 data at scale, in a secure and privacy-compliant format.

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