Getting Started — Microsoft Fabric Guide

👤 Who is this for?

Everyone — Track your Fabric adoption progress across foundation setup, security, architecture, deployment, and analytics. Progress is saved in your browser.

Section 12

Getting Started Checklist

Track your Fabric adoption progress. Your progress is saved in your browser.

0 of 20 completed (0%)

🏗️ Foundation

Activate a Fabric trial or provision a capacity Start with a free 60-day trial (F64) to evaluate features
Configure tenant-level Fabric settings Enable/disable Fabric for specific security groups in the admin portal
Create workspace structure (Dev / Test / Prod) Follow naming conventions and assign to appropriate capacity
Set up domains and assign workspace ownership Align workspaces to business domains (Finance, Marketing, etc.)

🔐 Security & Governance

Configure workspace roles and access Assign Admin, Member, Contributor, and Viewer roles per workspace
Enable Microsoft Purview integration Set up data cataloging, lineage tracking, and glossary
Apply sensitivity labels to sensitive data Configure MIP labels and auto-labeling policies
Enable audit logging Turn on unified audit log in Microsoft 365 compliance center

📐 Architecture

Design your medallion architecture (Bronze / Silver / Gold) Define layers, naming conventions, and data flow patterns
Create lakehouses for each medallion layer e.g., lh_bronze, lh_silver, lh_gold
Decide: Lakehouse vs. Warehouse for Gold layer Choose based on team skills (Spark vs. T-SQL) and consumer needs
Set up shortcuts for external data sources Connect to ADLS Gen2, S3, or cross-workspace data without copying

🚀 Development & Deployment

Connect workspaces to Git (Azure DevOps / GitHub) Enable version control and collaboration on Fabric artifacts
Set up deployment pipelines (Dev → Test → Prod) Configure stages and deployment rules for environment-specific settings
Build your first data ingestion pipeline Use Data Factory to load data into Bronze layer lakehouse
Create transformation notebooks (Bronze → Silver → Gold) Implement data cleansing, deduplication, and business logic

📊 Analytics & Reporting

Create a Direct Lake semantic model on Gold layer Connect Power BI to lakehouse/warehouse for optimal performance
Implement Row-Level Security on reports Configure RLS roles for multi-tenant or role-based data access
Install the Capacity Metrics app Monitor CU consumption, identify throttling, and optimize costs
Endorse production artifacts (Certify / Promote) Signal trust and quality for your Gold-layer datasets and reports