About Our Client
We worked with a US-based wealth and trust management firm providing investment management, trust administration, and financial advisory services to both individual and institutional clients. Headquartered in the United States, the firm supports Advisors, Operations, and Compliance teams nationwide with data-driven insights and regulatory reporting.
Its expertise includes assets under management (AUM) reporting, portfolio oversight, and trust administration. Serving financial advisors, operations staff, and compliance teams, the organization required a modern analytics platform to deliver accurate, governed, and compliance-ready reporting while supporting secure self-service analytics across the business.
Goals
- Build a centralized, governed analytics platform consolidating data from 10 or more fragmented financial, CRM, and planning systems
- Deliver self-service Power BI reporting to Advisors, Operations, and Compliance teams
- Implement Microsoft Purview-based governance to support regulatory compliance and lineage tracking
- Establish a single source of truth for assets under management, asset classification, and sales pipeline reporting
- Replace manual, Excel-based reporting with daily automated, auditable data pipelines
- Lay a scalable foundation to extend the platform into future phases and additional source systems
Challenges
The client's data was siloed across 10 or more disconnected systems, including custodial and portfolio platforms such as Black Diamond, Schwab, and Tamarac, alongside a Dynamics 365 CRM and dedicated trust systems. This fragmentation forced heavy reliance on manual, Excel-based reporting across Finance, Investments, CRM, and Operations.
There was no unified metadata, lineage, or data governance framework in place, which limited the organization's ability to demonstrate regulatory-grade data controls. Self-service analytics capability for advisors and business users was similarly limited, slowing decision-making across the business.
Solutions
- Medallion Lakehouse Architecture: Designed and implemented a Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse with Bronze, Silver, and Gold layers, cleanly separating raw, validated, and curated data
- Automated Multi-Source Ingestion: Built daily automated ingestion pipelines via APIs for core custodial and portfolio platforms, a CRM connector, and SFTP-based feeds, replacing manual data handling
- Governed Dashboard Delivery: Delivered curated Gold-layer data into Power BI dashboards covering AUM and AUA, asset classification, and sales pipeline reporting, secured with workspace-level role-based access control
- Purview Governance and Lineage: Deployed Microsoft Purview for metadata management, lineage tracking, and governance across all ingestion pipelines and dashboards
- Right-Sized Environments: Provisioned DEV, UAT, and PROD environments on right-sized Fabric capacities, balancing cost and performance across the platform lifecycle
- Reusable Extension Framework: Built a reusable Azure Data Factory pipeline framework designed to extend cleanly into future onboarding phases and additional source systems
- AI-Assisted Delivery: Enabled native Microsoft Copilot to support documentation and development throughout the engagement
Impacts
- Core Systems Integrated: Fully integrated 4 core source systems in the initial phase, with 6 systems planned across the first two phases of a broader 10-plus system roadmap
- Governed Dashboards Delivered: Delivered 3 governed Power BI dashboards covering AUM and AUA, asset classification, and sales pipeline reporting, with 7 planned across the full engagement
- Daily Automated Refresh: Established daily automated data refresh across all integrated sources, eliminating manual, fragmented reporting
- Scalable Ingestion Capacity: Built ingestion pipelines supporting up to 50 GB per source, providing substantial headroom for data growth
- Multi-Environment Governance: Provisioned 3 dedicated environments, DEV, UAT, and PROD, on right-sized F16 and F64 Fabric capacities respectively
- Improved Compliance Posture: Strengthened compliance readiness through Purview metadata tagging and lineage tracking across all pipelines and dashboards
Success Factors
- Single governed data platform unifying core Phase 1 source systems into one Fabric Lakehouse
- Medallion architecture cleanly separating raw, validated, and curated data across Bronze, Silver, and Gold layers
- Daily automated ingestion via APIs and SFTP, replacing manual data handling entirely
- Purview-driven lineage and governance across all ingestion pipelines and dashboards
- Workspace-level role-based access control restricting edit access, with read-only delivery to approved users
- A reusable Azure Data Factory pipeline framework designed to extend cleanly into future onboarding phases
- Right-sized Fabric capacities balancing cost and performance across DEV, UAT, and PROD environments
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