Modernizing Enterprise Reporting: From Legacy BI to a Governed Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse
About the Client
Goals
Replace a legacy, high-cost DOMO reporting platform with a modern, scalable analytics environment
Eliminate recurring reporting license costs by consolidating analytics onto a single Microsoft Fabric capacity
Migrate all historical data, pipelines, and reports with zero disruption to business users
Establish automated CI/CD delivery discipline for ongoing platform development
Enable governed, self-service reporting for business teams through Power BI
Unify fragmented data from trust administration, CRM, financial, and regulatory sources into a single governed platform
Achieve design to production go live within a 9-month timeline
Challenges
Enterprise reporting depended on a legacy DOMO platform carrying high recurring license costs and limited scalability. Data required for analytics was fragmented across multiple systems, including TrustDesk, Synergy CRM, SWP, Envestnet, LPL, QuickBooks, and regulatory sources such as NCUA and Census data, making enterprise wide reporting slow, expensive, and difficult to govern.
Hexaview took on a greenfield platform build rather than a simple lift and shift. The engagement required standing up dedicated DEV, UAT, and PROD Fabric workspaces, ingesting batch data from six distinct source systems, building a two-way enrichment loop with the CRM platform, and migrating years of historical reporting data out of DOMO through a custom write back connector, all while the business continued to depend on uninterrupted reporting throughout the transition. Security and governance requirements added further complexity, requiring careful configuration of identity, secrets management, and data cataloging, and key architectural decisions, such as choosing between a Lakehouse and Warehouse engine and defining mobile access policy, needed to be validated with real performance data rather than assumptions.
Solutions
Greenfield Medallion Lakehouse: Designed and built a Bronze, Silver, and Gold layered Lakehouse on a dedicated Microsoft Fabric capacity, with separate DEV, UAT, and PROD workspaces
Multi Source Data Ingestion: Built batch ingestion pipelines for TrustDesk, SWP, Envestnet, LPL, and QuickBooks, alongside a two-way enrichment loop with the client's CRM platform and ingestion of NCUA and Census regulatory data
Shortcut Based Bronze Layer: Used Fabric shortcuts in the Bronze layer to reference source data directly, avoiding unnecessary duplication and reducing storage overhead
Legacy Data Migration: Migrated historical reporting data out of the legacy DOMO platform through a custom write back connector, preserving continuity of business logic and historical reporting
Direct Lake Reporting: Delivered Power BI dashboards on Fabric's Direct Lake mode, enabling near real time self-service reporting without traditional import refresh cycles
Outbound Integrations: Built outbound integrations to the CRM platform and Laserfiche using Copilot Studio, extending Lakehouse data into downstream business workflows
CI/CD Automation: Implemented automated deployment pipelines using GitHub Actions and fabric-cicd, enabling consistent, repeatable releases across environments
Security and Governance: Configured identity, secrets, and cataloging controls using Microsoft Entra ID, Azure Key Vault, and Microsoft Purview to meet fiduciary and regulatory requirements
POC Driven Engineering Decisions: Ran targeted proof of concept benchmarks, including Lakehouse versus Warehouse performance testing on 50 million record workloads and Power BI web versus mobile access control design, to validate architecture choices before full build out
Impacts
Recurring analytics license and platform costs reduced by 40% following retirement of the legacy DOMO platform
Report turnaround time improved by 60% through Power BI's Direct Lake reporting model
100% of enterprise reporting migrated from the legacy platform onto Microsoft Fabric and Power BI with zero disruption to business users
Proof of concept benchmarking on 50 million record datasets showed the Warehouse engine performing 18-29% faster for scans and aggregations, with a stored procedure transformation completing in 3 minutes 56 seconds versus 4 minutes 33 seconds in PySpark, directly informing engineering decisions
Mobile reporting access restricted to executives through Conditional Access policy, while general users retained full web access, balancing governance with usability
Design to production go live completed within 9 months, with ongoing support continuing post launch
Success Factors
Elimination of recurring legacy licensing costs by consolidating analytics onto a single governed Fabric capacity
Shortcut based Bronze layer design that avoided unnecessary data duplication while preserving source fidelity
Direct Lake reporting model enabling near real time Power BI insights without import refresh cycles
Automated CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions and fabric-cicd for reliable, repeatable deployments
POC driven engineering decisions that validated architecture choices with real performance data before commitment
Cross functional delivery team spanning architecture, data engineering, BI development, and business analysis
Full ownership of the data estate transferred to the client, enabling long term platform independence
About Us
As a company with an unwavering commitment to digitally transforming businesses, we are the secret ingredient behind some of the most successful Portfolio Management tools used by leading wealth management firms.
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