In one of my previous posts, “How Leadership Teams Can Work With Microsoft Fabric,” one of the key aspects that I outlined is why leaders should play a key role in data quality and observability. In essence, leaders play a critical role in data governance. This happens not necessarily from a technical standpoint, but from a managerial standpoint, as data governance relates to the management of all data assets. Data assets are not just databases. They include the support of data, such as an ERP, a CRM, a website, or e-commerce.

Data is considered to be one of the most valuable non-financial assets in any organization. As such, it is important for any business leader to know how to locate data that can be used for analysis, as well as understand who is using it and how.

Fortunately, this is a lot easier now that Microsoft has released a free version of Microsoft Purview, the latest data governance solution. While the free version offers it’s own capabilities, there is a paid, enterprise version with more available functionality.

Capabilities of Microsoft Purview (Free Version)

One of the great features that Purview provides is Develop and Maintain a Data Catalog. This is one of the most important aspects as it helps business leaders and users to understand what data assets are available. Purview will allow the administrator to browse and explore all data repositories limited to:

• Azure Blob Storage
• Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2
• Azure SQL Database
• Azure subscriptions

In addition to just browsing data, administrators can add additional metadata to those assets by adding descriptions, noting owners of data, and adding column descriptions, or points of contact.

Something very important in a data catalog is the availability of data lineage. Data lineage allows for the display of the flow of data and its transformation across systems. This feature allows users to trace back any report or dashboard to understand where the data coming from.

Sample of Data Lineage with Microsoft Purview

Data Sharing

As important as understanding where the enterprise data is hosted and how it is transformed across systems, it’s equally important to understand who is managing and consuming data and for what purpose. This is the premise of data sharing.

With Purview, it is possible to consolidate data assets into one single panel. It is also possible to control and monitor how data is shared with third parties outside your organization. By having visibility to what data is exposed and to whom, data security improves.

Final Thoughts

Regardless of industry or data experience, leadership teams now have the opportunity to actively participate with the technical teams and protect data. Everybody plays a key role in technology, and technology is not about tools, it is about humans.