This session will explore how organizations can leverage Microsoft Fabric to gain insights into shadow IT activities within their enterprise. Often, when activities are not happening within the governed IT infrastructure, they still occur through tools like Excel, which will lead to a lack of visibility and control. By empowering users with the tools offered by Microsoft Fabric, organizations can not only gain insights into these activities but also unlock greater value from everyone working with data.

Many of my customers express concerns about wanting to restrict users from creating workspaces or performing certain actions, fearing they will lose track of their data and its whereabouts. Common fears include data sprawl, unauthorized data access, and compliance risks. However, it's crucial to understand that if business users are unable to achieve their goals within Power BI, they will find alternative methods that are likely invisible to the organization. This scenario represents a losing proposition.

During this session, we will focus on strategies to empower users while implementing guardrails to ensure they operate within safe boundaries. Some of these guardrails, like sensitivity labels, endorsements, or deployment pipelines, can be real gamechangers when used effectively. We will demonstrate how Microsoft Fabric can alleviate these common fears by providing robust tools for monitoring, managing, and securing data activities. Attendees will learn how to balance user empowerment with necessary controls to prevent data sprawl and maintain organizational oversight.