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Tag Archive: Fabric

  • Fabric Toolbox: A Helpful Resource for Exploring Fabric

    Purple Frog Systems branded blog header featuring a team member standing in front of a purple background with hexagon graphics and a magnifying glass illustration, alongside the title “Fabric Toolbox: A Helpful Resource for Exploring Fabric.”March 5th, 2026 in Blog, Community, Fabric, Microsoft Fabric

    As Microsoft Fabric adoption grows, many businesses are starting to move beyond experimentation and into building production analytics platforms. However, implementing and managing a modern data platform still involves more than simply enabling the technology. To help teams get started and explore best practices, Microsoft and the wider community have introduced Fabric Toolbox, a collection of open source resources designed to support Microsoft…

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  • Enforcing NOT NULL in a CTAS

    December 9th, 2025 in Blog, SQL

    In this blog I will show you how to use a CTAS to create a table with non-nullable columns. I have a table with the following structure (note all columns are non-nullable): CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Date] ( [Date] DATE NOT NULL, [Day] INT NOT NULL, [Week] INT NOT NULL, [Month] INT NOT NULL, [Quarter] INT NOT NULL, [Year] INT NOT NULL ) GO If I want to create a new version of this table with an additional column called YearMonth, the easiest way to do…

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  • Back Up and Restore a Fabric Lakehouse

    Jon wearing a black and purple Purple Frog Systems polo shirt, standing in front of a graphic background featuring hexagonal patterns and an image of a lakeside house surrounded by trees. Text on the image reads: “Back Up and Restore a Fabric Lakehouse.”November 27th, 2025 in Backup, Blog, Fabric, Restore Point

    Fabric Lakehouses have been around for a while, but they still offer no native way to back them up or restore them. Fortunately, the way Lakehouses are structured makes it possible to build your own backup process. A Lakehouse is split into two areas: Files and Tables. The Files area is straightforward, you can download and back up these items directly. The Tables are powered by Delta tables, which are made up of two key components: the…

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  • Underutilised Power BI Visuals (and When to Use Them)

    James wearing a black and purple Purple Frog Systems polo shirt, standing in front of a graphic background with hexagonal patterns and an image of hands working on a tablet. Text on the image reads: “Underutilised Power BI Visuals (and When to Use Them).October 3rd, 2025 in Blog, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI

    Introduction Power BI provides many built-in visuals, plus custom options from the marketplace. Yet many reports still rely heavily on bar, column, and line charts. While those are effective, a few underutilised visuals can help tell richer stories and surface deeper insights. This post highlights some of them, explains when they add value, and offers guidance on using them thoughtfully. Decomposition Tree What it does: Lets you dynamically…

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  • How to Run T-SQL in Microsoft Fabric Python Notebooks

    June 26th, 2025 in Blog, Python, SQL

    Here at Purple Frog Systems, I’ve been experimenting with pure Python Notebooks rather than PySpark Notebooks for small to medium datasets, due to their super quick start up time and reduced CU consumption for customers with smaller F-SKUs. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/data-engineering/fabric-notebook-selection-guide When scrolling through LinkedIn I came across a Microsoft Blog which allows you to combine T-SQL and Python within…

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  • Transform Your Data Strategy: Why You Should Migrate to Microsoft Fabric

    March 24th, 2025 in Blog, Fabric, Microsoft Fabric

    Microsoft Fabric Migration offers several compelling benefits for organisations looking to enhance their data management and analytics capabilities 📊 Here are some key reasons why you should consider the transition: 1. Unified data ecosystem Microsoft Fabric consolidates diverse data toolsets into a single integrated service. This means you no longer need to juggle multiple tools and platforms. Fabric provides a comprehensive solution…

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  • Data Factory pipeline failure with a “null” error message

    March 10th, 2025 in ADFv2, Blog, Data Factory, Fabric, Synapse

    Have you ever had this error when running a pipeline in ADF or Synapse? I have now seen this more than once and it can be frustrating to debug the issue. After trying a few different setups in Synapse I have found that the following scenarios all result in the same error: 1. An Until activity inside an If Condition 2. A nested ForEach activity 3. A parameter with “-” in the parameter name For 1 and 2 it is not possible to create…

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  • How to Effectively Restore a Table in a Fabric Warehouse

    How to Effectively Restore a Table in a Fabric WarehouseFebruary 3rd, 2025 in Backup, Blog, Fabric, Restore Point, Time Travel, Warehouse

    If you’ve ever used a database, you’ve probably experienced that heart-jolting moment when you accidentally drop a table or run an update statement without a WHERE clause. In that instant, the table is either gone or potentially corrupted beyond repair. Fortunately, there are ways to recover data, depending on the environment you’re working in. In traditional databases like on-prem SQL Server, or other systems that rely on physical…

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  • Introducing Dynamic Execution of Fabric Pipelines: The Wait is Over!

    January 28th, 2025 in Blog, Fabric

    For several years, it has been a limiting factor that Azure Data Factory (ADF) and Azure Synapse Analytics, and more recently Fabric, did not allow dynamic content to be passed into the invoked pipeline name within the Execute Pipeline activity. I’ve blogged about a workaround for this in Azure Synapse Analytics previously here:…

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  • Matt Earns Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate Certification

    Matt Earns Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate CertificationDecember 31st, 2024 in Fabric, Microsoft Fabric, News, Power BI

    We’re excited to share some fantastic news – Matt has officially achieved the prestigious Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate certification! This accomplishment highlights Matt’s dedication to mastering advanced analytics and engineering skills within the Microsoft Fabric ecosystem. This certification demonstrates expertise in designing and implementing data solutions that deliver valuable insights, a critical…

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