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What's new in Microsoft Fabric?

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This page is continuously updated with a recent review of what's new in Microsoft Fabric.

New to Microsoft Fabric?

This section includes articles and announcements for users new to Microsoft Fabric.

Month Feature Learn more
March 2024 Microsoft Fabric is now HIPAA compliant We're excited to announce that Microsoft Fabric, our all-in-one analytics solution for enterprises, has achieved new certifications for HIPAA and ISO 27017, ISO 27018, ISO 27001, ISO 27701.
March 2024 Exam DP-600 is now available Exam DP-600 is now available, leading to the Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate certification. The Fabric Career Hub can help you learn quickly and get certified.
March 2024 Fabric Copilot Pricing: An End-to-End example Copilot in Fabric begins billing on March 1, 2024 as part of your existing Power BI Premium or Fabric Capacity. Learn how Fabric Copilot usage is calculated.
January 2024 Microsoft Fabric Copilot for Data Science and Data Engineering Copilot for Data Science and Data Engineering is now available worldwide. What can Copilot for Data Science and Data Engineering do for you?
December 2023 Fabric platform Security Fundamentals Learn more about the big-picture perspective of the Microsoft Fabric security architecture by describing how the main security flows in the system work.
November 2023 Microsoft Fabric, explained for existing Synapse users A focus on what customers using the current Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) version of Synapse can expect. We explain what the general availability of Fabric means for your current investments (spoiler: we fully support them), but also how to think about the future.

Features currently in preview

The following table lists the features of Microsoft Fabric that are currently in preview. Preview features are sorted alphabetically.

Note

Features currently in preview are available under supplemental terms of use, review for legal terms that apply to Azure features that are in beta, preview, or otherwise not yet released into general availability. Microsoft Fabric provides previews to give you a chance to evaluate and share feedback with the product group on features before they become generally available (GA).

Feature Learn more
CI/CD for Fabric Data Pipelines preview Git Integration and integration with built-in Deployment Pipelines to Data Factory data pipelines is now in preview. For more information, see Data Factory Adds CI/CD to Fabric Data Pipelines.
Code-First AutoML preview In Synapse Data Science, the new AutoML feature enables automation of your machine learning workflow. AutoML, or Automated Machine Learning, is a set of techniques and tools that can automatically train and optimize machine learning models for any given data and task type.
Code-First Hyperparameter Tuning preview In Synapse Data Science, FLAML is now integrated for hyperparameter tuning, currently a preview feature. Fabric's flaml.tune feature streamlines this process, offering a cost-effective and efficient approach to hyperparameter tuning.
Copilot in Fabric (preview) is available worldwide Copilot in Fabric (preview) is now available to all customers, including Copilot for Power BI, Data Factory, and Data Science & Data Engineering. Read more in our Overview on Copilot in Fabric.
Data Activator preview We're thrilled to announce that Data Activator is now in preview and is enabled for all existing Microsoft Fabric users.
Data Engineering: Environment preview We're thrilled to announce preview of the Environment in Fabric. The Environment is a centralized item that allows you to configure all the required settings for running a Spark job in one place.
Data Wrangler for Spark DataFrames preview Data Wrangler now supports Spark DataFrames in preview, users can now edit Spark DataFrames in addition to pandas DataFrames with Data Wrangler.
Domains in OneLake (preview) Domains in OneLake help you organize your data into a logical data mesh, allowing federated governance and optimizing for business needs. You can now create sub domains, default domains for users, and move workspaces between domains. For more information, see Fabric domains.
Eventhouse Overview: Handling Real-Time Data with Microsoft Fabric Eventhouse (preview) is a dynamic workspace hosting multiple KQL databases, part of Fabric Real-Time Analytics. An Eventhouse offers a robust solution for managing and analyzing substantial volumes of real-time data. Get started with a guide to Create and manage an Eventhouse.
Folder in Workspace preview As an organizational unit in the workspace, folder addresses this pain point by providing a hierarchical structure for organizing and managing your items. For more information, see Create folders in workspaces (preview).
Integrating On-Premises Data into Microsoft Fabric using Data Pipelines in Data Factory preview You can use the on-premises Data Gateway, currently a preview feature, to connect to on-premises data sources using dataflows and data pipelines with Data Factory. For more information, see How to access on-premises data sources in Data Factory for Microsoft Fabric.
Kusto Cache consumption preview The preview of Kusto Cache consumption means that you will start seeing billable consumption of the OneLake Cache Data Stored meter from the KQL Database and Eventhouse items. For more information, see KQL Database consumption.
Lakehouse support for git integration and deployment pipelines (preview) The Lakehouse now integrates with the lifecycle management capabilities in Microsoft Fabric, providing a standardized collaboration between all development team members throughout the product's life. Lifecycle management facilitates an effective product versioning and release process by continuously delivering features and bug fixes into multiple environments.
Managed private endpoints (preview) Managed private endpoints for Microsoft Fabric allow secure connections over managed virtual networks to data sources that are behind a firewall or not accessible from the public internet.
Managed virtual networks (preview) Managed virtual networks are virtual networks that are created and managed by Microsoft Fabric for each Fabric workspace.
Microsoft 365 connector now supports ingesting data into Lakehouse (preview) The Microsoft 365 connector now supports ingesting data into Lakehouse tables.
Microsoft Fabric Admin APIs Fabric Admin APIs are designed to streamline administrative tasks. The initial set of Fabric Admin APIs is tailored to simplify the discovery of workspaces, Fabric items, and user access details.
Microsoft Fabric User APIs We're happy to announce the preview of Microsoft Fabric User APIs. The Fabric user APIs are a major enabler for both enterprises and partners to use Microsoft Fabric as they enable end-to-end fully automated interaction with the service, enable integration of Microsoft Fabric into external web applications, and generally enable customers and partners to scale their solutions more easily.
Mirroring in Microsoft Fabric preview With Mirroring in Fabric, you can easily bring your databases into OneLake in Microsoft Fabric, enabling seamless zero-ETL, near real-time insights on your data – and unlocking warehousing, BI, AI, and more. For more information, see What is Mirroring in Fabric?.
Notebook Git integration preview Fabric notebooks now offer Git integration for source control using Azure DevOps. It allows users to easily control the notebook code versions and manage the git branches by leveraging the Fabric Git functions and Azure DevOps.
Notebook in Deployment Pipeline Preview Now you can also use notebooks to deploy your code across different environments, such as development, test, and production. You can also use deployment rules to customize the behavior of your notebooks when they're deployed, such as changing the default Lakehouse of a Notebook. Get started with deployment pipelines, and Notebook shows up in the deployment content automatically.
OneLake data access roles OneLake data access roles for lakehouse are in preview. Role permissions and user/group assignments can be easily updated through a new folder security user interface or through API calls.
OneLake Shortcuts API New REST APIs for OneLake Shortcuts allow programmatic creation and management of shortcuts, currently in preview. You can now programmatically create, read, and delete OneLake shortcuts. For example, see Use OneLake shortcuts REST APIs.
OneLake shortcuts to S3-compatible data sources preview OneLake shortcuts to S3-compatible data sources are now in preview. Create an Amazon S3 compatible shortcut to connect to your existing data through a single unified name space without having to copy or move data.
OneLake shortcuts to Google Cloud Storage preview OneLake shortcuts to Google Cloud Storage are now in preview. Create a Google Cloud Storage shortcut to connect to your existing data through a single unified name space without having to copy or move data.
Prebuilt Azure AI services in Fabric preview The preview of prebuilt AI services in Fabric is an integration with Azure AI services, formerly known as Azure Cognitive Services. Prebuilt Azure AI services allow for easy enhancement of data with prebuilt AI models without any prerequisites. Currently, prebuilt AI services are in preview and include support for the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Language, and Azure AI Translator.
Private Endpoints for Microsoft Fabric (Preview) Managed Private Endpoints for Microsoft Fabric (preview) allow secure connections to data sources that are behind a firewall or not accessible from the public internet. For more information, see Introducing Managed Private Endpoints for Microsoft Fabric in Preview.
Private Link support for Microsoft Fabric (Preview) Azure Private Link for Microsoft Fabric secures access to your sensitive data in Microsoft Fabric by providing network isolation and applying required controls on your inbound network traffic. For more information, see Announcing Azure Private Link Support for Microsoft Fabric in Preview.
REST APIs for Fabric Data Factory pipelines preview The REST APIs for Fabric Data Factory Pipelines are now in preview. REST APIs for Data Factory pipelines enable you to extend the built-in capability in Fabric to create, read, update, delete, and list pipelines.
Splunk add-on preview Microsoft Fabric add-on for Splunk allows users to ingest logs from Splunk platform into a Fabric KQL DB using the Kusto python SDK.
Trusted workspace access (preview) for OneLake Shortcuts Trusted workspace access (preview) enables secure and seamless access to ADLS Gen2 storage accounts from OneLake shortcuts in Fabric. For more information, see Trusted workspace access (preview).
Update records in a KQL Database preview The .update command is now available, as a preview feature. Learn more about how to Update records in a Kusto database.
Warehouse restore points and restore in place You can now create restore points and perform an in-place restore of a warehouse to a past point in time. Restore in-place is an essential part of data warehouse recovery which allows to restore the data warehouse to a prior known reliable state by replacing or over-writing the existing data warehouse from which the restore point was created.

Generally available features

The following table lists the features of Microsoft Fabric that have transitioned from preview to general availability (GA) within the last 6 months.

Month Feature Learn more
April 2024 Semantic Link GA Semantic links are now generally available! The package comes with our default VHD, you can now use Semantic link in Fabric right away without any pip installation.
March 2024 VNet Gateways in Dataflow Gen2 VNet Data Gateway support for Dataflows Gen2 in Fabric is now generally available. The VNet data gateway helps to connect from Fabric Dataflows Gen2 to Azure data services within a VNet, without the need of an on-premises data gateway.

Community

This section summarizes new Microsoft Fabric community opportunities for prospective and current influencers and MVPs.

Month Feature Learn more
March 2024 Earn a free Microsoft Fabric certification exam Become eligible for a free certification exam by completing the Fabric AI Skills Challenge. The Fabric Analytics Engineer AI Skills Challenge is open until April 19, 2024.
March 2024 Exam DP-600 is now available Exam DP-600 is now available, leading to the Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate certification. The Fabric Career Hub can help you learn quickly and get certified.
March 2024 Microsoft Fabric Community Conference Join us in Las Vegas March 26-28, 2024 for the first annual Microsoft Fabric Community Conference. See firsthand how Microsoft Fabric and the rest of the data and AI products at Microsoft can help your organization prepare for the era of AI. Register today using code MSCUST for an exclusive discount!
March 2024 Announcing the winners of "HackTogether: The Microsoft Fabric Global AI Hack" We received 50 Hackathon project submissions from over 100 registrants, participating from every corner of the world. Our judges were blown away by the breadth, depth, and overall quality of submissions. Meet the winners of the Fabric Global AI Hack!
January 2024 Announcing Fabric Career Hub The new Fabric Career Hub is your one-stop-shop for professional growth! We've created a comprehensive learning journey with the best free on-demand and live training, plus exam discounts.
January 2024 Hack Together: The Microsoft Fabric Global AI Hack Hack Together is a global online hackathon that runs from February 15 to March 4, 2024. Join us for Hack Together: The Microsoft Fabric Global AI Hack, a virtual event where you can learn, experiment, and hack together with the new Copilot and AI features in Microsoft Fabric! For more information, see Microsoft Fabric Global AI Hack.
December 2023 Microsoft Fabric Community Conference Join us in Las Vegas March 26-28, 2024 for the first annual Microsoft Fabric Community Conference. See firsthand how Microsoft Fabric and the rest of the data and AI products at Microsoft can help your organization prepare for the era of AI. Register today to immerse yourself in the future of data and AI and connect with thousands of data innovators like yourself eager to share their insights.
December 2023 Fabric Cloud skills challenge Join the thousands of professionals that have completed the Microsoft Fabric Challenge as part of the Microsoft Ignite Cloud Skills Challenge. In less than 8 hours, you'll learn how to connect, ingest, store, analyze, and report on data with Power BI and Microsoft Fabric. The Microsoft Fabric challenge prepares you for the Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate certification, available soon. The challenge is on until January 15, 2024.

Power BI

Updates to Power BI Desktop and the Power BI service are summarized at What's new in Power BI?

Fabric samples and guidance

This section summarizes new guidance and sample project resources for Microsoft Fabric.

Month Feature Learn more
March 2024 Protect PII information in your Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse with Responsible AI One possible way to use Azure AI to identify and extract personally identifiable information (PII) in Microsoft Fabric is to use Azure AI Language to detect and categorize PII entities in text data, such as names, addresses, emails, phone numbers, social security numbers, etc.
February 2024 Building Common Data Architectures with OneLake in Microsoft Fabric Read more about common data architecture patterns and how they can be secured with Microsoft Fabric, and the basic building blocks of security for OneLake.
January 2024 New Fabric certification and Fabric Career Hub Beta availability of Microsoft Certification Exam DP-600: Implementing Analytics Solutions with Microsoft Fabric, is available for a limited time. Passing this exam earns the Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate certification.
December 2023 Working with OneLake using Azure Storage Explorer If you want to use an application that directly integrates with Windows File Explorer, check out OneLake file explorer. However, if you're accustomed to using Azure Storage Explorer for your data management tasks, you can continue to harness its functionalities with OneLake and some of its key benefits.

Microsoft Copilot in Microsoft Fabric

With Copilot and other generative AI features in preview, Microsoft Fabric brings a new way to transform and analyze data, generate insights, and create visualizations and reports. For more information, see Copilot in Fabric.

Note

Starting May 20th, 2024, Copilot in Microsoft Fabric will be enabled by default for all tenants.

Month Feature Learn more
February 2024 Fabric Change the Game: How easy is it to use Copilot in Microsoft Fabric This blog post shows how simple is to enable Copilot, a generative AI that brings new ways to transform and analyze data, generate insights, and create visualizations and reports in Microsoft Fabric.
February 2024 Copilot for Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric Copilot for Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric is now available in preview and included in the Dataflow Gen2 experience. For more information, see Copilot for Data Factory.
January 2024 Microsoft Fabric Copilot for Data Science and Data Engineering Copilot for Data Science and Data Engineering is now available worldwide. What can Copilot for Data Science and Data Engineering do for you?
January 2024 How to enable Copilot in Fabric for Everyone Follow this guide to get Copilot in Fabric (preview) enabled for everyone in your organization. For more information, see Overview of Copilot for Microsoft Fabric (preview).
January 2024 Copilot in Fabric (preview) is available worldwide Copilot in Fabric (preview) is now available to all customers, including Copilot for Power BI, Data Factory, and Data Science & Data Engineering. Read more in our Overview on Copilot in Fabric.

Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric

This section summarizes recent new features and capabilities of Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric. Follow issues and feedback through the Data Factory Community Forum.

Month Feature Learn more
April 2024 Spark job definition activity With the new Spark job definition activity, you will be able to run a spark job definition in your pipeline.
April 2024 Fabric Warehouse in ADF copy activity You can now connect to your Fabric Warehouse from an Azure Data Factory/Synapse pipeline. You can find this new connector when creating a new source or sink destination in your copy activity, in the Lookup activity, Stored Procedure activity, Script activity, and Get Metadata activity.
April 2024 Edit column type to destination table support added to Fabric Warehouse and other SQL data stores When moving data from any supported data sources into Fabric Warehouse or other SQL data stores (SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, or Azure Synapse Analytics) via data pipelines, users can now specify the data type for each column.
April 2024 Performance improvements when writing data to SFTP The SFTP connector has been improved to offer better performance when writing to SFTP as destination.
April 2024 Service Principal Name authentication kind support for On-Premises and VNET data gateways Azure Service Principals (SPN) is now supported for on-premises data gateways and VNET data gateways. Learn how to leverage the service principal authentication kind in Azure Data Lake Storage, Dataverse, Azure SQL Database, Web connector, and more.
April 2024 New and updated Certified connectors The Power Query SDK and Power Query Connector Certification process has introduced 11 new and updated custom Power Query connectors.
April 2024 New Expression Builder Experience A new experience in the Script activity in Fabric Data Factory pipelines to make it even easier to build expressions using the pipeline expression language.
April 2024 Data Factory Increases Maximum Activities Per Pipeline to 80 We have doubled the limit on number of activities you may define in a pipeline from 40 to 80.
April 2024 REST APIs for Fabric Data Factory pipelines preview The REST APIs for Fabric Data Factory Pipelines are now in preview. REST APIs for Data Factory pipelines enable you to extend the built-in capability in Fabric to create, read, update, delete, and list pipelines.
March 2024 Fast copy in Dataflows Gen2 With Fast copy, you can ingest terabytes of data with the easy experience of dataflows, but with the scalable backend of Pipeline's Copy activity.
March 2024 Integrating On-Premises Data into Microsoft Fabric Using Data Pipelines in Data Factory preview Using the on-premises Data Gateway, currently a preview feature, customers can connect to on-premises data sources using dataflows and data pipelines with Data Factory. For more information, see How to access on-premises data sources in Data Factory for Microsoft Fabric.
March 2024 CI/CD for Fabric Data Pipelines preview Git Integration and integration with built-in Deployment Pipelines to Data Factory data pipelines is now in preview. For more information, see Data Factory Adds CI/CD to Fabric Data Pipelines.
March 2024 Browse Azure resources with Get Data Learn how to browse and connect to all your Azure resources with the 'browse Azure' functionality in Get Data. You can browse Azure resources then connect to Synapse, blob storage, or ADLS Gen2 resources easily.
March 2024 Dataflow Gen2 Support for VNet Gateways now generally available VNet Data Gateway support for Dataflows Gen2 in Fabric is now generally available. The VNet data gateway helps to connect from Fabric Dataflows Gen2 to Azure data services within a VNet, without the need of an on-premises data gateway.
March 2024 Privacy levels support in Dataflows You can now set privacy levels for your connections in your Dataflow Gen2. Privacy levels are critical to configure correctly so that sensitive data is only viewed by authorized users.
March 2024 Copy data to S3 Compatible via Fabric Data Factory Data Pipeline Copying data to S3 Compatible is now available in Data pipeline of Fabric Data Factory! You can use Copy assistant and Copy activity in your Data pipeline to finish this data movement.
February 2024 Dataflows Gen2 data destinations and managed settings New features for Dataflows Gen2 include destinations, managed settings, and advanced topics.
February 2024 Copilot for Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric Copilot for Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric is now available in preview and included in the Dataflow Gen2 experience. For more information, see Copilot for Data Factory.
February 2024 Certified Connector updates The Power Query SDK enables you to create new connectors for both Power BI and Dataflow. New certified Power Query connectors are available to the list of Certified Connectors in Power Query.
February 2024 Data pipeline connector updates New connectors are available in your Data Factory data pipelines, including S3 compatible and Google Cloud Storage data sources. For more information, see Data pipeline connectors in Microsoft Fabric.
December 2023 Read and Write to the Fabric Lakehouse using Azure Data Factory (ADF) You can now read and write data in the Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse from ADF (Azure Data Factory). Using either Copy Activity or Mapping Data Flows, you can read, write, transform, and process data using ADF or Synapse Analytics, currently in preview.
December 2023 Set activity state for easy pipeline debugging In Fabric Data Factory data pipelines, you can now set an activity's state to inactive so that you can save your pipeline even with incomplete, invalid configurations. Think of it as "commenting out" part of your pipeline code.
December 2023 Connection editing in pipeline editor You can now edit your existing data connections while you're designing your pipeline without leaving the pipeline editor! When setting your connection, select Edit and a pop-up appears.
December 2023 Azure Databricks Notebook executions in Fabric Data Factory You can now create powerful data pipeline workflows that include Notebook executions from your Azure Databricks clusters using Fabric Data Factory. Add a Databricks activity to your pipeline, point to your existing cluster, or request a new cluster, and Data Factory will execute your Notebook code for you.

Data Factory in Microsoft Fabric samples and guidance

Month Feature Learn more
February 2024 Fabric Data Pipelines – Advanced Scheduling Techniques This blog series covers Advanced Scheduling techniques in Microsoft Fabric Data Pipelines.
January 2024 Automate Fabric Data Warehouse Queries and Commands with Data Factory In Fabric Data Factory, there are many ways to query data, retrieve data, and execute commands from your warehouse using pipeline activities that can then be easily automated.
January 2024 Use Fabric Data Factory Data Pipelines to Orchestrate Notebook-based Workflows Guidance and good practices when building Fabric Spark Notebook workflows using Data Factory in Fabric with data pipelines.
December 2023 Read data from Delta Lake tables with the DeltaLake.Table M function The DeltaLake.Table is a new function in Power Query's M language for reading data from Delta Lake tables. This function is now available in Power Query in Power BI Desktop and in Dataflows Gen1 and Gen2 and replaces the need to use community-developed solution.

Synapse Data Engineering in Microsoft Fabric

This section summarizes recent new features and capabilities of the Data Engineering workload in Microsoft Fabric.

Month Feature Learn more
April 2024 Fabric Spark Optimistic Job Admission Fabric Spark Optimistic Job Admission reduces the frequency of throttling errors (HTTP 430: Spark Capacity Limit Exceeded Response) and improves the job admission experience for our customers, especially during peak usage hours.
April 2024 Single Node support for starter pools The Single Node support for starter pools feature lets you set your starter pool to max one node and get super-fast session start times for your Spark sessions.
April 2024 Container Image for Synapse VS Code To simplify the development process, we have released a container image for Synapse VS Code that contains all the necessary dependencies for the extension.
April 2024 Git integration with Spark Job definition Git integration with Spark Job definitions allows you to check in the changes of your Spark Job Definitions into a Git repository, which will include the source code of the Spark jobs and other item properties.
April 2024 New Revamped Object Explorer experience in the notebook The new Object Explorer experience improves flexibility and discoverability of data sources in the explorer and improve the discoverability of Resource folders.
April 2024 %Run your scripts in Notebook Now you can use %run magic command to run your Python scripts and SQL scripts in Notebook resources folder, just like Jupyter notebook %run command.
April 2024 OneLake shortcuts to S3-compatible data sources preview OneLake shortcuts to S3-compatible data sources are now in preview. Create an Amazon S3 compatible shortcut to connect to your existing data through a single unified name space without having to copy or move data.
April 2024 OneLake shortcuts to Google Cloud Storage preview OneLake shortcuts to Google Cloud Storage are now in preview. Create a Google Cloud Storage shortcut to connect to your existing data through a single unified name space without having to copy or move data.
April 2024 OneLake data access roles OneLake data access roles for lakehouse are in preview. Role permissions and user/group assignments can be easily updated through a new folder security user interface or through API calls.
March 2024 New validation enhancement for "Load to table" The new validation enhancement to the "Load to table" feature help mitigate any validation issues and make your data loading experience smoother and faster.
March 2024 Queuing for Notebook Jobs Now with Job Queueing for Notebook Jobs, jobs that are triggered by pipelines or job scheduler will be added to a queue and will be retried automatically when the capacity frees up. For more information, see Job queueing in Microsoft Fabric Spark.
March 2024 Autotune Query Tuning feature for Apache Spark The Autotune Query Tuning feature for Apache Spark is now available. Autotune leverages historical data from your Spark SQL queries and machine learning algorithms to automatically fine-tune your configurations, ensuring faster execution times and enhanced efficiency.
March 2024 OneLake File Explorer: Editing via Excel With our latest release v1.0.11.0 of file explorer, we're excited to announce that you can now update your files directly using Excel, mirroring the user-friendly experience available in OneDrive.
February 2024 Trusted workspace access (preview) for OneLake Shortcuts Trusted workspace access (preview) enables secure and seamless access to ADLS Gen2 storage accounts from OneLake shortcuts in Fabric. For more information, see Trusted workspace access (preview).
February 2024 Reduce egress costs with S3 shortcuts in OneLake Learn how OneLake shortcuts to S3 now support caching, which can greatly reduce egress costs. Use the new Enable Cache for S3 Shortcuts setting with an S3 shortcut.
February 2024 OneLake Shortcuts API New REST APIs for OneLake Shortcuts allow programmatic creation and management of shortcuts, currently in preview. You can now programmatically create, read, and delete OneLake shortcuts. For example, see Use OneLake shortcuts REST APIs.
February 2024 Browse code snippet The new Browse code snippet notebook feature allows you to easily access and insert code snippets for commonly used code snippets with multiple supported languages.
February 2024 Configure session timeout Notebooks now support configuring session timeout for the current live session. It can help you avoid wasting resources or losing context due to timeout. You can specify the maximum duration of your spark sessions, from minutes to hours, and also get alerts before the session expires and extend it.
February 2024 Fabric notebook status bar upgrade The new Fabric Notebook status bar has three persisted info buttons: session status, save status, and cell selection status. Plus, context features include info on the git connection state, a shortcut to extend session timeout, and a failed cell navigator.
January 2024 Microsoft Fabric Copilot for Data Science and Data Engineering Copilot for Data Science and Data Engineering is now available worldwide. What can Copilot for Data Science and Data Engineering do for you?
January 2024 Newest version of OneLake File Explorer includes Excel Integration With the newest version of OneLake file explorer (v1.0.11.0) we bring a few updates to enhance your experience with OneLake, including Excel Integration.
December 2023 %%configure – personalize your Spark session in Notebook Now you can personalize your Spark session with the magic command %%configure, in both interactive notebook and pipeline notebook activities.
December 2023 Rich dataframe preview in Notebook The display() function has been updated on Fabric Notebook, now named the Rich dataframe preview. Now when you use display() to preview your dataframe, you can easily specify the range, view the dataframe summary and column statistics, check invalid values or missing values, and preview the long cell.
December 2023 Working with OneLake using Azure Storage Explorer If you want to use an application that directly integrates with Windows File Explorer, check out OneLake file explorer. However, if you're accustomed to using Azure Storage Explorer for your data management tasks, you can continue to harness its functionalities with OneLake and some of its key benefits.

Synapse Data Engineering samples and guidance

Month Feature Learn more
March 2024 Bridging Fabric Lakehouses: Delta Change Data Feed for Seamless ETL Learn how to use the Delta Change Data Feed to facilitate seamless data synchronization across different lakehouses in your medallion architecture.
January 2024 Use Fabric Data Factory Data Pipelines to Orchestrate Notebook-based Workflows Guidance and good practices when building Fabric Spark Notebook workflows using Data Factory in Fabric with data pipelines.

Synapse Data Science in Microsoft Fabric

This section summarizes recent improvements and features for Data Science in Microsoft Fabric.

Month Feature Learn more
April 2024 Semantic Link GA Semantic links are now generally available! The package comes with our default VHD, you can now use Semantic link in Fabric right away without any pip installation.
April 2024 Capacity level delegation for AI and Copilot Tenant admins can now enable AI and Copilot in Fabric for the entire organization, certain security groups, or for a specific Capacity.
March 2024 EU customers can use AI and Copilot without cross-geo setting Since mid-March EU customers can use AI and Copilot without turning on the cross-geo setting, and their AI and Copilot requests will be processed within EUDB.
March 2024 Code-First Hyperparameter Tuning preview FLAML is now integrated for hyperparameter tuning, currently a preview feature. Fabric's flaml.tune feature streamlines this process, offering a cost-effective and efficient approach to hyperparameter tuning.
March 2024 Code-First AutoML preview With the new AutoML feature, you can automate your machine learning workflow and get the best results with less effort. AutoML, or Automated Machine Learning, is a set of techniques and tools that can automatically train and optimize machine learning models for any given data and task type.
March 2024 Compare Nested Runs Parent and child runs in the Run List View for ML Experiments introduces a hierarchical structure, allowing users to effortlessly view various parent and child runs within a single view and seamlessly interact with them to visually compare results.
March 2024 Support for Mandatory MIP Label Enforcement ML Model and Experiment items in Fabric now offer enhanced support for Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) labels.
January 2024 Microsoft Fabric Copilot for Data Science and Data Engineering Copilot for Data Science and Data Engineering is now available worldwide. What can Copilot for Data Science and Data Engineering do for you?
December 2023 Semantic Link update We're excited to announce the latest update of Semantic Link! Apart from many improvements, we also added many new features for our Power BI engineering community that you can use from Fabric notebooks to satisfy all your automation needs.
December 2023 Prebuilt Azure AI services in Fabric preview The preview of prebuilt AI services in Fabric is an integration with Azure AI services, formerly known as Azure Cognitive Services. Prebuilt Azure AI services allow for easy enhancement of data with prebuilt AI models without any prerequisites. Currently, prebuilt AI services are in preview and include support for the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Language, and Azure AI Translator.

Synapse Data Science samples and guidance

Month Feature Learn more
March 2024 New AI Samples New AutoML sample, Model Tuning, and Semantic Link samples appear in the Quick Tutorial category of the Data Science samples on Microsoft Fabric.
December 2023 Using Microsoft Fabric's Lakehouse Data and prompt flow in Azure Machine Learning Service to create RAG applications A step-by-step RAG application through prompt flow in Azure Machine Learning Service combined with Microsoft Fabric's Lakehouse data.

Synapse Data Warehouse in Microsoft Fabric

This section summarizes recent improvements and features for Synapse Data Warehouse in Microsoft Fabric.

Month Feature Learn more
April 2024 Fabric Warehouse in ADF copy activity You can now connect to your Fabric Warehouse from an Azure Data Factory/Synapse pipeline. You can find this new connector when creating a new source or sink destination in your copy activity, in the Lookup activity, Stored Procedure activity, Script activity, and Get Metadata activity.
April 2024 Git integration Git integration for the Warehouse allows you to check in the changes of your Warehouse to an Azure DevOps Git repository as a SQL database project.
April 2024 Partition elimination Partition elimination is a performance improvement for tables with a large number of files. The SQL analytics endpoint of a Lakehouse uses partition elimination to read data from only those partitions that are relevant to the query. Recent improvements have boosted performance even more when queries are aimed at a few partitions in a table that has many files.
March 2024 Mirroring in Microsoft Fabric preview With Mirroring in Fabric, you can easily bring your databases into OneLake in Microsoft Fabric, enabling seamless zero-ETL, near real-time insights on your data – and unlocking warehousing, BI, AI, and more. For more information, see What is Mirroring in Fabric?.
March 2024 Cold cache performance improvements Fabric stores data in Delta tables and when the data is not cached, it needs to transcode data from parquet file format structures to in-memory structures for query processing. Recent cold cache performance improvements further optimize transcoding and we observed up to 9% faster queries in our tests when data is not previously cached.
March 2024 Extract and publish a SQL database project directly through the DW editor The SQL Database Projects extension creates a SQL project (.sqlproj) file, a local representation of SQL objects that comprise the schema for a single database, such as tables, stored procedures, or functions. You can now extract and publish a SQL database project directly through the DW editor.
March 2024 Change owner of Warehouse item The new Takeover API allows you to change the warehouse owner from the current owner to a new owner, which can be an SPN or an Organizational Account.
March 2024 Clone table RLS and CLS A cloned table now inherits the row-level security (RLS) and dynamic data masking from the source of the clone table.
February 2024 Experience performance improvements Recent connectivity and performance enhancements include an improved experience for creating warehouses, T-SQL execution, automatic metadata discovery, and error messaging.
December 2023 Automatic Log Checkpointing for Fabric Warehouse Automatic Log Checkpointing is one of the ways that we help your Data Warehouse to provide you with great performance and best of all, it involves no additional work from you!
December 2023 Restore points and restore in place You can now create restore points and perform an in-place restore of a warehouse to a past point in time. The restore points and restore in place features are currently in preview. Restore in-place is an essential part of data warehouse recovery which allows to restore the data warehouse to a prior known reliable state by replacing or over-writing the existing data warehouse from which the restore point was created.

Synapse Data Warehouse samples and guidance

Month Feature Learn more
April 2024 Fabric Change the Game: Azure SQL Database mirror into Microsoft Fabric A step-by-step guide to mirror your Azure SQL Database into Microsoft Fabric.
February 2024 Mapping ​​Azure Synapse dedicated SQL pools to Fabric data warehouse compute Read for guidance on mapping Data Warehouse Units (DWU) from Azure Synapse Analytics dedicated SQL pool to an approximate equivalent number of Fabric Capacity Units (CU).
January 2024 Automate Fabric Data Warehouse Queries and Commands with Data Factory In Fabric Data Factory, there are many ways to query data, retrieve data, and execute commands from your warehouse using pipeline activities that can then be easily automated.

Synapse Real-Time Analytics in Microsoft Fabric

This section summarizes recent improvements and features for real-time analytics in Microsoft Fabric.

Month Feature Learn more
April 2024 Kusto Cache consumption preview The preview of Kusto Cache consumption means that you will start seeing billable consumption of the OneLake Cache Data Stored meter from the KQL Database and Eventhouse items. For more information, see KQL Database consumption.
April 2024 Pause and Resume in Eventstream preview The Pause and Resume feature enables you to pause data streaming from various sources and destinations within Eventstream. You can then resume data streaming seamlessly from the paused time or a customized time, ensuring no data loss.
March 2024 Fabric Real-Time Analytics Integrates with Newly Announced Database Watcher for Azure SQL Users of Azure SQL can use the Database Watcher monitoring solution with Microsoft Fabric. Database Watcher for Azure SQL (preview) provides advanced monitoring capabilities, and can integrate with Eventhouse KQL database.
March 2024 Update records in a KQL Database preview The .update command is now available, as a preview feature. Learn more about how to Update records in a Kusto database.
March 2024 Query Azure Data Explorer data from Queryset Connecting to and using data in Azure Data explorer cluster from Fabric's KQL Queryset is now available.
February 2024 Eventhouse Overview: Handling Real-Time Data with Microsoft Fabric Eventhouse (preview) is a dynamic workspace hosting multiple KQL databases, part of Fabric Real-Time Analytics. An Eventhouse offers a robust solution for managing and analyzing substantial volumes of real-time data. Get started with a guide to Create and manage an Eventhouse.
February 2024 KQL DB shortcut to Delta Lake tables support name-based column mapping KQL DB now supports reading Delta tables with column name mappings. The column mapping feature allows Delta table columns and the underlying Parquet file columns to use different names. This enables Delta schema evolution operations such on a Delta table without the need to rewrite the underlying Parquet files and allows users to name Delta table columns by using characters that aren't allowed by Parquet.
February 2024 KQL DB shortcut to Delta Lake tables support deletion vectors KQL DB can now read delta tables with deletion vectors, resolving the current table state by applying the deletions noted by deletion vectors to the most recent table version.
February 2024 Get Data in KQL DB now supports processing events before ingestion via Eventstream The Process event before ingestion in Eventstream option enables you to process the data before it's ingested into the destination table. By selecting this option, the get data process seamlessly continues in Eventstream, with the destination table and data source details automatically populated.
February 2024 KQL DB now supports data ingestion using Apache Flink Using the open-source Flink connector, you can send data from Flink to your table. Using Azure Data Explorer and Apache Flink, you can build fast and scalable applications targeting data driven scenarios.
February 2024 Route data from Splunk Universal Forwarder to KQL DB using Kusto Splunk Universal Connector You can now use the Kusto Splunk Universal Connector to send data from Splunk Universal Forwarder to a table in your KQL DB.
December 2023 Calculating distinct counts in Power BI running reports on KQL Databases New Fabric KQL database dcount and dcountif functions use a special algorithm to return an estimate of distinct counts, even in extremely large datasets. The new functions count_distinct and count_distinctif calculate exact distinct counts.
December 2023 Create a Notebook with pre-configured connection to your KQL DB You can now just create a new Notebook from KQL DB editor with a preconfigured connection to your KQL DB and explore the data using PySpark. This option creates a PySpark Notebook with a ready-to execute code cell to read data from the selected KQL DB.
December 2023 KQL Database schema validation The new Kusto command .show database schema violations was designed to validate the current state of your database schema and find inconsistencies. You can use .show database schema violations for a spot check on your database or in CI/CD automation.
December 2023 Enabling Data Availability of KQL Database in OneLake Data availability of KQL Database in OneLake means you can enjoy the best of both worlds. You can query the data with high performance and low latency in their KQL database, and you can query the same data in Delta Parquet via Power BI Direct Lake mode, Warehouse, Lakehouse, Notebooks, and more.
December 2023 Fabric Change the Game: Real–time Analytics Real-Time Analytics is a formidable tool, diminishing complexity and streamlining data integration processes. Microsoft Fabric allows you to build Real-Time streaming analytics with eventstream or Spark Stream.

Synapse Real-Time Analytics samples and guidance

Month Feature Learn more
March 2024 Browse Azure resources with Get Data Learn how to browse and connect to all your Azure resources with the 'browse Azure' functionality in Get Data. You can browse Azure resources then connect to Synapse, blob storage, or ADLS Gen2 resources easily.

Microsoft Fabric core features

News and feature announcements core to the Microsoft Fabric experience.

Month Feature Learn more
March 2024 Microsoft Fabric is now HIPAA compliant We are excited to announce that Microsoft Fabric, our all-in-one analytics solution for enterprises, has achieved new certifications for HIPAA and ISO 27017, ISO 27018, ISO 27001, ISO 27701.
March 2024 Folder in Workspace preview As an organizational unit in the workspace, folder addresses this pain point by providing a hierarchical structure for organizing and managing your items. For more information, see Create folders in workspaces (preview).
March 2024 Fabric Copilot Pricing: An End-to-End example Copilot in Fabric begins billing on March 1, 2024 as part of your existing Power BI Premium or Fabric Capacity. Learn how Fabric Copilot usage is calculated.
March 2024 Capacity Platform Updates for Pause/Resume, Capacity Metrics, virtualized items and workspaces for Copilot, and VNET Gateways The Fabric Capacity Platform now supports usage reporting for Pause/Resume, virtualized items and workspaces supporting Copilot, Capacity Metrics, and VNET Gateway. For more information, read Capacity Platform Updates for Pause Resume and Capacity Metrics for Copilot and VNET Gateways.
February 2024 Managed private endpoints for Microsoft Fabric (Preview) Managed private endpoints for Microsoft Fabric (preview) allow secure connections to data sources that are behind a firewall or not accessible from the public internet. Workspaces with managed private endpoints have network isolation through a managed virtual network created by Microsoft Fabric. For more information, see Introducing Managed private endpoints for Microsoft Fabric preview.
February 2024 Azure Private Link Support for Microsoft Fabric (Preview) Azure Private Link for Microsoft Fabric secures access to your sensitive data in Microsoft Fabric by providing network isolation and applying required controls on your inbound network traffic. For more information, see Announcing Azure Private Link Support for Microsoft Fabric in Preview.
February 2024 Domains in OneLake (preview) Domains in OneLake help you organize your data into a logical data mesh, allowing federated governance and optimizing for business needs. You can now create sub domains, default domains for users, and move workspaces between domains. For more information, see Fabric domains.
February 2024 Customizable Fabric navigation bar You can now customize your preferred entry points in the navigation bar, including pinning common entry points and unpinning rarely used options.
February 2024 Persistent filters in workspace You can now save selected filters in workspace list view, and they'll be automatically applied the next time you open the workspace.
December 2023 Microsoft Fabric Admin APIs preview Fabric Admin APIs are designed to streamline administrative tasks. The initial set of Fabric Admin APIs is tailored to simplify the discovery of workspaces, Fabric items, and user access details.
December 2023 Workspace retention changes in Fabric and Power BI The retention period for collaborative workspaces is configurable from 7 to 90 days. The workspace retention setting is enabled by default and the default retention period is seven days.

Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) in Microsoft Fabric

This section includes guidance and documentation updates on development process, tools, source control, and versioning in the Microsoft Fabric workspace.

Month Feature Learn more
April 2024 Introducing Trusted Workspace Access in Fabric Data Pipelines Create data pipelines in Fabric to access your firewall-enabled ADLS Gen2 storage accounts with ease and security. This feature leverages the workspace identity to establish a secure and seamless connection between Fabric and your storage accounts.
March 2024 CI/CD for Fabric Data Pipelines preview Git Integration and integration with built-in Deployment Pipelines to Data Factory data pipelines is now in preview. For more information, see Data Factory Adds CI/CD to Fabric Data Pipelines.
March 2024 System file updates for Git integration The automatically generated system files item.metadata.json and item.config.json have been consolidated into a single system file .platform. For more information, see Automatically generated system files.
February 2024 REST APIs for Fabric Git integration REST APIs for Fabric Git integration enable seamless incorporation of Fabric Git integration into your team's end-to-end CI/CD pipeline, eliminating the need for manual triggering of actions from Fabric.
February 2024 Delegation for Git integration settings To enable more control over Git related settings, a tenant admin can now delegate these settings to both capacity admins and workspace admins via the What is the admin portal?

Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) samples

Month Feature Learn more
March 2024 Microsoft Fabric Lifecycle Management – Getting started with Git Integration and Deployment Pipelines Learn the essentials of Lifecycle Management through a demo scenario, and explore what Lifecycle Management is, and what it means in Fabric.

Data Activator in Microsoft Fabric

Data Activator is a no-code experience in Microsoft Fabric for automatically taking actions when patterns or conditions are detected in changing data. This section summarizes recent new features and capabilities of Data Activator in Microsoft Fabric.

Month Feature Learn more
March 2024 New Expressions "Changes by", "Increases by", and "Decreases by" When setting conditions on a trigger, we've added syntax to allows you to detect when there's been a change in your data by absolute number or percentage. See New Expressions "Changes by", "Increases by", and "Decreases by".

Fabric and Microsoft 365

This section includes articles and announcements about Microsoft Fabric integration with Microsoft Graph and Microsoft 365.

Month Feature Learn more
March 2024 Analyze Dataverse tables from Microsoft Fabric When creating a shortcut within Fabric, you will now see an option for Dataverse. When you choose this shortcut type and specify your Dataverse environment details, you can quickly see and work with the tables from that environment.

Migration

This section includes guidance and documentation updates on migration to Microsoft Fabric.

Month Feature Learn more
February 2024 Mapping ​​Azure Synapse dedicated SQL pools to Fabric data warehouse compute Read for guidance on mapping Data Warehouse Units (DWU) from Azure Synapse Analytics dedicated SQL pool to an approximate equivalent number of Fabric Capacity Units (CU).

Monitor

This section includes guidance and documentation updates on monitoring your Microsoft Fabric capacity and utilization, including the Monitoring hub.

Month Feature Learn more
March 2024 Capacity Metrics support for Pause and Resume Fabric Capacity Metrics has been updated with new system events and reconciliation logic to simplify analysis of paused capacities. Fabric Pause and Resume is a capacity management feature that lets you pause F SKU capacities to manage costs. When your capacity isn't operational, you can pause it to enable cost savings and then later, when you want to resume work on your capacity you can reactivate it.

Microsoft Purview

This section summarizes recent announcements about governance and compliance capabilities with Microsoft Purview in Microsoft Fabric. Learn more about Information protection in Microsoft Fabric.

Month Feature Learn more
May 2023 Administration, Security and Governance in Microsoft Fabric Microsoft Fabric provides built-in enterprise grade governance and compliance capabilities, powered by Microsoft Purview.

Archive

For older updates, review the Microsoft Fabric What's New archive.

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