Microsoft Fabric.
Live on your data.
In 2 weeks. From $1,500.

Microsoft 365 E5 includes Power BI Pro, but neither E3 nor E5 includes paid Microsoft Fabric capacity — that is a separate Azure purchase. Before the sprint starts we check your licence position: if you already have Fabric capacity we work within it, otherwise a Fabric F2 capacity costs around $262/month and is enough for the Starter Sprint. We do not profit from licence sales — we tell you what you actually need.

SAP is the most common source system we connect. The Starter Sprint supports one source — SAP B1, SAP S/4HANA, SAP ByDesign, Dynamics 365, SQL Server, or a SharePoint-hosted flat file. SAP connections use ODBC or the SAP connector via Fabric Data Factory pipelines. If your SAP instance is on-premises, we set up the On-Premises Data Gateway as part of the sprint.

You get a working Fabric workspace, Bronze and Silver Delta tables, a scheduled pipeline, and a Power BI dashboard — all documented and transferred to your team. There is no ongoing dependency on MDI to keep the lights on. Most clients then move into a phase 2 engagement: connecting additional source systems, building the Gold semantic layer, adding Direct Lake Power BI models, or layering in AI forecasting. That is scoped and priced separately based on what we found during the sprint.

For one source system with a clearly defined set of KPIs, yes. The sprint works because the scope is fixed: one source, two medallion layers, one dashboard. We have seen organisations spend six months on a Fabric POC that produced a demo workspace with sample data. Two weeks with real data from your actual source system, producing a dashboard your operations team uses on day 15, is worth more than six months of architecture diagrams.

The fee is between $1,500 and $2,500. The exact amount is confirmed after a 15-minute scoping call — it depends on the source system complexity and whether an On-Premises Data Gateway setup is required. The fee is fixed before any work begins. No surprises, no change requests on a fixed-scope engagement.

Having Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 does not switch Fabric on — paid Fabric capacity is a separate Azure resource you assign to a workspace. You activate it by buying a Fabric F SKU (from F2 at around $262/month) or starting a Fabric trial, then assigning it to the workspace; E5 additionally gives users Power BI Pro. In the Starter Sprint we confirm your licence position and stand up the smallest capacity that fits before any build.

The minimum viable build is one source system, Bronze and Silver medallion layers in OneLake, a scheduled pipeline, and one governed Power BI dashboard — exactly the scope of the 2-week Fabric Starter Sprint from USD 1,500. It proves the platform on your real data without a large programme. From there you add sources and the Gold layer in a later phase.

Fix the scope, not the ambition: one source, two medallion layers, one dashboard, on real data with a named business owner who will use it on day 15. POCs stall when they run on sample data with open-ended scope and no owner. The Starter Sprint is built to cross into production in 2 weeks rather than produce another demo.

They run on sample data, carry open-ended scope, and have no business owner committed to using the result — so they end as architecture diagrams, not working reports. We have seen organisations spend six months on a POC that produced a demo workspace nobody used. A fixed 2-week scope on real data, owned by an operations user, is what converts a POC into production.

You do not need an in-house data engineering team — the Starter Sprint stands up the lakehouse, the pipeline, and the dashboard, then hands it over documented so your team can run it. Microsoft Fabric is SaaS, so there is no infrastructure to manage. We build it, govern it, and train your people to extend it.

The fastest route is one SAP source connected through OData or the SAP connector via Fabric Data Factory (or Mirroring where supported), landing in Bronze and Silver, with a Power BI dashboard on top — the 2-week Starter Sprint. No ABAP, no CSV exports. If SAP is on-premises, we add the On-Premises Data Gateway as part of the sprint.

One source system connected, Bronze and Silver Delta tables in OneLake, a scheduled refresh pipeline, and one governed Power BI dashboard — documented and handed to your team. The scope is fixed and the fee is fixed from USD 1,500. You get a working data product on day 15, not a roadmap.

Bronze holds the raw source data exactly as ingested from your system; Silver holds the cleaned, typed, and conformed tables ready for reporting. Both are Delta tables in OneLake. The sprint delivers a dashboard built on Silver; a dedicated Gold semantic layer is the usual phase-2 step.

With one source and a clear KPI set, the dashboard can show the operational metrics that source holds — OEE, OTIF, fill rate, inventory cover, sales by SKU, or production versus plan. We agree the KPI list in the 15-minute scoping call so the two weeks go to building, not deciding. The dashboard runs on your real data, not samples.

The sprint connects one source: SAP B1, SAP S/4HANA, SAP ByDesign, Dynamics 365, SQL Server, or a SharePoint-hosted flat file. SAP uses ODBC or the SAP connector via Fabric Data Factory; on-premises sources use the On-Premises Data Gateway. Additional sources are added in a later phase.

A Fabric F2 capacity costs around USD 262/month on pay-as-you-go and is enough to run a Starter Sprint and a first dashboard. Reserved one-year capacity is roughly 40% cheaper. You scale up to a larger F SKU only when workload or user numbers require it.

No. Microsoft 365 E5 includes Power BI Pro, but neither E3 nor E5 includes paid Microsoft Fabric capacity — that is a separate Azure purchase starting at an F2 SKU (around USD 262/month). You can trial Fabric, but production workloads need an assigned F capacity. We confirm your exact position before the sprint.

F2 (around USD 262/month) suits a Starter Sprint and a first dashboard; F32 (around USD 4,205/month) suits a department-scale workload; F64 (around USD 8,410/month) is the threshold where free-licensed users can view Power BI content without a Pro licence each. A small manufacturer usually starts on F2 and moves up only when users or data volume grow. Reserved capacity is about 40% below these pay-as-you-go rates.

After the sprint, additional sources are connected into the same OneLake lakehouse — each landed in Bronze, conformed in Silver, and joined into the model — in a scoped phase-2 engagement. Because the foundation already exists, each new source is incremental rather than a fresh build. We prioritise sources by the decisions they unblock.

The Gold layer is the governed semantic model: business-named measures (OEE, OTIF, margin), calculation groups for time intelligence, and row-level security, built on the conformed Silver tables and read by Power BI on Direct Lake. It is the usual next step after a Starter Sprint. One Gold model gives every report the same definitions.

Move to the full Foundation engagement when one dashboard has proven the value and you need more — additional sources, a governed Gold semantic layer, Direct Lake at scale, or AI forecasting. The full build is first value in 6 weeks, production at 8, from USD 8,000. The Sprint is the proof; Foundation is the platform.