Announcing the Fabric Community 05-26-2023 08:44 AM

[eileen_iTalent]

Today is the day to celebrate the launch of the new Microsoft Fabric Community!

Microsoft is announcing the new Fabric Community today at Microsoft Build 2023.  Go ahead and register for this event and check out the keynotes from Satya Nadella and Scott Guthrie to learn more about the new Fabric Community and product offerings.

Fabric Community:  Fabric integrates Power BI, Synapse, and Data Factory to offer customers an easy-to-manage modern data, analytics, and BI solution.  The Fabric Community is the place to have technical discussions, engage with data and analytics experts, and learn how decisions can be improved based on data.  Power BI Community members will continue to enjoy all the functionalities available today and will now be joined by Synapse and Data Factory.  As we move forward, we have a new URL for the Fabric Community:  https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/

Microsoft Fabric: Fabric is an end-to-end, unified analytics platform that brings together all the data and analytics tools that organizations need. Fabric integrates technologies like Data Factory, Synapse, and Power BI into a single unified product, empowering data, and business professionals alike, to unlock the potential of their data and lay the foundation for the era of AI.  If you want to learn more about Fabric, check out the Fabric Digital Event.

New Domain Name

The Fabric Community brings together all the data and analytics tools that an organization needs into a single unified product community. There is a new unified URL reflecting the new Fabric Community domain that now aligns across the Fabric Community and Power BI, Synapse, and Data Factory experiences.

User Group Experience

Power BI User Groups have now been expanded into Fabric User Groups.  Explore the Fabric User Groups.

Fabric Ideas

The Fabric Ideas site is a unified experience that includes ideas for Power BI, Synapse and Data Factory.  It is the single place to submit and vote on product ideas and features posted by other users.  Fabric Ideas are actively reviewed by the product teams when planning updates.  Your suggestions and votes will always make a difference. 

[mike_honey]

OK Fabric is great but is not available to most Power BI users so not relevant to most of the audience here. You have created a lot of confusion by hijacking the Power BI community with it's years of content, and re-branding it as "Fabric".  A separate Fabric community should've been established for those topics.

You should consider the experience of a new or novice user. Power BI free and Pro licenses are their gateway into perhaps scaling up to Fabric some day. But now it looks like Power BI doesn't exist - everything is Fabric. When they look at the cost of Premium + Fabric, most will get sticker shock and consider cheaper options from other vendors.

You clearly rushed this change as once you start using the community site, "Fabric" often does not appear on the pages, topics etc. Can you just press "undo" on this and revert to the Power BI community, with a separate community for Fabric? 

[grazitti_sapna]

@eileen_iTalent 

The Fabric Community sounds like a fantastic platform for technical discussions, engaging with data and analytics experts, and learning how data can drive better decision-making. I'm particularly interested in how Fabric integrates technologies like Data Factory, Synapse, and Power BI into a unified product, enabling data and business professionals to unlock the full potential of their data.

The new URL for the Fabric Community, https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/, will make it easier for users to access the resources and engage with the community. I'm glad to hear that Power BI Community members will continue to enjoy all the functionalities and will now be joined by Synapse and Data Factory users.

I'm also excited about the expansion of Power BI User Groups into Fabric User Groups. It will provide a broader platform for collaboration and knowledge sharing among users of Power BI, Synapse, and Data Factory. I'll definitely explore the Fabric User Groups to connect with like-minded professionals.

[bhaubert]

@eileen_iTalent 

In the Microsoft Fabric announcement, it was shared that it will automatically be enabled in Power BI tenants.  What does that imply to be "enabled"?  Does that imply it will be available for consumption or that it will be used by the service and I would incur consumption charges?

Introducing Microsoft Fabric: The data platform for the era of AI | Azure Blog | Microsoft Azure

Get started with Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric is currently in preview. Try out everything Fabric has to offer by signing up for the free trial—no credit card information is required. Everyone who signs up gets a fixed Fabric trial capacity, which may be used for any feature or capability from integrating data to creating machine learning models. Existing Power BI Premium customers can simply turn on Fabric through the Power BI admin portal. After July 1, 2023, Fabric will be enabled for all Power BI tenants. 

[KellyK]

Hi @bhaubert 

Good news! we have a blog post that explains more available here ==> Fabric (preview) trial - Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn 

Best, 

Kelly Kaye

[KellyK]

Hi @bhaubert  adding another blog you may find useful 🙂 Announcing Microsoft Fabric capacities are available for purchase | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsof...

Let me know if you have any more questions 

Best, 

Kelly