Fabric REST API use cases

[AdamMichael]

What is the use of Fabric REST APIs. What purpose they serve and let me know your insights if any one already used

[Parchitect]

What is the use of Fabric REST APIs. 

The main use for the rest api's is to automate processes, generate output fabric metadata for analysis or connect AI agentic workflows on your Fabric Platform through MCP(Agent -> MCP -> REST API). The last one is properly the most fun!

With automate processes(Few examples):

• Workspace Creation(As some mentioned, but there is alot else you can do, the question is what are you trying to solve?)
  • Workspace Configuration Lock Validation - If workspace are created and distributed by a central team with preconfiguration, you have to find a way to prevent the settings to be changed by Workspace Owners. This something i use in enterprise organisation as guardrail when giving away responsibility to self-service BI-teams to govern their workspaces.
  • Environment Lifecycle : Dev- Test - Prod Workspaces, Predefined roles for the workspaces, Git configration, Firewall Settings and so on.
  • For more: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/fabric/core/workspaces

When is it important to actually automate workspace creation?
If its a few teams that needs onboarding in a small organisation, then manual work can be considered OK. But if you work in a big organisation that have teams that stretches into domains, big self service user base, doing all of these steps manually becomes exhausting and error-prone.

For analysis purposes

• Want to create your own tenant-wide report about workspace governance?
• Want to know if any reports are distributed in a way that goes against your organisations access policies?
• Do you need to export the lineage from Fabric to your chosen external lineage platform that your organization invested in?

-> Use the rest apies 🙂

A real-world example: 

I work as a solution architect in the banking sector, so where we face iheavy compliance and regulatory demands. One of the very first things i used the rest api's for was actually complying with the strict requirements to encrypt the platform with our own encryption keys (CMK/BYOK).  Others where in form of guard railes as it was important for governance, when you have few thousands user base on your platform, it could lead to the wild west without guard railes.

[v-echaithra]

Hi @AdamMichael ,

Thank you @svenchio , @NandanHegde , @tayloramy , @vanessa_fvg for your inputs.

If you get a chance, please review the response shared abiiove and let us know if it aligns with your expectations. Should you need any additional details or clarification, feel free to let us know.

Regards,
Chaithra E.

[svenchio · Accepted solution]

Hi @AdamMichael  yes, I have been use them EXTENSIVELY! In fact, I published a Visual Studio marketplace extension for Azure DevOps FabricCatalyst - Visual Studio Marketplace  and I basiclly use Fabric REST Api to automate the creation of workspaces with Git-integration, deployment pipelines, excute deployment stages and automate the continuos integration...   all the code can be found here techtacofriday/FabricCatalyst  here's an example: 

Perhaps you want to extract Fabric activity, or get an inventory of your Fabric workspace & items! Once again,  REST API ! 

Just like that, two option, one using PowerShell, another using a python notebook, in a nutshell, the API allows you to manage FABRIC PROGRAMATICALLY  😁 enabling automation, infrascture-as-code, etc. 

So, hope I pick your interest and you want to explorer much more on this topic, this is something I've work extensively, so, please reach  out if you want to discuss. Hope you find this informatin useful, a thumbs up if you do and mark this as solution if appropiate. All the best 

[AdamMichael]

Thanks, it's very clear now.

[NandanHegde]

Basically REST API for any offering is to allow one to interact with that coressponding Offering programatically without any UI route.

Fabric is basically a union of all components like workspaces, and items like Databases,pipelines,reports etc.

So via REST API:

1) You can automate creation of workspaces,componets within in

2) You can get the meta data of the workspaces and components

3) You can trigger jobs from external tools and many more

[tayloramy]

Hi @AdamMichael, 

The first use case I have at every organization that I work at is to set up platform level audit. 

The GetAuditEvents API allows me to capture what is happening in Fabric, which reports are being read and by who.

The second use case I typically run into is deployment pipelines and deploying objects from a service principal so that production workspaces are not linked to a user's account. 

There are many more examples of what the APIs are useful for, FUAM is another great one. 

[vanessa_fvg]

so many use cases...

what are people doing, how often are they doing it, what are they creating, when are they creating it, how many workspaces do i have, how often are they used...   who looked at what, how often is it used.  how long does this job run,  how many reports link to this semantic model..

extracting data from pipelines and inserting audit data into event houses, the use cases are many

can be also used operationally to make changes or view data  using powershell code

Introducing MicrosoftFabricMgmt: Managing Microsoft Fabric with PowerShell

etc,

etc,,,

what are you requirements?

data extracted from fabric rest api  is paramount to managing and governing your data platform in a centralised and efficient way.