Whitepaper : Going Beyond Microsoft Purview Capabilities

While implementing Microsoft Purview Data Catalog for one of our clients, we encountered several challenges, the most notable being the lack of support for SSRS reports as a data source. This limitation initially restricted our ability to scan report structures, assign classifiers, and apply sensitivity labels.

To address this, we developed an innovative solution: extracting the report schema and connection string, sampling the report data, and transferring it to an SQL table or CSV file using Azure Data Factory. This approach successfully enabled data scanning within Microsoft Purview.

Yet another significant challenge arose with the automatic assignment of sensitivity labels to custom classifiers across cloud and on-premises databases. To resolve this, we utilized the Microsoft Purview API to retrieve the schema and implemented a Python notebook integrated with a mapping file to assign sensitivity labels. This streamlined process not only automated label assignments but also facilitated the visualization of table schemas, complete with classifiers and sensitivity labels, on a custom Power BI dashboard.

Our tailored solutions effectively bridged these gaps, showcasing the flexibility and adaptability of Microsoft Purview in complex environments. To support the broader community in overcoming similar challenges, we have made our source code and detailed implementation guidelines available on GitHub. You can access them at https://lnkd.in/e_rGJ4qe, along with the complete whitepaper document.

We hope this contribution will help the community maximize the potential of Microsoft Purview and address real-world data governance challenges efficiently.