Power BI Dataflows Gen2 + Microsoft Fabric OneLake: Building a Reusable Semantic Layer Across Workspaces

💡 Most Power BI users still don’t know this: You can now create a reusable semantic layer across multiple workspaces using Dataflows Gen2 + OneLake.

No more duplicating data models. No more refresh pain. Just a centralized, governed, real-time-ready data foundation.

Here's how I used Power BI Dataflows Gen2 + Fabric OneLake to create a single version of truth for 15+ departments — boosting performance, consistency, and governance.

📌 Diagram, step-by-step breakdown, and pro tips below 👇

#PowerBI #MicrosoftFabric #DataEngineer #PowerBI Developer

🌐 Why This Matters:

In a large organization, every team builds their own reports... and suddenly:

❌ You have 10 versions of the same KPIs ❌ Different refresh schedules ❌ Data silos everywhere

Solution? Use Dataflows Gen2 in Microsoft Fabric to create centralized, reusable data entities that are stored in OneLake (Fabric’s unified data lake).

🔁 What Are Dataflows Gen2?

Dataflows Gen2 are:

• Cloud-native, auto-scaling pipelines
• Store data as Delta Tables in OneLake
• Support direct access by Power BI, Synapse, notebooks, and more

🧠 Real Use Case:

✅ I created a centralized “Customer360” dataflow using data from Salesforce, Azure SQL, and SAP. ✅ Stored it in OneLake ✅ Every team connected to this single dataflow ✅ Zero duplication, and KPI logic was consistent everywhere

• Source Systems (Salesforce, SQL, SAP)
• → Dataflows Gen2 Pipelines
• → Delta Tables in OneLake (Gold Layer)
• → Power BI Reports across Workspaces
• Optional: Synapse or Notebooks connecting to the same OneLake delta tables

💡 Bonus Benefits:

⚡ Lightning-fast refreshes — because only the delta is updated 📦 No more duplicated tables across datasets 🔐 Governance-ready: Define KPIs once and reuse 🌐 Fabric-native: Seamless with Synapse, ADF, and Notebooks.

Notebooks

🧑💼 Career Hook:

This approach helped me build an enterprise BI foundation that saved ~60% dev time and reduced inconsistencies by 80%.

✅ Call to Action ):

💬 Let’s connect if you need more information or want to implement this in your organization. I’d love to share insights, templates, or collaborate on enterprise BI solutions!