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Data & Power BI • Azure
Executive Intelligence Hub
A certified semantic model and executive reporting layer that ended the reconciliation debate, replacing conflicting spreadsheets with one agreed set of measures.
- Client
- Regional services group
- Industry
- Professional services
Note. Portfolio concepts shown here are anonymised and representative of the kinds of intelligent business systems Aqlyst delivers. Client names, screenshots, and measured results are published only with written approval.
Challenge
The situation
The same measure, calculated three ways
Different teams maintained their own definitions of core measures, so leadership meetings began by reconciling numbers instead of making decisions.
Manual preparation every period
Reporting depended on exports being collected, joined, and corrected by hand before any analysis could begin.
Reports without an audience
A large estate of dashboards had accumulated, most with little usage, which made it unclear what was safe to retire.
Approach
How we worked
- Start from the decisionsWe identified the recurring decisions leadership actually makes and worked backwards to the measures and grain required to support them.
- One certified semantic modelMeasure definitions were agreed with named owners, documented, and implemented once in a certified model that reports consume rather than redefine.
- Automated, monitored ingestionPipelines replaced manual exports, with validation against source systems and visible data freshness on every report page.
- Retire before you buildUsage analysis identified unused content for retirement, which reduced the surface area before new reporting was added.
Solution architecture
How the system fits together
A layered analytics foundation: governed ingestion into a curated store, one certified semantic model, and reporting that consumes rather than redefines measures.
Sources
- Line-of-business systems
- Dataverse
- Finance system
Ingestion
- Azure Data Factory
- Validation
- Reconciliation checks
Store
- Microsoft Fabric
- Azure SQL
- Curated layer
Model
- Certified semantic model
- Row-level security
- Documented measures
Experience
- Power BI executive view
- Operational detail
- Microsoft Teams
Delivered
What was built
- Certified semantic modelA documented model with agreed measure definitions, row-level security, and predictable refresh behaviour.
- Executive and operational reportingA concise executive view supported by operational detail pages, designed for accessibility and quick scanning.
- Reliable data pipelinesScheduled ingestion with validation, reconciliation checks, and alerting when a refresh or source check fails.
- Governance modelWorkspace structure, certification process, access model, and a definition-change process with named owners.
Outcomes
What changed
Figures are published only once the client has approved them. Where a value reads “Illustrative”, the improvement is real but the number has not been cleared for publication.
- Period-end preparation effort
- Not yet approved for publication
- Conflicting measure definitions
- Consolidated to one certified model
- Refresh reliability
- Monitored with alerting
Technology stack
- Power BI
- Microsoft Fabric
- Azure Data Factory
- Azure SQL
- DAX
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