PowerBI.tips

Fabric Apps

Fabric is more than a data platform — it’s the foundation for building modern analytics applications. This page is the hub for how we think about Fabric apps, patterns that work, and the best content to learn fast.

Explore Microsoft Fabric Listen to the Podcast Search “fabric”

What are Fabric Apps, and when should a Power BI team build one?

TL;DR. Fabric Apps (preview) are TypeScript web apps on the Rayfin SDK, deployed to a Fabric workspace with SQL database, Entra ID sign-in, and hosting managed for you. Use one for writeback or custom interactions; keep KPI reporting in Power BI.

How does a Fabric App work?

You define data models as TypeScript classes with decorators such as @entity(), @text(), and @uuid(), and Fabric Apps generates the database schema and GraphQL endpoints (Microsoft Learn). Running npx rayfin up creates the Fabric Apps item in your workspace with a SQL database in Fabric, Microsoft Entra ID single sign-on, and static hosting for the frontend.

What is Rayfin?

Rayfin is the SDK that Fabric Apps is built on (Microsoft Learn, Rayfin SDK overview). It is decorator-driven, so you describe the schema once in TypeScript and get GraphQL APIs and type-safe clients. The Rayfin CLI scaffolds a project, runs it locally, and deploys it to Fabric.

When is a Fabric App a better fit than a Power BI report?

In Explicit Measures Ep.563, Kurt Buhler points to control of every pixel, custom interactions, and integrations such as planning, writeback, or managing something that already lives in Fabric. The episode leaves the month-to-date sales report and the executive KPI page in Power BI until the design system, permission model, and token bill are real. Microsoft Learn lists prototypes, internal tools, data exploration, and AI agent backends as good fits, and complex multi-step transactions or custom auth providers as poor fits.

Can people outside my tenant use a Fabric App?

Deployed apps sign users in with Microsoft Entra ID single sign-on (Microsoft Learn). For a public write such as a contact form, a tenant admin can enable anonymous data access, which Ep.555 calls an authorization option, not a replacement for authentication. Put the anonymous role on that one public table and keep everything else on a signed-in role. Agentic Thinking Ep.34 tries it live with a public intake form.

Where can I watch Fabric Apps being built?

On Explicit Measures, watch Ep.547: The Hype of Rayfin, Ep.554: Fabric as a Backend, Ep.555: Anonymous Rayfin Fabric Apps, and Ep.563: Fabric Apps Fit into the PBI World. On Agentic Thinking, the sister show from PowerBI.tips, watch Ep.19: Rayfin, Ep.20: Rayfin Build, Ep.22: Fabric App - Rayfin Templates Build, Ep.23: Fabric Apps Rayfin, Ep.25: Replit and Fabric Apps Rayfin, Ep.34: Fabric SQL w Anonymous Access, and Ep.43: Rayfin Hot new Features.

Watch and read

Start with Fabric fundamentals

New to Fabric? Start with the Fabric hub and the Fabric-heavy podcast episodes.

Microsoft Fabric Podcast

Power BI inside Fabric apps

Many Fabric apps still rely on Power BI for semantic models, reporting, and embedded experiences.

Power BI Power BI Embedded

Patterns for building Fabric apps

A few practical paths we see working repeatedly for teams adopting Fabric.

Build a Fabric-first semantic model
Create governed models that scale across reports and apps (and keep performance predictable).
Learn more →
Power BI for the front-end experience
Use Power BI as the reporting surface inside Fabric-enabled solutions.
Learn more →
Embedded analytics for product experiences
Ship analytics in portals and apps with Power BI Embedded + Databricks AI/BI dashboards.
Learn more →
Podcast-driven learning
Stay current with Fabric updates and real-world adoption stories.
Learn more →

Recent Fabric-related posts

A rolling set of posts and podcast write-ups that mention Fabric.

How Deplavity Was Born (and Everything We Made Because of It)
Oct 24, 2026
How Deplavity Was Born (and Everything We Made Because of It)
On Explicit Measures episode 573, Mike Carlo tried to say "deployment savvy" and invented Deplavity instead. Here is where the slip happened, how it turned into a fake prescription drug, and every video, ad, and jingle made because of it.
Fabric Deployment Plan - Ep.573
Oct 20, 2026
Fabric Deployment Plan - Ep.573
Fabric deployment plans let you order deployments and run notebooks or pipelines before and after each item lands, which finally gives data a place in the release. Mike Carlo and Tommy Puglia work out which teams should reach for a plan, which should stay in Git and GitHub Actions, and why both would wait for GA.
Ontology Agent - Ep.572
Oct 15, 2026
Ontology Agent - Ep.572
The Fabric IQ ontology agent can draft an ontology from a lakehouse, and it still cannot finish the job it just offered to do. Tommy Puglia and Mike Carlo hold the preview out of any workspace a client depends on.
Fabric Notebook Toolkit - Ep.571
Oct 13, 2026
Fabric Notebook Toolkit - Ep.571
Microsoft's Fabric Notebook Toolkit lets an agent you already pay for drive notebooks from a CLI. Tommy Puglia and Mike Carlo treat the preview as a tool to learn, not a pattern to hand to every workspace.
PADU and Fabric - Ep.570
Oct 8, 2026
PADU and Fabric - Ep.570
Tommy Puglia borrows a four-bucket scale from Fatal Risk and asks where Fabric patterns land: preferred, accepted, discouraged, or unacceptable. Mike Carlo keeps the answer tied to the job, not the artifact.
Where Writeback Belongs – Ep.569
Oct 6, 2026
Where Writeback Belongs – Ep.569
An anonymous mailbag asks whether Power BI should let people act on a number without leaving the report. Tommy Puglia and Mike Carlo put writeback in Fabric apps, keep the report for consumption, and treat translytical task flows as the exception.
FabCon Barcelona - Feature Draft – Ep.568
Oct 1, 2026
FabCon Barcelona - Feature Draft – Ep.568
Tommy Puglia and Mike Carlo draft a team from the FabCon Barcelona feature list, starting with Fabric app backends and the ontology authoring agent. The picks that follow are pay-as-you-go capacity, the Fabric notebook toolkit, deployment hooks, and text search in semantic models.
The Right Model for the Task – Ep.567
Sep 29, 2026
The Right Model for the Task – Ep.567
Tommy Puglia and Mike Carlo use Kurt Buhler and Eugene Meidinger's Tabular Editor piece to decide which model and effort level belongs on a Fabric task. The same hour covers FabCon Barcelona's Fabric app backend, semantic views, and why monthly active agents may matter more than monthly active users.
Your Identity and Power BI – Ep.565
Sep 22, 2026
Your Identity and Power BI – Ep.565
Tommy Puglia, Mike Carlo, and Kurt Buhler spend this episode on what is left of the Power BI identity once Microsoft Fabric and agents are part of the job. The skill that still decides the work is judgment: listening to the business, and staying critical of what an agent hands back.
Self Aware in Data and AI Literacy – Ep.564
Sep 17, 2026
Self Aware in Data and AI Literacy – Ep.564
Power Query is moving a set of cloud connectors from ODBC to ADBC, and legacy Power BI Q&A now stays through February 2027. Kurt Buhler joins Tommy Puglia and Mike Carlo to sort out what data literacy and AI literacy require once Microsoft Fabric and agents make it easy to build faster than a team can review.
Fabric Apps Fit into the PBI World – Ep.563
Sep 15, 2026
Fabric Apps Fit into the PBI World – Ep.563
Fabric Apps can own every pixel of a data experience, and Kurt Buhler is not ready to hand them the executive dashboard. Tommy Puglia and Mike Carlo spend the hour on where a Rayfin app fits beside Power BI, and on the design system, the token bill, and the research bench a team needs before it scales.
The Fabric Handoff – Ep.562
Sep 10, 2026
The Fabric Handoff – Ep.562
Tommy Puglia and Mike Carlo spend this episode on how a Microsoft Fabric project moves to a team that has to run it. Their model is I build, we build, then you build, and it holds when leadership, trust, and the team's own context stay in place after the builder steps back.