NHSBSA Takeover: Fabric Case Study, Fabricathons, CoP and more!

AGENDA:
17:45 - Introductions
18:00 - Steven Spencer: Case Study - Implementing Fabric end to end in the NHSBSA
19:00 - Helen O'Donnell: Running a Fabricathon and CoP - inspiring user take up
19:30 - Refreshments & networking
20:00 - Finish

SESSION DESCRIPTION:

Session 1: Building an end-to-end Fabric proof of concept – from decision to delivery
with Steven Spencer

We embarked on creating a proof of concept for the new Microsoft Fabric platform to demonstrate its potential and capabilities as part of a wider modernisation of the NHSBSA’s data estate. Security and governance being especially important given that our data includes medically sensitive information.
As the MS Fabric offering was new when we started this, our primary goal was to validate the platform's performance and functionality – with a comparison to the capabilities of our current technology stack. For this we used medallion lakehouse architecture and Spark to replicate one of our existing data subject areas.
This talk will not just cover the implementation but will also mention the various decision points that the speaker influenced or was party to and the reasoning behind those decisions. It will also cover the next steps in their journey.

Speaker profile
Steven works at the NHS Business Services Authority as a Technical Lead. With 15 years of experience in most aspects of Business Intelligence, he’s been the primary SME on the early Fabric adoption in the BSA. His areas of expertise include ETL/ELT and data engineering, and have covered a variety of tools from IBM Cognos through to the Microsoft SQL Server stack and Alteryx.

Session 2: Running a Fabricathon and CoP - inspiring user take up
with Helen O'Donnell

Introducing a new data platform and data visualisation tool within an organisation can be a big change. There are a range of users who need to be considered: developers, decision makers and stakeholders. How can we ensure users are onboard with the move, and involved in the decisions made?
How can we maximise our internal communities to ensure that users have the help they need and the support model is in place? How do we ensure users are ‘bought in’ to the process?
As a large NHS organisation, we want to share best practice, and have users inform our ways of working. In the NHS Business Services Authority we are also BIG on collaboration with external organisations. This session will focus on how we’ve interacted with internal and external stakeholders to implement change.

Speaker profile
Helen works at the NHS Business Services Authority overseeing the Data Visualisation standards, managing the BI team, and leading on the internal Data Visualisation and Power BI communities. Keen to see effective reporting, best practices implemented and sharing learning, you can imagine the change is a very exciting time!

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This event is kindly sponsored by Waterston's consultancy. You can check them out via the links below:
https://www.waterstons.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/waterstons/