Retiring Legacy Reporting: Infrastructure, Governance, and Automation in a Microsoft Fabric Architecture
Speakers: Elias Abiadal and Rebal Mansoor
Modernizing legacy reporting systems is not merely a development exercise - it is an enterprise infrastructure and governance challenge. At Saint Mary’s University, we led a strategic transition from SAP BOE and Crystal Reports to a Microsoft Fabric and Power Platform–based architecture designed to reduce technical debt, optimize licensing, and strengthen institutional oversight.
This session presents the initiative from two complementary perspectives: automation architecture and infrastructure governance.
We will explore how reporting logic was re-architected using Semantic Models, DirectQuery (Oracle), and Paginated Reports orchestrated through Power Automate. More importantly, we will examine the infrastructure decisions that enabled this shift: identity integration, secure API execution, logging centralization, environment segregation, and hybrid connectivity considerations.
A core focus will be solving the “black box” automation problem by designing a granular logging and audit framework that captures execution metadata, runtime parameters, and delivery outcomes ensuring traceability, security, and operational resilience.
Attendees will gain a practical blueprint for retiring legacy reporting platforms while maintaining enterprise-grade control, security alignment, and architectural sustainability.
Learning Objectives:
- Enterprise Modernization Strategy: Assess when and how to retire legacy reporting systems in favor of cloud-native platforms.
- Infrastructure & Security Alignment: Understand identity, access control, hybrid connectivity, and logging requirements when automating reporting at scale.
- Governance & Observability: Design audit and logging frameworks that provide transparency and operational control in automated workflows.
- Architectural Trade-offs: Evaluate performance, latency, and maintainability considerations in cloud-based document automation.
Speaker Bios:
Elias Abiadal is a Systems Analyst at Saint Mary’s University specializing in cloud transformation and enterprise workflow architecture. He recently led the modernization of mission-critical reporting and document delivery from legacy SAP environments to Microsoft Fabric, with a core focus on engineering the real-time observability and granular logging frameworks required for sustainable, enterprise-scale automation.
Rebal Mansoor is a Technology Analyst at Saint Mary’s University specializing in enterprise systems architecture, hybrid infrastructure, and security. He focuses on designing secure, resilient, and governance-aligned cloud environments that support automation while maintaining institutional control and compliance.