Microsoft Purview
Data-governance programmes that give an organisation visible ownership, a working catalog and defensible lineage across the estate.
The problem executives keep signing.
Boards and regulators expect clear evidence of who owns which data, where it moves, how it is used and how good it is. Meanwhile the day-to-day estate is a mix of source systems, warehouses, lakes, SharePoint sites and analyst-owned spreadsheets. None of these is obviously wrong, and none is centrally described.
Analytics and AI programmes assume a data estate that is, in practice, opaque. Governance work often ends up as documentation nobody reads, and the same questions have to be answered from scratch each time.
What we provide.
- Data-governance strategy and operating models
- The ownership model, the governance forums that actually meet, and the sequence in which the estate will be brought under control.
- Microsoft Purview Data Map
- Cataloguing of the data estate (where data sits, in what shape, moving to and from where) as the foundation everything else builds on.
- Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog
- The single browse-and-search surface that lets analysts, engineers and stewards find data confidently rather than by tribal knowledge.
- Metadata management
- Technical and business metadata captured, curated and kept current through the lifecycle of each data asset.
- Governance domains
- Domain boundaries that reflect how the business is actually organised, so ownership and stewardship sit with people who can act on them.
- Data products
- Curated, described and owned data products that downstream teams can consume with confidence, rather than raw tables they have to interpret.
- Glossary terms and business vocabulary
- A living business glossary that connects the language of the business to the columns in the platform.
- Data lineage
- End-to-end lineage that supports impact analysis before change and root-cause analysis after incidents.
- Data quality
- Rules, monitoring and remediation cycles that make quality a measurable, owned property rather than a periodic report.
- Ownership and stewardship
- The role definitions, RACI and working practices that make governance sustainable rather than a project.
- Sensitive-data discovery where relevant
- Discovery and classification of sensitive-data types where the governance programme needs it to design controls, treated as an adjacent activity rather than a standalone Microsoft compliance practice.
- Adoption and managed support
- The change work, training and ongoing enablement that keeps the governance function used after go-live.
Microsoft Purview also covers compliance, information protection and risk beyond the governance surface. We treat those areas as adjacent considerations that a data-governance design may need to account for, or as integration boundaries requiring separately confirmed expertise, not as an established Microsoft compliance practice on our part.
Outcomes we focus on.
- Visible ownership across the analytical and operational data estate.
- A shared business vocabulary that survives contact with the real data.
- Lineage that supports impact analysis before change, not blame after it.
- A governance function the business uses rather than routes around.
Technologies we work with.
- Microsoft Purview Data Map and Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog.
- Microsoft 365 and SharePoint as source estates for content and collaboration data.
- Cloud data platforms including Microsoft Fabric and Azure Synapse.
- Power BI where the governance function meets analytical consumption.
Governance in the Nigerian context
In Nigeria, the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 and applicable sector-specific data-protection requirements can put data governance squarely inside executive accountability. That framing helps most organisations, but it is not identical for all; the exact obligations depend on sector, data types and business model. We use this context to shape governance design; we do not provide legal advice, do not claim that Microsoft Purview itself guarantees compliance, and do not interpret specific statutory provisions.
Who this is for.
- Chief Data Officers accountable for what the data says and who owns it.
- Chief Information Security Officers accountable for how sensitive data is discovered and handled.
- Heads of Compliance and Risk who need governance evidence they can defend.
Ready to talk about your data-governance programme?
Tell us what you are planning. We will review your enquiry and respond with appropriate next steps.
Contact Blackruby TechnologiesMicrosoft and the names of Microsoft products and services referenced on this page are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. Blackruby Technologies is an independent consultancy and is not affiliated with, authorised by, sponsored by, approved by or endorsed by Microsoft. References to Microsoft products describe technologies with which Blackruby Technologies works and do not indicate Microsoft Partner or Solutions Partner status.