Extend Nonprofit data solutions

Nonprofit data solutions in Microsoft Fabric is a foundational building block to support nonprofits in unifying data across multiple sources. You can customize the components of this solution so that your organization can tailor it for its unique needs.

This article provides an overview of extensibility capabilities across the medallion architecture layers: bronze (ingestion), silver (transformation), and gold (enrichment).

Extensibility capabilities

You can customize Nonprofit data solutions in the following ways:

Data ingestion (bronze layer)

• Salesforce customization: Add new tables or columns from Salesforce to extend your data model. See Customize Salesforce data ingestion.
• Dynamics 365 customization: Add new tables or columns from Dynamics 365 to enrich your data. See Customize Dynamics 365 data ingestion.
• Additional data sources: Connect data from any source supported by Fabric. See Connect additional data sources.

Data transformation (silver layer)

• Data model extension: Customize the silver data model to include extra tables or modify existing structures.
• Configuration logic: Create or modify configuration settings that control transformation behavior.
• Transformation logic: Implement custom transformations for your data sources.
• Data validation: Add custom data validation rules to ensure data quality and consistency.
• Data unification: Implement custom logic to unify and standardize data from multiple sources.

For detailed guidance on extending the bronze-to-silver transformation pipeline, see Extend data pipelines from one layer to another.

Data enrichment and segmentation (gold layer)

• Customize insights: Modify existing enrichment logic to adjust calculations, aggregations, or business rules. See Customize enrichment insights.
• Generate new insights: Create entirely new enrichment logic to derive more insights from your data. See Customize enrichment insights.
• Customize segmentation: Modify existing segmentation criteria or create new segments to categorize constituents. See Customize segmentation logic.

For detailed guidance on extending the silver-to-gold enrichment pipeline, see Extend data pipelines from one layer to another.

Reporting and semantic model customization

Beyond data pipeline customization, you can also tailor the reporting layer to meet your organization's needs:

• Semantic model: Customize the semantic model to add new tables, measures, or relationships that support your reporting requirements.
• Power BI reports: Modify existing reports or create new ones to visualize your data and insights in ways that align with your organization's goals.

Example scenarios

Use these end-to-end examples as implementation patterns for common extension tasks:

• Example: Add a Dynamics 365 Sales column to a report
• Example: Add a Dynamics 365 Sales optionset to a report
• Example: Add a Dynamics 365 Sales table to a report
• Example: Add an Excel source to the bronze and silver layers
• Example: Combine multiple bronze tables into one silver table
• Example: Generate new insights from silver data to the gold layer
• Example: Generate new segments from silver data to the gold layer

Getting started with extensibility

Before customizing Nonprofit data solutions:

1. Understand the architecture: Familiarize yourself with medallion architecture and how data flows through bronze, silver, and gold layers.
2. Identify your requirements: Clearly define what you want to achieve with your customizations.
3. Review existing pipelines: Examine the out-of-the-box pipelines to understand the structure and patterns.
4. Test in a development environment: Always test your customizations before applying them to production.
5. Document your changes: Maintain documentation of your customizations for future reference and maintenance.

Related information

• Overview of Nonprofit data solutions
• Customize Salesforce data ingestion
• Customize Dynamics 365 data ingestion
• Connect additional data sources
• Extend data pipelines from one layer to another
• Customize enrichment insights
• Customize segmentation logic
• Example: Add an Excel source to the bronze and silver layers
• Example: Generate new insights from silver data to the gold layer
• Example: Generate new segments from silver data to the gold layer

Nonprofit data solutions on GitHub

Get additional information about Nonprofit data solutions on GitHub.