Autonomous Data Contracts with Microsoft Purview: The New Compliance Imperative

🚨 Problem: Manual Data Governance Is Failing at Scale 

As enterprises scale their digital footprints, data pipelines are growing more complex, distributed, and business-critical. Yet the enforcement of data contracts—those vital agreements on schema, frequency, ownership, and quality—still relies on manual reviews, Slack threads, and best-effort documentation. 

The result? Broken dashboards, downstream system failures, costly compliance breaches, and a growing mistrust of data.

🔥 Agitation: The Risk of Inaction Is Too High

 

• [] A small schema change in a finance table disrupts executive dashboards before earnings calls. 

  
  

• [] A sensitive field unintentionally enters a production model, violating data privacy. 

  
  

• [] Auditors request lineage details your team can't fully reconstruct.

These aren’t edge cases—they’re daily realities. And with AI-driven decisions on the rise, bad data now compounds faster than ever. 

💡 Solution: Microsoft Purview + Fabric for Autonomous Data Contract Enforcement 

Microsoft Purview transforms data governance from reactive to autonomous by: 

• [] Auto-scanning and classifying datasets across hybrid and multi-cloud environments

• [] Enforcing data contracts as policy – flagging violations in real-time 

  
  

• [] Detecting schema drift before it breaks production 

  
  

• [] Providing end-to-end lineage and access control with zero manual effort 

  
  

• [] Embedding quality gates directly into CI/CD workflows 

When integrated with Microsoft Fabric, Purview becomes the control plane for reliable data contracts across engineering and business functions. 

🏦 Use Case: Autonomous Compliance in Action 

A global investment firm used Purview to enforce data contracts across 200+ financial data pipelines. Within two quarters: 

• [] 92% of schema changes were flagged pre-deployment

• [] PII fields were masked automatically in non-production environments 

  
  

• [] Lineage views saved 3+ FTEs worth of effort during regulatory audits 

  
  

• [] Contract violations dropped by 70% via proactive alerts 

  
  

What was once a data governance burden became a competitive edge. 

Data Contract Enforcement Flow 

📊 Strategic Benefits 

Benefit	Impact
Trustworthy Data	Every consumer gets what they expect—nothing less, nothing more.
Faster Time to Insight	Fewer escalations and data fixes allow analysts to move faster.
Compliance Assurance	Audit-readiness becomes embedded, not an afterthought.
Engineering Efficiency	Less time debugging pipelines, more time building value.

🔧 Implementation Starter Kit 

• [] Map your top business-critical datasets in Microsoft Purview 

  
  

• [] Define and document expected schemas, null rules, refresh SLAs

• [] Embed Purview policy checks into CI/CD pipelines and ingestion flows

• [] Set up alerts for contract breaches using Data Activator or Power Automate 

  
  

• [] Establish data owner accountability and quality scorecards 

🌐 Why Exult Global 

Exult Global delivers turnkey governance solutions with: 

• [] Microsoft Purview + Microsoft Fabric integration 

  
  

• [] CI/CD validation and Prompt Flow agent setup 

  
  

• [] Enterprise lineage mapping and risk-based access control 

  
  

• [] Training and enablement for data stewards and engineers 

  
  

🔗 Explore Microsoft Purview – Read the Microsoft Purview overview to learn more about its capabilities. 

Schedule a Free Consultation Session Exult Global. 

🔒 Compliance Note: This blog follows Microsoft’s public documentation and naming conventions. Contract enforcement is achieved via configuration of Microsoft Purview, Azure AD roles, and Fabric’s governance features. No proprietary APIs or preview features are disclosed.