Isolating PII Tables in a Fabric Lakehouse
You have a Fabric workspace named Workspace1 that contains a lakehouse named Lakehouse1. Lakehouse1 contains the following tables: Orders Customer Employee The Employee table contains Personally Identifiable Information (PII). A data engineer is building a workflow that requires writing data to the Customer table, however, the user does NOT have the elevated permissions required to view the contents of the Employee table. You need to ensure that the data engineer can write data to the Customer table without reading data from the Employee table. Which three actions should you perform? Each correct answer presents part of the solution. NOTE: Each correct selection is worth one point.
Community Insight
The question tests whether you understand that Contributor on a workspace grants read access to everything in it, so the only way to allow writes to Customer while blocking reads of Employee is to relocate the PII table to a different workspace.
In Microsoft Fabric, workspace-level roles are the granularity boundary for lakehouse access, so protecting the Employee table's PII means physically separating it from the tables the data engineer must write to. The correct solution combines three moves: create Workspace2 with Lakehouse2, migrate the Employee table there, and grant the engineer Contributor rights on Workspace1 only.
The most common wrong pick is choosing A (share Lakehouse1) plus a role assignment — lakehouse sharing is read-oriented and still exposes every table in that lakehouse, including Employee, so it cannot satisfy the restriction. Learners also mistakenly grant Contributor or Viewer on Workspace2, which would either expose the PII data or be pointless.
Community Discussion (26 comments)
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Expert Analysis
Why the Answer Is Correct
Option F creates Workspace2 containing a new Lakehouse2, establishing a separate permission boundary; in Fabric, workspace roles are the coarsest access-control unit, so anything in a workspace is visible to anyone with a role there. Option E migrates the Employee table out of Lakehouse1 into that new lakehouse, removing the PII from the environment the engineer touches. Option D then grants Contributor on Workspace1, which is the role that permits writing (adding, editing, and saving) tables such as Customer. Together, F + E + D let the engineer write to Customer while the Employee data is unreachable, exactly matching the stated requirement.Why the Other Options Are Wrong
Option A, sharing Lakehouse1, is a read-oriented sharing mechanism that exposes the whole lakehouse contents, so the engineer would still see the Employee PII — commenters such as IshtarSQL note that "Sharing Lakehouse1 directly grants access to all its contents, including the Employee table". Options B and C are wrong twice over: they target Workspace2, which after migration holds the sensitive Employee table, and Viewer (C) grants no write capability at all. Option G, Viewer on Workspace1, gives read access but no ability to write to the Customer table, failing the workflow requirement.Community Comment Notes
The community is essentially unanimous on DEF, with nine of ten voters selecting that combination. robertlavigne's highly rated explanation states "First we need to do F and E to separate the Employee table from the other tables. Then they need contributor access to be able to write to the Customer table". Wipag adds the useful detail that "Contributor role is required to write data to tables in the workspace, including Customer." Only one outlier voted ADE, citing an AI-generated answer, and henryphchan simply confirms "The steps are F, E, D" — the same verdict reached independently.Official Reference
Exam Strategy
On Fabric permission questions, map each required capability to the narrowest role that grants it: Viewer is read-only, Contributor can modify content, and only workspace admins manage access. When a requirement says a user must NOT see specific data, look for an answer that physically separates that data into a different workspace or lakehouse, since in-workspace roles cannot restrict individual tables.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can't we just share Lakehouse1 with the data engineer instead of moving the Employee table?
Lakehouse sharing in Fabric grants read access to the lakehouse's contents, so the engineer would still be able to read the Employee table and its PII. Sharing cannot hide individual tables.
Why is Contributor on Workspace2 wrong rather than helpful?
After the migration, Workspace2 holds the Lakehouse2 that contains the PII-bearing Employee table. Granting the engineer any role there would expose exactly the data you are trying to protect.