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Microsoft Fabric OneLake SharePoint and OneDrive shortcuts: when you still need SQL Server (SQList)
Microsoft Fabric keeps making it easier to bring Microsoft 365 content into analytics. One example is OneLake shortcuts to SharePoint and OneDrive locations. Shortcuts are a great fit for many file-centric scenarios – but they do not magically turn SharePoint into a scalable reporting database for lists, libraries, and metadata-driven business data. This article explains…
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Power BI May 2026 Update: Why a SQL Reporting Layer for SharePoint Lists Matters More Than Ever (SQList)
Power BI keeps getting better at modelling, calculating and explaining business metrics. The May 2026 Power BI Desktop update highlights features like Copilot summary shortcuts, visual calculations and custom totals becoming generally available, and a new Get Data experience (preview). Those improvements are great news – but they also raise the bar for data quality,…
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SharePoint Document Library to SQL Server: A Practical Sync + Reporting Pattern (with SQList)
SharePoint document libraries are great for collaboration, versioning and metadata-driven document management. But as soon as you need reliable reporting or integration over that data (Power BI, SSRS, data quality checks, downstream apps), libraries quickly become a hard source system to query directly. The most resilient pattern is to keep SharePoint as the operational UI,…
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Reporting on SharePoint Complex Fields in SQL Server: Lookups, People, and Multi-Value Data (with SQList)
SharePoint lists are brilliant for capturing business data quickly. The trouble starts when you try to report on that data at scale — especially once you use SharePoint’s richer field types like lookups, people picker, and multi-value choices/metadata. The most reliable pattern is to keep SharePoint as the operational UI (system of record), then use…
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Using SQL Server as a Reporting Layer for SharePoint Lists
SharePoint lists are excellent for day-to-day collaboration, but SQL Server is often the better place to run reporting, analytics, and integration workloads. This article explains how a SQL reporting layer improves performance, reliability, governance, and Power BI reporting for SharePoint data.
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Why Power BI and SharePoint Work Well at First — Then Suddenly Don’t
Introduction Many teams start with SharePoint lists and Power BI because the combination feels fast, low1friction and integrated. SharePoint list: a structured collection in SharePoint used to capture items or records with columns and metadata. Power BI: a data visualisation and reporting tool that can connect to many sources, including SharePoint. Early dashboards appear quickly,…
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Power BI DirectQuery vs Import When SharePoint Is the Source
Overview Power BI offers two primary connectivity modes to consume data: DirectQuery and Import. When SharePoint lists are the source, each mode behaves differently and carries trade-offs for performance, freshness and governance. This article explains how DirectQuery and Import work with SharePoint, why neither is ideal when connecting directly to lists at scale, common decision…
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Common SharePoint Reporting Workarounds — and Why They Break
Introduction Many teams use SharePoint lists as a convenient store for business data. SharePoint list: a structured collection in SharePoint used to capture items or records with columns and metadata. Because lists are easy to create and integrate with Microsoft 365, teams often adopt quick reporting workarounds instead of designing a proper reporting architecture. This…
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Why SharePoint Lists Struggle Beyond 50,000 Items
Introduction SharePoint lists are a convenient, low1code way to capture structured business data. They are optimised for collaboration: quick creation, easy permissioning and seamless integration with Microsoft 365 apps. However, when lists grow past roughly 50,000 items many teams see reliability and performance problems. This article explains why that limit matters, how indexing and thresholds…
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The Hidden Cost of Using SharePoint as a Reporting Database
Introduction SharePoint lists are widely used to capture structured business data because they are convenient, lowcode and tightly integrated with Microsoft 365. But a SharePoint list is not the same thing as a reporting database. A reporting database is a purposebuilt data store optimised for queries, aggregations and analytical workloads; it supports indices, setbased operations,…
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