Replace Excel-Driven Asset Management Processes with PowerTable and Microsoft Fabric

Small businesses and departments of larger companies need asset tracking that's more structured than Excel but less complex than enterprise IT Asset Management (ITAM) software. PowerTable provides the governance, security, and Microsoft integration that spreadsheet solutions can't match without the complexity and cost of dedicated ITAM platforms.

We recently demonstrated this approach in our "PowerTable for Practical Use: Build an Asset Management Data App in 60 Minutes" webinar, walking through a complete IT Asset Management solution using PowerTable and Fabric SQL DB. The solution demonstrated is part of our July 2025 release.

This article will walk you through taking advantage of that template to move your department beyond spreadsheet chaos into structured, governed asset management. But before we get to the template, let’s revisit some of the concepts from the webinar.

What Is IT Asset Management?

At its core, ITAM is about tracking and managing IT assets throughout their lifecycle - from purchase and deployment to maintenance and eventual disposal. It ensures every device or license is accounted for, properly assigned, and operating within budget and compliance requirements.

A good ITAM system answers questions like:

Who has this laptop?

What software is installed and licensed?

When does this desktop's warranty expire?

What’s the total cost of our IT inventory?

Why use PowerTable for IT Asset Management?

PowerTable is built for flexibility and ease of collaboration and brings structure to what is often managed loosely in spreadsheets or across disconnected or overly complicated SaaS systems. You can use PowerTable to manage your ITAM data in a governed and secure manner using the data source of your choosing whether that be Fabric SQL, Azure SQL, or PostgreSQL OR Fabric Warehouse, Snowflake, Databricks, Amazon Redshift, or BigQuery.

Here’s why that matters:

Governance: advanced security (access control), audit, and approvals are all things that are lacking when managing ITAM using spreadsheets.

Scalable Foundation: the Asset Management template, even with a basic setup - asset type, model, serial number, user, purchase date, etc, can evolve into a full ITAM system as organizational needs grow.

Visibility & Accountability: the template provides a shared, live source of truth for asset assignments, ownership, and conditions.

Cost Tracking: the template tracks purchase price, warranty, and lifecycle status help control IT spending and forecast replacement needs.

Our Asset Management template, though simple, addresses these items with PowerTable and Microsoft Fabric.

What is a PowerTable template?

A PowerTable template is a sample data app that allows you to explore PowerTable features without having to connect to your database. It uses a PostgreSQL database that we provide in our SaaS offering. The data app is fully functional and configurable, and you can add additional columns, automations, and approvals.

There are some limitations – the main one being that you cannot add new tables to the PostgreSQL database. For this reason, we recommend that you use this template for exploration. Once you are comfortable with how you would like to use this solution, you rebuild it using your data source. It is on our roadmap to expedite this process.

How do I get started with the Asset Management template?

Installing the template is easy and straight forward. Follow the steps in this section to provision the template in your Microsoft Fabric workspace. You can also refer to the Explore a sample app | PowerTable article in our documentation portal

Please note that you will need a PowerTable trial to install the template. Visit our getting started or contact us webpages for information on how to start a trial.

To install the template…

Click on NewItem to create a new PowerTable item in your workspace and Select Lumel PowerTable (preview) from the list of items.

Enter a Display Name for your PowerTable item and click the Create button.

Click on the Explore PowerTable button.

Select Asset Management from the template options and click the Create button.

You now have a fully functional Asset Management data app - it’s that easy!

Take it for a spin!

Now that you have the Asset Management data app, it is time to explore and reverse engineer the app. Make sure to:

Explore the data

Setup conditional formatting

Add new columns

Implement access control, approvals, and automations

Make it work for you.

Wrapping it up

IT Asset Management does not have to be overly complicated. Whether you are part of a small business or a department in a larger enterprise, this PowerTable template gives you a practical starting point for structured, governed IT Asset Management solution without the complexity of traditional ITAM systems. With built-in support for Microsoft Fabric and scalable database options, it's easy to evolve the solution as your organization grows.

Please note that we will update this article over time as we enhance the Asset Management template through new features and capabilities, so bookmark this article if you want to follow along.

How PowerTable Eliminates Excel's Hidden Costs in Microsoft Fabric Environments

Imagine reclaiming over 40 hours per month for your teams, empowering them to focus on high-value analysis instead of manual data tasks. By extending your Microsoft Fabric platform with PowerTable, you can transform routine data entry into a strategic, collaborative process that accelerates business outcomes.

While Microsoft Fabric provides a powerful foundation for data analytics, teams often look for more dynamic ways to interact with the data for planning and operational tasks. This is where a dedicated application layer adds tremendous value, enabling seamless collaboration directly on your central data platform.

An Opportunity for Workflow Modernization

Consider a standard quarterly forecasting process. A finance analyst can facilitate a highly efficient workflow by providing department heads with access to a central PowerTable application.

The application presents baseline data sourced directly from a Fabric Lakehouse, ensuring everyone starts from the same page.

The data is always live. With PowerTable's real-time sync, any updates made are instantly reflected for all users, maintaining a single, consistent version of the plan.

All contributions from department heads are consolidated automatically within the application.

The finance team can oversee this process as it happens, guiding decisions with the most current information.

A complete audit trail is automatically generated. A complete audit trail is automatically generated. Every contribution is logged, creating a clear, auditable record that strengthens accountability and data governance.

This streamlined workflow brings a new level of speed and confidence to your most important operational and financial planning activities.

PowerTable: A Bridge to Interactive Data Collaboration

PowerTable provides a no-code application layer that runs directly on Microsoft Fabric. It enables your business teams to build secure, collaborative, and auditable web applications, elevating your data processes to a new standard of excellence.

Here’s how PowerTable enhances your financial workflows:

Achieves a Single Source of Truth with Live Sync: PowerTable connects directly to your data in Fabric. This live, bi-directional sync means users always view and edit the most current information, fostering confidence and data integrity across the organization.

Strengthens Governance with Workflows & Audit Trails: You can design multi-level approval workflows directly into your PowerTable apps.

Every change is captured in an immutable audit log. This provides detailed, cell-level traceability—capturing the "who, what, when, and where" of every modification

Accelerates Business Solutions with No-Code: Your finance team can now build and deploy their own secure data applications in hours. PowerTable’s intuitive interface empowers the people closest to the process to create the solutions they need, fostering agility and innovation.

Delivers Exceptional Performance with Pushdown SQL: When a user interacts with a large dataset, PowerTable’s pushdown SQL architecture ensures all processing is handled by your high-performance Microsoft Fabric environment. This provides a fast, scalable, and responsive experience for all users.

The Measurable Advantage: A New Standard for Performance

By replacing spreadsheet-driven processes with governed PowerTable applications, organizations convert operational friction into tangible returns. This new approach drives value in four key areas:

Accelerated Business Cycles: Teams can shorten critical processes, like financial closes or operational planning, from weeks to days. This speed is achieved by eliminating manual data consolidation, replacing email chains with automated workflows, and enabling real-time collaboration on a single platform.

Improved Data Integrity and Confidence: Confidence in your data increases when you replace error-prone manual entry with governed forms. By using built-in data validation rules and writing directly back to the single source of truth in Fabric, you enhance the accuracy of your most important business information.

Strengthened Governance and Auditability: PowerTable provides the tools to support rigorous governance policies. With an immutable, cell-level audit trail that records the "who, what, when, and where" of every data change, you are better equipped to satisfy internal and external audit requirements.

Increased ROI on Your Microsoft Fabric Investment: You can maximize the return on your core data platform by empowering business teams to safely interact with and enrich enterprise data. PowerTable closes the application gap, turning Fabric from a passive data repository into an active, collaborative system of engagement.

Next Step: Elevate Your Most Important Financial Workflow

Your Microsoft Fabric platform is your single source of truth for analytics. PowerTable makes it your single platform for action.

Stop creating a dangerous "air gap" by exporting critical financial data to offline spreadsheets. PowerTable provides the native Fabric workload that allows your finance and operations teams to build secure, interactive applications directly on your central data. With our zero-data-replication architecture, you can finally achieve business agility without sacrificing enterprise governance.

Schedule a 15-minute architectural demo to see how you can replace your riskiest spreadsheet workflow with a secure, Fabric-native application this quarter.