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General Validation compares a source Table with a target Table in Microsoft Fabric so you can confirm that a pipeline, migration, or refresh produced the outcome you expect. You pair Lakehouse or Warehouse Tables, add Tests chosen from twelve predefined functions, run them, and review Results in the hosted application. Validation runs as a Spark job in a dedicated workspace on your own Fabric capacity under your signed-in identity, so your rows, exact values, and mismatch evidence stay in your tenant while General Validation stores only configuration, Run status, verdicts, counts, reason codes, and a reference to each Run’s Results folder. See Security and the data boundary.

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Before you start

Have these ready:
  • A Microsoft work account in the Microsoft Entra directory your organization will use.
  • An active Fabric capacity (F, P, or FT) and, for the Owner who runs setup, permission to create workspaces and assign them to that capacity. General Validation uses your existing capacity and does not purchase or resize capacity.
  • Access to the Lakehouse or Warehouse Tables you want to compare: read access through their workspaces and, for Warehouse Tables, SQL SELECT on the Table.
  • A directory administrator, if your tenant requires an administrator to approve new applications before people can sign in.
Start with one well-understood pair of Tables and a row count. Review Supported data for the Tables General Validation can compare and the access each one needs.

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1. Sign in and approve access

  1. Open General Validation and choose Get started free, or Sign in if you are joining an existing Organization. Both take you to Microsoft.
  2. Sign in with your Microsoft work account. You sign in directly with Microsoft; General Validation never asks for your Microsoft password.
  3. Approve the permission request Microsoft shows. As the What happens next panel on the sign-in page explains, Microsoft asks you to approve workspace discovery, Spark job execution, and access to OneLake. Every permission is delegated: it acts as you and grants nothing beyond your own Fabric roles.
The panel lists the three steps ahead: Sign in with Microsoft, Connect your workspace, and Validate in Fabric. If sign-in stops at Administrator approval, copy the Approval link for your administrator, send it to a Microsoft Entra administrator, and sign in again after they approve; see Tenants that require administrator approval.

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2. Name your workspace

The first person to sign in from a directory that has no Organization yet sees the activation page, Name your workspace.
  1. Enter an Organization name. This is how your team will see the workspace. It does not rename your Microsoft directory, and you can change it later.
  2. Choose Start 7-day trial.
This links your Entra directory to the new Organization and makes you its first Owner. The trial lasts seven days, allows up to five active Table Pairs, and requires no credit card; the trial summary beside the form confirms 7 days, no card required, and Organization owner access. Paid plans are sized by active Table Pairs; see Plans and trial. Each directory has one Organization. If yours is already connected, the page says so and offers Accept invitation. Ask an Owner of that Organization to invite your work account. Invitations do not send email: the Owner shares the sign-in link with you, and after you sign in with the invited address you choose Accept invitation.

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3. Set up your Environment

A new trial opens Environment directly. Only an Owner can set it up; other members see Environment not configured until an Owner finishes.
  1. Under Set up General Validation, choose a Fabric capacity. Only active capacities you can see are listed.
  2. Click Set up General Validation.
  3. Keep the page open while Fabric finishes setup. The Environment map beside the form walks through five steps and marks each one Complete when it is done.
Setup creates a dedicated workspace on the chosen capacity, a Results Lakehouse named GeneralValidationResults, and one reusable validation job, all in your Fabric tenant and with your own permissions; it never adopts or modifies an existing workspace. When the card shows Ready for validation, choose Create a Table Pair. See Set up your Environment for each step, for what to do when no capacity is listed or a step fails, and for the Reinstall and Remove actions.

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4. Create a Table Pair

Open Table Pairs and click Add Table Pair.
  1. Enter a Table Pair name.
  2. Under Source Table, choose a Source Workspace, then a Source Lakehouse or Warehouse, then a Source Table. Table names include their schema, so identical names in different schemas stay distinct.
  3. Under Target Table, make the same three choices for the target.
  4. Leave Join keys empty for now. Join keys are needed only for row comparisons, the VALUE and OUTER_VALUE Tests.
  5. Click Add Table Pair.
The workspace list shows only workspaces your Microsoft account can access and omits the dedicated General Validation workspace, which holds Results rather than validation Tables. Your browser reads Table metadata live from Fabric; saving the pair stores only the selected Table references, never rows. Confirm the selection before saving: a Table Pair’s source and target Tables cannot be changed later, although its name, join keys, and filters can. Any combination of Lakehouse and Warehouse Tables can form a Table Pair. General Validation opens the new pair’s page so you can add its first Test. See Create Table Pairs for join keys, filters, and the other pair settings.

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5. Add a Test

On the Table Pair page, click Add Test.
  1. Under Test function, choose COUNT_ROWS. It compares the total row counts of the two Tables and needs no columns, which makes it the simplest first control.
  2. Leave Absolute threshold at 0 for exact equality, or enter the largest row count difference you accept.
  3. Click Add Test.
Every other function needs a Source column and a Target column, and VALUE and OUTER_VALUE need the pair’s join keys first. Column names and types are read from the current Tables into your browser and are never saved to General Validation. See The 12 validation functions for what each function compares.

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6. Run and review

  1. Click Run validation on the Table Pair page, or choose it from the row’s ⋯ menu on Table Pairs. It is unavailable until the Environment is set up and the pair has at least one Test.
  2. Watch the Run that opens under Results. General Validation freezes the pair and its Tests, your browser submits the Run to the validation job in your dedicated workspace, and the Run shows Prepared, Submitted, and Running while Fabric works. The page refreshes on its own while it is open, and you can leave and return later.
  3. Click Refresh Result if the Run has not updated. This imports the Run’s summary (verdicts, counts, and reason codes) into General Validation. When the job finishes, the Run shows Passed, Failed, or Error: Error if any Test could not be evaluated, otherwise Failed if any Test failed, otherwise Passed.
  4. Click View details on a Test to see its exact source and target values or a preview of mismatched rows. Your browser reads them directly from OneLake with your own Microsoft identity; they never pass through General Validation, and Close details or leaving the Run clears them from the view.
Reading details needs access to the dedicated General Validation workspace in Fabric as well as Organization membership; a Fabric workspace administrator shares that workspace with teammates through Fabric. Results lists recent Runs newest first, and Refresh Runs reloads the list. See Runs, Results, and evidence for statuses, reasons, evidence previews, and where the Results files live in your Results Lakehouse. Continue with When to validate and Validate on an ongoing basis to turn your first Test into a routine control.