Since I recently passed the DP-700 exam, I thought it might be helpful to share some tips to help others in preparing and hopefully succeeding in the exam and earning this nice badge!

What is the DP-700 Exam

Implementing Data Engineering Solutions Using Microsoft Fabric
This DP-700 exam measures your ability to design and implement data engineering solutions on Microsoft Fabric.

• Implement and manage an analytics solution (30–35%)
• Ingest and transform data (30–35%)
• Monitor and optimize an analytics solution (30–35%)

Why I’m Sharing This

I felt pretty good about how this exam went. I managed to finish with plenty of time left and scored 100% in the “Implement and Manage an Analytics Solution” section, and around 90% in the other two. I don’t think that makes me better than anyone else, I just followed a consistent strategy that seems to work well so far. So I’m sharing it here in the hope that it can help others better prepare for the DP-700 exam or any other certification exam.

General tips for any certification

Before going through the technical part to review for the dp-700 exam, here are some general tips to keep in mind.

The right order to read

Quickly skim through the description of the problem, read carefully the question, read the answers, and go back to reading carefully the problem description. This technique works very well with me and with many people that I also helped with passing exams. The time is limited thus managing it is key to avoiding stress and rushing things out. The extra time can help you earn a few more points if used well.

For some questions, if you know your stuff well, you may not even need to read the description a second time thus saving extra time to revisit questions you’re unsure of later.

Managing the time

As mentioned above managing your time is key if you’re stuck on a question move on and save it for later, do not use Microsoft Learn until you have answered all the questions.

Sometimes answering other questions will help you review a previous question or reading other questions may have information that will help you answer a previous question so again I repeat myself but don’t waste time overthinking an answer that you are not so sure about, just save it for later and move to the next question.

Make sure to keep at least 20 minutes for the study case we will talk about it later.

Questions that you cannot review

These questions are tricky as you cannot return to them after answering. You will encounter similar questions multiple times with varying answers. Read both the questions and answers very carefully. Pay close attention to small details like syntax, row order, or filter signs remember “the devil is in the details”!

Microsoft Learn

Interestingly, this was my first time seeing access to Microsoft Learn during an exam it was also available in the dp-600 but since I took it while in beta it was probably not there or I did not notice it.

Now I need to emphasize it: Do not use Microsoft Learn until you’ve finished answering all the questions. Remember, time is precious. If you’re unsure about an answer, save it for later. Going through Microsoft Learn can be time-consuming, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of overusing it. Spending too much time here might force you to rush at the end, causing you to lose some easy points.

So only use Microsoft Learn if you have enough time left. By enough time I mean at least more than 20 minutes remaining for the study case. Also, keep in mind that you have limited access to Microsoft Learn during the exam, so finding answers can be challenging—which makes sense, otherwise, the exam would be too easy…

One small tip I can give you is to use keywords instead of typing the exact exam questions, and use relevant keywords like “Fabric security” or “Fabric OneLake”. This will lead you to documentation that might help. But don’t expect too much from it I mostly explored Microsoft Learn out of curiosity and to share my experience here but from what I remember there were not any obvious answers there which of course fair.

The study case

This is always my favourite part of the exam. Those who remember the older MCSE exams might recall multiple case studies, which I found harder than the current format. The case study resembles more like a real-world scenario problem to solve with requirements and some constraints. While there are a few questions you can answer without reading much, most require careful reading and consideration to solve practical problems.

Again, follow the effective reading strategy: read the question first, carefully review the answers, and then focus on the sections of the scenario relevant to the question, I’m not sure if the study case brings more points in the end but this is a part that I believe is the most important of the exam so ensure you have enough time complete it, as I said earlier at least 20 minutes but 30 minutes might be even better.

Review for the DP-700 exam

Implement and manage an analytics solution

This is the part where I scored 100%, probably because the questions were very clear with little room for doubt, unlike the ingestion section which we’ll discuss later. Of course, I’m assuming that you’ve done your homework before taking the exam 🙂

Workspace settings

For this part I recommend going through all parts of the workspace settings before the exam there are not too many things that we can configure on the workspace side, even though there are more and more with the new releases. But you need to know how to configure a couple of things like:

• Spark settings
• Spark environment
• Assign workspace to capacity/domain
• Configure one lake setting
• Configure Semantic model storage
• Azure connection
• Github

At the time of writing this post, there are some network settings available and there may be more in the future but I did not get any network-related questions and as of now it’s not part of the Microsoft study guide.

Implement lifecycle management in Fabric

I was a bit worried about encountering very technical GitHub-related questions but in the end, the questions were fairly straightforward to answer as long as you’ve followed the tutorials on Microsoft Learn before.
But let me share some practical tips:

• Take time to connect one of your workspaces to a GitHub account. Remember all the steps, then repeat the process with Azure DevOps.
• Create Fabric deployment pipelines, deploy different items, and carefully observe their interactions.

Here are additional things that you should know about Deploymeent pipelines:

• Supported items
• Item pairing
• Auto binding items
• Items that can support rules
• Deployment method
• Condition to use deployment pipelines
• Variable libraries (it’s in preview now…)
• How to handle the schedule across different environments?

Here is one of the main Microsoft links for Deployment Pipelines, but don’t just memorize it.
Practice implementing deployment pipelines with each supported item, as hands-on experience will significantly improve your memory and understanding.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/cicd/deployment-pipelines/intro-to-deployment-pipelines?tabs=old-ui

Security and Governance

The easiest part in my opinion 15% Guaranteed if you memorize all the concept

Security is a significant part of the exam but I believe it is also the easiest part to master since the scope is relatively narrow and easy to grasp compared to other sections. And unlike the ingestion section, which I found a bit ambiguous, security questions leave no doubt for the right answer to choose so if you know your stuff it can guarantee around 15% of correct answers among all the exam.

Six things to master:

• Security at tenant/capacity/domain level (2 roles only)
• Security at workspace level (4 roles)
• Security at item level access with some subtleties (reshare, build)
• security at data level with some subtilities(read, write, execution, CLS, OLS, RLS, Folder, Schema)
• Data masking (6 functions to know)
• Maybe one lake security but still in preview…

Then for the governance you need to know two main things:

• Applying and understanding sensitivity labels
• Endorsement types and eligible items

Read carefully the questions there and think logically you’re not going to certify any random data

Read the questions carefully and think logically, you’re not going to certify random data, aren’t you? Microsoft documentation covers these topics thoroughly but if you memorize these points above, you should secure around 15% of your score.

Ingest and transform data

Let me explain why this part can be trickier than the others:

Different languages are used to read from or write to specific databases (Lakehouse, Warehouse, Eventhouse), and certain artefacts are optimized for structured, semi-structured, or unstructured data. Then you have to think about full loads, incremental loads, near real-time and real-time ingestion, file formats, caching and its retention, avoiding data duplication, and minimizing egress costs, things add up quickly.

Now consider that what was true in 2024 might have changed in 2025. Cache policies have evolved recently. Language support for KUsto and Warehouse has also changed recently. If you’re not regularly following Microsoft’s updates and documentation, you might struggle. New features are released almost every month, which is great for Fabric users, but not so much for exam takers!

Experience will definitely help here, as this part is harder to rehearse. But be careful experience can also mislead you. In real life, you may have seen multiple valid ways to solve the same problem, but in the exam, you can only choose one. Go with the option that Microsoft generally recommends, not necessarily the one you’ve implemented in your projects.

One last thing that might help: in my case, the questions seemed to be focused mostly on GA (generally available) features. That wasn’t the case when I took the DP-600 (but it was a beta exam)

Enough talking, here are a few bullet points of things you should be familiar with:

• Data load: full load vs delta load
• CDC and Mirroring
• Bulk insert
• Import data from files with and without partitions
• Real-time or near real-time or on-schedule
• Delete/Insert or Truncate/Insert
• Upsert/Merge
• Shortcut and Caching

Kusto & Pyspark & SQL

As a data engineer, you need to be confident coding in at least one of these core languages: SQL, Python, or Kusto. But in Fabric, you still need to be familiar with these three to some extent:

• SQL/SparkSQL/T-SQL
• Python/PySPark
• KQL

You won’t be asked to write code from scratch, but you’ll likely need to complete missing code snippets or choose the correct snippet that solves a specific problem.
Once again, I found the coding questions to be very practical and real-world-oriented tasks. Nothing was overly theoretical, they reflect what we do daily as data engineers or data analysts.

Here are the key topics you should be confident with:

• Data filtering (All languages)
• Insert/Update/Delete/Merge (SQL, Python)
• Grouping/Aggregating data (All languages)
• Using some Windows functions (All languages)
• Subqueries for advanced filtering (SQL)
• Calculated columns (All languages)
• NotebookUtils/DAG (Pyhton)

As for DAX, I didn’t encounter any questions related to it in the DP-700 exam, so I believe it’s more relevant to the DP-600 exam. But always double-check the official Microsoft documentation to stay safe.

Regarding DAG/NotebookUtils, as far as I know, it’s still in preview. I was surprised to see anything related to it appearing in the exam, but it did! You can read more about it here: NotebookUtils (former MSSparkUtils) for Fabric

Monitor and optimize an analytics solution

Monitoring is usually my favourite part, but ironically, it’s also where I scored the lowest. That’s because this section isn’t something you can simply rehearse. You really need to take your time to understand the scenario and identify the correct solution.

Once again, I liked how Microsoft designed the questions here. They felt very real-world and that’s exactly what I think certifications should focus on.

Monitoring and Alerting

My advice here is simple: go through all the monitoring and alerting sections in Microsoft Learn and explore them in Fabric as well. Fabric has several components to monitor, and they can all appear in the exam.

• Notebook/Spark run & logs
• Pipelines
• Dataflow Gen 2
• Warehouse Queries
• Semantic Model Refresh
• Event Streams
• Fabric Capacity

Also, be aware of the kind of metrics you may be questioned on:

• Run duration
• Last run
• Last Refresh
• Failures
• Successful runs
• Number of rows inserted
• Top Queries

These are all types of questions that come up during daily work as a data engineer or Fabric admin, so expect similar things in the dp-700 exam and even more as it was just a sample, not an exhaustive list.

Another important point: make sure that you know how to send an alert or notification when something fails. This is usually done using Activator or via condition in pipelines, depending on the scenario.

Optimize

This part is extremely important if you’re a Data Engineer, Solution Architect, or Fabric Administrator. You’ll need to know how to approach various performance-related scenarios. Expect questions that test your understanding of how to:

• How to make reading faster
• How to make data ingestion faster
• How to clean up old data
• How to reduce spark session starting time
• How to run multiple notebooks in the same session
• How to leverage caching
• How to change Spark compute settings
• How to use Statistics Effectively
• Understand the different Semantic Model types (Import, Direct Query, Direct Lake)

Here are some useful resource links:

• Optimize/V-order: delta optimization and v-order (MSFT)
• Vacuum: Lakehouse table maintenance (MSFT)
• Statistics: Warehouse Statistics (MSFT)
• Semantic model: Direct Lake vs Import vs DirectLakeImport (SQLBI)

Conclusion

You shouldn’t rely exclusively on the list I mentioned in this post. Make sure you stay up to date with the new features constantly being added to Microsoft Fabric.

That’s why I started with general exam strategies—they can be applied to any certification, and trust me, they’re especially useful if you often find yourself short on time during exams.

For the technical content, Microsoft will certainly continue updating the exam with new features, so always refer to the official Study Guide. However, I believe the topics I listed will remain the core knowledge needed for the DP-700 exam and also for your day-to-day job as a Fabric Data Engineer.