Explore hierarchical asset view - Precisely Data Integrity Suite

Benefits of the hierarchical asset view

The hierarchical view solves the following challenges by presenting your assets in a tree structure that mirrors your actual data organization, providing complete visibility into your data landscape.

In traditional flat catalog views, assets are displayed as a simple list without context about their location or relationships. This approach creates several challenges:

• Lack of context: A flat view does not show where an asset exists within your data structure, making it difficult to understand its role and relationships.
• Ambiguity with similar names: Multiple assets with the same name across different locations become indistinguishable in a flat list.
• Complex navigation: Finding assets in large, complex data structures requires multiple searches and filtering steps.
• Missing intermediate elements: Important structural elements such as schemas and databases that define asset locations are not visible.

Understanding the hierarchy structure

The hierarchical catalog view organizes assets in a parent-child relationship that reflects your data infrastructure. The typical hierarchy for technical assets follows this structure: Datasource > Schema > Dataset > Field

Each level in the hierarchy represents a different type of asset:

• Datasource (Top level): The root connection representing your external or internal data source, such as Snowflake, Databricks, or Amazon S3.
• Intermediate elements: Structural components that uniquely identify asset locations but do not fall into the datasource, dataset, or field categories. Examples include schemas, databases, folders, and other organizational containers. These elements provide essential context for understanding asset location.
• Dataset (Table level): A logical grouping of data extracted from a datasource, typically representing a table or data collection.
• Field (Column level): Individual data attributes or columns within a dataset.

Example hierarchy: DWH > core_warehouse > curated > Customer_Data > customer_id

In this example:

• DWH is the datasource
• core_warehouse and curated are intermediate elements (schemas or folders)
• Customer_Data is the dataset
• customer_id is the field

Accessing the hierarchical view

To access the hierarchical catalog view:

1. Go to Catalog from the main navigation menu.
2. Select one of the main tabs:
   • Datasources: View and manage your datasources and their hierarchical structure.
   • Datasets: Explore tables and data collections within your datasources, displayed with their full hierarchical paths.
   • Fields: Examine individual columns within your datasets, showing their complete location hierarchy.
   • Technical assets: View technical assets configured for your workspace, displayed with hierarchical relationships.
   • Business assets: View business assets configured for your workspace, displayed with hierarchical relationships.
3. The hierarchical view is available through the Asset Location filter, which displays a tree structure of your assets.

Using the Asset Location filter

The Asset Location filter provides a hierarchical tree view that allows you to navigate and filter assets by their parent-child relationships.

To use the Asset Location filter:

1. In the Catalog, locate the Asset Location filter on the filter panel.
   Note: Ensure you are viewing a tab that supports hierarchical filtering (Datasets, Fields, or Technical assets). The Asset Location filter is not available for the Datasources tab, as datasources are the top level of the hierarchy.
2. The filter displays a tree structure showing all available datasources and their nested elements.
3. Click the expand arrow next to any item to reveal its child elements.
4. Select one or more items in the hierarchy to filter the displayed assets.
5. The main view updates to show only assets that match your selected location filters.
6. To clear the filter, click the Clear button or deselect all items.

Key features of the Asset Location filter:

• Hierarchical navigation: Expand and collapse branches to navigate through your data structure.
• Intermediate elements visibility: All structural elements, including schemas, databases, and folders, are visible in the hierarchy.
• Multi-select capability: Select multiple locations to view assets from different branches simultaneously.
• Transparent path display: You can always see the path you have taken through the hierarchy, making navigation transparent and easy to understand.
• Search within Asset Location: You can also search for assets within the Asset Location filter by typing in the filter's search box. This allows you to quickly find specific locations in the hierarchy without manually expanding all branches.

Other available filters are:

• Asset Location: Filter by hierarchical location using the tree view. Available for Datasets, Fields, and Technical assets.
• Asset Type: Filter by asset classification (Datasource, Dataset, Field, or custom technical asset types). Available for Datasets, Fields, Business assets and Technical assets.
• Status: Filter by asset status such as Certified, Draft, or Under Review.
• Quality Score: Filter by quality score ranges (Good, Average, Poor).
• Governance Score: Filter by governance score ranges.
• Custom fields: Filter by custom field values specific to your asset types.

Understanding intermediate elements

Intermediate elements are structural components in your data hierarchy that uniquely identify asset locations but do not fall into the standard datasource, dataset, or field categories.

Common examples of intermediate elements:

• Schemas (in relational databases)
• Databases (in multi-database systems)
• Folders (in file systems)
• Namespaces (in knowledge graphs)
• Organizational containers (in taxonomy trees)
• Any other structural level that provides context for asset location

Importance of intermediate elements: Intermediate elements provide essential context for understanding where an asset exists within your data structure. They help distinguish between similarly named assets in different locations and provide a complete picture of your data organization.

Viewing intermediate elements: Intermediate elements are fully visible in the hierarchical Asset Location filter. You can expand and collapse them to navigate through your data structure and filter assets by their location within these elements.

Example: In the path DWH > core_warehouse > curated > Customer_Data, both core_warehouse and curated are intermediate elements that provide context for the Customer_Data dataset.