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See why hundreds of industry leaders trust Secoda to unlock their data's full potential.
Get the guideUnderstanding how to effectively use a data catalog can be a game changer for organizations looking to maximize their data management and discovery.
Data catalogs are centralized repositories that organize and categorize all types of metadata, including technical and business metadata. A data catalog is used to allow an organization’s users to more easily search and discover data. The most important part of implementing a data catalog is choosing the right data catalog solution.
Find more detail and an introduction to data catalogs in our guide here.
The first step to implementing a data catalog is investing in the right tool for your organization. We have written a whole guide on how to select the right data catalog for your organization - you can find it here.
When selecting a data catalog, prioritize a tool that not only allows you to discover your data but also actively contributes to making it more accessible. Look for robust search functionalities that help you find exactly what you are looking for, swiftly and precisely.
At Secoda, we’ve grown our data catalog to be able to connect data quality, observability, and discovery. A data catalog that provides visibility into the health of your entire stack, and prevents data asset sprawl, can work overtime so your team can focus on your main priorities.
Once you have selected your data catalog, you’re ready to start populating it.
Take advantage of modern data catalogs that offer native integrations with the tools in your data pipeline, and are able to easily integrate with your data sources. Choosing a data catalog that is frequently creating new integrations and is receptive to customer feedback and requests will pay off if your stack ever changes, or if you need a more custom solution.
Some data catalogs offer options for customers to build their own custom integrations, so that no matter what kind of tool you’d like to integrate into your data catalog, you’ll be able to.
Integrating your data sources will make it quick and easy to find and understand the meaning of specific data, which can greatly enhance your data management and discovery efforts.
Follow the steps provided by your data catalog platform to integrate both cloud and on-premises data sources.
Benefits to connecting your data to Secoda
How does Secoda integrate into your data?
Secoda integrates with your databases, data warehouses and BI tools to fetch metadata, query history and activity from data sources to make it easier to share and document data knowledge with stakeholders.
As soon as the metadata and query history have been added to Secoda, they are compiled into a unified metadata store by way of a query parser. By parsing queries, we look at what data is there, where it is, and how it is used.
If queries are available, the tables, databases and dashboards will display a data column and table level lineage model, to easily see from one place what the data dependencies are, where the data came from, and where it's being used.
Tags are a static way to label your metadata and other resources with useful context that other users in your workspace need to know. Secoda has two built-in default tags, PII Identifier and Verified Identifier. To add additional tags to your workspace, you can create Custom Tags based on how you'd like to categorize data in your organization.
Create tag templates, tags, overviews, and data stewards to help organize and categorize your data. This will make it easier to find and use your data assets.
Not all search functionalities in data catalogs are built equally. Modern data catalogs should include advanced search capabilities that allow any user to explore and discover data insights. Advancements like natural language processing empower even nontechnical users to access the data they need when they need it. In short, enabling better data search allows for more efficient and effective data discovery, helping to boost productivity and reduce data request bottlenecks for the data team. Everything in your data catalog will be indexed via search, so it is critical you select a catalog with a fantastic search feature.
Search is very important to Secoda users and we are constantly improving the functionality to provide the best experience. You can search for any data resource using Secoda's search, including tables, columns, collections, dictionary terms, documents, metrics and questions. You can search for terms in plain language, or by the table name and data source if you already know what you're looking for.
Look for data catalogs with search features like:
After populating your data catalog, identify the important people for each data asset and assign data users such as owners to your data assets. This will ensure that your data is managed effectively.
Benefits to assigning ownership
Assigning owners has many benefits. If your data has ownership defined, you can:
How to assign owners to data in Secoda
After navigating to a Secoda resource, Editors and Admins can assign Owners by clicking the Owners field and selecting the relevant members from the workspace. The owners field is accessible through Catalog views, or in the side panel.
Regularly update and maintain your data catalog to keep track of new data assets, make changes to existing data assets, remove obsolete data assets, and ensure the catalog remains useful and trustworthy to users. Take the following steps to ensure your data stays complete and maintained.
Establish Data Quality Monitoring:
Enforce Data Security Measures:
Continuous Improvement:
Integrate with your Data Stack:
Promote Data Culture:
Understand what makes a data catalog go from good to invaluable:
Artificial intelligence has significantly revolutionized data catalog management. Modern data catalogs that leverage AI are not just tools; they are strategic assets in the data management strategy. AI transforms data catalogs into intelligent co-pilots for everyone at the organization, streamlining workflows, and ensuring that data becomes a powerful ally in driving business success. As organizations continue to struggle with increasing data complexities, embracing AI-driven data catalogs becomes not just an option but a necessity in staying ahead in the data-driven era.
AI-powered data catalog platforms enable organizations to get better data-driven insights in several ways. Improving data quality certainly helps, but AI platforms can also allow nontechnical users to use natural language search to discover data faster and without help from the data team. This frees up time for the data team and empowers business users in your organization to make more data-driven decisions in a fraction of the time. It also makes collaboration easier.
AI data catalogs improve data discovery and make data management processes much more efficient. Using an AI-powered data catalog, you can automate tasks like data tagging, identification, organization and more. Teams can also get the relevant data they need in a fraction of the time.
AI-powered data catalogs can help improve data quality by identifying inconsistencies, data errors and duplicates automatically. These processes can be completely automated, making it easier for your data teams to focus on other tasks.
AI-powered data catalogs can automate data lineage and documentation tasks to help organizations remain compliant with their industry data regulations. Automated data lineage makes it much easier to track and monitor the entire lifecycle of data, and time-consuming documentation tasks no longer have to eat up hours of the workweek.
AI-powered data catalogs serve as strategic assets in modern data management, making it easier than ever for any user to navigate data, streamline workflows,and enhance data-driven decision making.
Data catalogs powered with AI will assist your data team in writing documentation, descriptions, auto tagging PII and sensitive information, generating end to end lineage and more.
Non-technical users will have AI to guide them through the data catalog, with AI Assistants to help answer questions in natural language, generate SQL queries, and write docs based on all the information in the data catalog.
At Secoda, we believe the future of data discovery will be driven by large language models that allow anyone to ask any question to their data - read more about why we are doubling down on AI powered data catalogs.
Understanding and effectively using a data catalog can transform the way your organization manages and utilizes its data. From discovering and collaborating on data, to understanding the meaning of specific data, a data catalog is a powerful tool that enhances data visibility, accessibility, and governance.
Selecting a data catalog with careful consideration is paramount for strategic alignment, operational efficiency, and long-term success.
A well-chosen data catalog optimizes workflows, enhances data quality and accuracy, and ensures compliance with security and privacy regulations. Its user-friendly interface encourages widespread adoption, contributing to better-informed decision-making.
Careful consideration also addresses scalability, adaptability to change, and maximizes the return on investment by aligning with the organization's growth trajectory.
Ultimately, the careful selection of a data catalog is an investment in the organization's ability to navigate the complexities of a data-driven landscape and leverage data assets for sustained success.
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