Information assets view (Watson Knowledge Catalog)

To access the Information assets view, choose Catalogs > Information assets from the navigation menu.

Required permission
You must have this user permission to view information assets:
  • Access information assets view

Directly after installation or an upgrade, the default admin user does not have access to the Information assets view. To grant the default admin user access, remove the predefined Data Steward role from the user profile and add it again.

Use the Information assets view to edit synchronized information assets and to create artifact relationships and view additional information about data assets that are in the default catalog.

Information assets can have both short and long descriptions. The assets in the default catalog, however, can only have one description. When an information asset is synced to an asset in the default catalog, its description is processed as follows:

Additional information:

The synchronization process between information assets and default catalog assets

The following diagram shows the synchronization process:

This image shows the synchronization process.

The default catalog has a synced icon (synced icon) next to its name on the Your catalogs page. The assets contained in the synced default catalog and the Information assets view, are continuously synchronized and can be viewed in both views.

The information assets contained in the default catalog are automatically assigned the info_asset tag.

What is synchronized

In general, the following information assets are synced from the information asset view to the default catalog:

Synchronization of connections is limited to the following types:

Data preview and profiling is only available for data assets that are discovered and synchronized from the Information assets view to the default catalog using the above connections.

Data preview, for example, on table data assets synchronized from other data source types is not available, because there is no connection available to access the table’s data in the remote data source.

How to create and publish information assets for the default catalog

To create information asset for the default catalog:

  1. Create a connection, discover data assets, and publish as a platform-level connection. See Adding data from a connection.
  2. Publish to the default catalog for asset synchronization. See Publishing assets from a project into a catalog.
  3. The asset is shown in the default catalog.

How to remove synchronized information assets from the default catalog

To remove an information asset from the default catalog or data quality projects, you first have to remove it from Information assets view. The synchronization process propagates the delete from Information assets view into the default catalog. However, you can remove assets from the default catalog or projects if they are not synchronized.

To remove synchronized information assets from the default catalog or data quality projects:

  1. Go to Catalogs > Information Assets and open the Assets tab (Explore information assets view).
  2. Click the All asset types tab to filter for your asset type. For example, select Databases and click Database Table.
  3. Start typing the name of the asset you want to find.
  4. Click on the asset name you want to remove, then click the Actions menu and click Delete to remove the asset.
  5. The asset is deleted in the Information assets view and removed from the default catalog during synchronization.

Important: Don’t delete the entire database from an information asset. See Known issues.

Relationships with other assets

A relationship graph shows how assets are related to one another. With complex interconnections, graphical depiction of such relationships helps you understand the structure of your data. Each relationship has direction and name. You can see the relationship graph in the Relationships pane.

Quality analysis

You can view the results of quality analysis, for those assets that were analyzed. Quality analysis can include data quality, column, primary key, relationship, and overlap analysis.

To view quality analysis, on the asset details page, click the Quality Analysis or Quality Dimensions tab.

Data lineage

Data lineage reports show the movement of data through a job or multiple jobs. These reports can show the order of activities within a run of a job.

To view data lineage, on the asset details page, choose Data Lineage Viewer from the menu.

Learn more