Managing business lineage (Watson Knowledge Catalog)

View a lineage graph that provides visibility into origin, transformations, and destination of data as it is used to build data products.

This feature is not available by default. The lineage and semantic search feature must be installed with Watson Knowledge Catalog. If you want to view and work with the business data lineage, the lineage feature must also be enabled (installed with the optional knowledge graph component) before you run any lineage import.

If the lineage feature is enabled, the business data lineage is available on the asset's Lineage tab. Business data lineage is displayed only for assets that were newly imported after the lineage feature was enabled. Lineage cannot be calculated for existing assets. If you're interested in the business data lineage for such assets, set up and run a new lineage import with a different target catalog.

Required permission

You must have the following user permission:

  • Access catalogs

Prerequisite: You must import lineage with the Metadata import.

Supported asset types

Lineage supports the following asset types:

  • Data assets
  • Transformation scripts
  • Business intelligence reports
  • Custom assets
  • Data integration assets
  • Lineage relationship mapping files

Adding lineage information to assets

You can add lineage information to assets in one of the following ways:

  • Use metadata import in projects to get lineage information. By using the Get lineage option, you can add assets to the catalog along with lineage information. For example, you can import business intelligence reports including their queries and the respective query items along with lineage details about these queries and information about potential transformations of the query items.

  • Use REST API to create new flows for assets with the data_lineage attribute.

  • Use custom relationships between assets to create new flows in the lineage graph. If you want to create new lineage flows, enable visibility when you are creating a new custom relationship between assets. Those relationships can be added to the lineage graph on the asset's catalog page in the related items section.

Viewing lineage

  • To view lineage, click the Lineage tab of the asset.
  • To filter your assets by business terms, type, quality score, classifications, or tags, click the filter icon.
  • In settings, you can hide or show the legend and the mini map.
  • To view a side panel with extra metadata without navigating back to the overview page, click an asset.
  • Use Show columns to view column-level lineage. Select columns that you want to view in the lineage graph.
  • In the overflow menu, you can do one of the following actions:
    • View an asset by clicking Open this asset.
    • View next or previous assets.
    • Trace lineage of source to target and all the transformations in between in the expanded view by choosing Show assets to or Show assets from.
    • View all paths for selected assets with the Show all option.

Downloading a lineage graph from the Lineage page

To download a lineage graph as s CSV or PDF file, click the download icon.

Viewing lineage in the MANTA Automated Data Lineage

To view technical lineage in the MANTA Automated Data Lineage UI, click Go to asset's technical data lineage in the side panel.

Learn more

Parent topic: Catalog assets