Using lineage specifications

Lineage is the process of determining how objects in a report, package, or model are derived through transformations from other objects, back to source data.

A lineage request specifies a report, package, or model for which lineage is desired. You must send lineage requests for report data to reportService (or batchReportService), followed by a subsequent request to metadataService; this process is described in Creating lineage requests for reports. Lineage requests for a package or model are issued against metadataService (reportService and batchReportService are not involved); this process is described in Creating lineage requests for packages or models.

Lineage responses from metadataService consist of a number of objects that contain metadata about the request subject. These objects can have parent-child references to other objects so the object history can be traced. In addition, the response contains details of any transformations that data objects have undergone. For information on metadataService lineage responses, see Understanding lineage responses from metadataService.

The lineage API specification file, lineage.xsd, is located in <install_location>/templates/mdsrv. It is a generic specification for sending lineage requests to metadataService.