Lineage listing (from R42.3)

Introduction

After enabled (Lineage listing Configuration), the feature enables various use cases, including:

• Providing a list of reports that will be impacted by a change in certain database tables.

• Generating a list of tables in specified datamarts that contribute to loading a particular report.

• Exporting any kind of object list to CSV.

For each of these lists, the user can apply filters based on any attributes regularly available for assets in the IBM Automatic Data Lineage Repository.

Example - Get list of reports, for testing

If you implemented a change to a DWH table and you want to make sure, that all impacted reports will be retested, you can use Lineage Listing with filters, that will identify just the reports, like Technology=SSRS and type=Report. You will get a list of impacted reports, that should be retested. You can then export and share the list.

Such filters can also be predefined so that the users do not have to select them every time. Ask your Automatic Data Lineage Administrator to predefine the filters. For more information, see Lineage listing Configuration.

Setting up Lineage Listing

You have selected elements for visualization, you can access lineage listing by selecting the small button with the table icon as shown in the following image. You’ll notice that the blue button will now display “Show lineage in a table”. Click on it to visualize your data. If you don’t want to visualize the data and simply download it, you can click Export to CSV instead - a .zip file will be downloaded containing two .csv files that list your data based on the elements you’ve selected.

Afterwards, you’ll be prompted with the Lineage settings dialog, where you can adjust Visualization parameters and Filters.

You can select from a default set of Visualization settings pre-configured in Admin UI, or you can adjust them on your own by clicking on the right button, just as you would in the home page itself.

The Technology and Type filters are already available to be used by default. You can also add more filters by clicking the “More filters +” button, as is in the search results panel in the home page.

You will still have the option to change and apply different filters in the lineage listing page, although you will need to come back to this dialog if you ever want to change the Visualization parameters.

Once you’re satisfied with your selections, click the List lineage button to visualize the data, or Cancel to close the dialog.

Visualizing Data

If you select List lineage a new tab will open and your data will start loading. Once it’s finished, your data will be displayed as in the following example.

As of R42.4, in case of lineage listing for a single starting asset, we also display number of steps from the starting asset and direction of flow.

As of R42.3, or in case of lineage listing with multiple starting assets as of R42.4, we dont show number of steps nor direction.

1. Selected revision and layer;

2. List of selected elements for visualization - in this case, a single element customers was selected;

3. List of filters - these are the filters that you can pre-select before entering the lineage listing page.
   You can change existing filters, add new ones, or remove those you’ve added. Note that Technology and Type cannot be removed, although you can simply not use them if you don’t need them.
   Every time you change the value of a filter the table will reload, fetching and displaying the new set of results. To reset all filters, click Clear filters on the top-right part of the screen;

4. Results table. It always contains the columns with an asset name and its full path, asset type, and a list of active tags.
   As of R42.4 If the calculated listed lineage is based on a single starting asset (see the first preceding screenshot), it also includes two more columns, containing a count of steps from the starting asset and the direction (Incoming, Outgoing, or Start).
   4.1. Total number of results - this will change depending on the filters you apply, although it’s not affected by pagination changes as it representes the total number of results for your current set of filters;

   4.2. Sorting by column: it’s possible to sort the table by column by simply clicking on the column name.

   • Clicking once will sort the table ascendingly based on the columns value (1 → 9, A → Z);

   • Clicking twice will sort the table descendingly based on the columns value (9 → 1, Z → A);

   • Clicking three times will reset the sorting to its original state;

   4.3. Pagination. You can navigate through the results using these pagination options. You’re able to:

   1. Change the number of results displayed per page via the Rows per page dropdown;

   2. Check the results that are being displayed - in this case, 1-8 results are being displayed out of 67 (1-8 of 67);

   3. Change the current page by selecting the several buttons on the right side, respectively: first page, previous page, next page, last page;
      Note that changing the number of results per page and/or changing the page that is currently being displayed will cause the table to reload, fetching and displaying the new set of results.

5. Element details - clicking on an element on the table will cause this panel to display its details, as demonstrated in the following example.

   

Exporting results

When you have a desired result list, you can export it to CSV by clicking Export Lineage. Export can be used to pass the information to your collogues, for example to provide a list of reports to retest.

The resulted CSV, Vertices.csv will have this structure: