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Business glossary and governance quick start

This page is about the catalog, which the free edition does not include. Connections, imports, and the physical tables and columns they create are part of the catalog surface, so a free organization has nothing here to work against. Everything below is correct for an organization that has the catalog. See Pricing for what each edition includes.

This is the headline walkthrough for DeltaVault’s business modeling and governance feature set. Every surface it touches lives under Business in the left navigation, which expands into four items: Models, Entities, Glossary, and Map & Match. Most of the work below happens on one model’s detail page, opened from the Models grid, which carries five tabs of its own: Details, Canvas, Entities, Glossary, and Map & Match. The steps below build on each other, so each one names the prerequisite you need in place before you start it. Work through them in order the first time; afterward you’ll dip back into individual items and tabs as your model grows.

The single idea underneath all of it: business entities and attributes are your source of truth, and governance, the glossary, and map and match are layers that read from them. For the concepts behind that, see Business modeling and governance overview.

Before you start

Section titled “Before you start”

You need the editor role to model, map, classify, and approve. Viewers can read every surface but can’t change anything. Like other catalog edits, modeling and column matching happen on a feature branch and reach main only when you commit (see Review and commit).

1. Import source metadata

Section titled “1. Import source metadata”

Everything downstream maps onto real tables and columns, so you import first. Bring a source database or files into the catalog as connections, tables, and columns.

  • You can’t map or classify anything until tables and columns exist in the catalog.

See Import files and Verify a connection.

2. Model business entities and attributes

Section titled “2. Model business entities and attributes”

From Business > Models, open a model (create one if you don’t have one yet) and switch to its Canvas tab to draw the business concepts your data describes (a Customer entity, an Order entity, each with its attributes). This is your vocabulary, independent of any one table.

You have two ways to get entities:

  • Model them by hand on the canvas: best when you already know the concepts you want.
  • Skip ahead and let Map & Match derive them. Accepting a match for a table that fits no existing entity creates a skeleton entity for you. Many teams start this way and model deliberately later.

Either path is fine. If you’re deriving, jump to step 3 and come back to flesh entities out in step 4.

  • You can model entities without any mappings, but a mapping in step 3 needs an entity to point at (or it derives one).

See Business entities.

3. Map and match source tables and columns

Section titled “3. Map and match source tables and columns”

From your model’s detail page, switch to its Map & Match tab (or use Business > Map & Match for the organization-wide workbench) and link your source metadata to your model: each table to the entity it represents, then each column to the attribute it carries. The model’s tab keeps the same source scope picker as the organization-wide workbench, but proposes only this model’s member entities and badges each mapped row In this model or Outside this model. Run Suggest to get AI-proposed matches with a confidence score and rationale, review them, and accept the ones you trust. Accepting a match against no existing entity creates a derived skeleton and adds it to the model.

The workbench is the bulk path, but the same mapping can be made in context. From the Sources section of an entity’s Details tab you can bind a source table to that entity one at a time and reach an entity-seeded workbench with Open in workbench. From the catalog, the source side offers the mirror: on a table, Map to entity (or Suggest match to jump to the workbench); on a column, Map to attribute. Every one of these writes the same mapping, so a bind made on the catalog shows up in the entity’s Sources section and vice versa.

  • You must map a table to an entity before you can match that table’s columns to attributes: column matching lives inside a mapped table.

See Map and match source metadata.

4. Adopt derived skeletons into the model

Section titled “4. Adopt derived skeletons into the model”

Any entity or attribute that Map & Match created wears a Derived chip. It’s a real, governable object already, but it isn’t yet a first-class part of your model. When you’re ready, open its sheet and Adopt into model to promote it from derived to modeled, then flesh it out: relationships, attributes, a proper definition.

  • You can classify and define a derived skeleton right away. Adopting is what makes it a deliberate part of your model.

See Business entities.

5. Classify, assign owners, and write definitions

Section titled “5. Classify, assign owners, and write definitions”

Now govern the concepts. On each entity and attribute, set its classifications (sensitivity, personal data, and so on), name an owner and a steward, and write a definition: the authoritative prose for what the concept means in your business. These decisions propagate outward as read-only badges on every mapped table and column.

  • Classifications and definitions live on entities and attributes, never directly on tables or columns: edit them here, read them everywhere.

See Data governance overview and Classification settings.

6. Approve definitions

Section titled “6. Approve definitions”

A definition starts as Draft. When it’s been reviewed, an editor marks it Approved, stamping who approved it and when. Editing an approved definition reverts it to Draft and clears the stamp, so an approval always reflects what was actually reviewed.

  • You can’t meaningfully approve a definition that isn’t written yet: write it in step 5, approve it here.

See Data governance overview.

7. Read and monitor

Section titled “7. Read and monitor”

Two surfaces close the loop:

  • Glossary: the read view of your vocabulary: every attribute with its definition, status, classifications, and how many source columns map to it. This is what the rest of your team consults. Open it from Business > Glossary for everything modeled across the organization, or from a model’s own Glossary tab to see just that model’s members. See Business glossary.
  • Governance status: each entity and attribute shows its own completeness (definition written and approved, a steward assigned, mapped or not) on its own sheet, so whatever is still incomplete surfaces where you fix it.
Section titled “Related guides”