Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

Enrich Metadata Using Custom Properties

Capture and customize technical and business metadata to enrich a specific object in Data Catalog.

At times, the default properties that are created during the harvest of a data source aren't enough to capture all the context for a data catalog object. For example, a data analyst gets only technical metadata from the revenue table of a car accessories division. Adding details such as business description, update frequency, certification status, or data owners, can provide more business context to the technical metadata and benefit the data users. With the help of business metadata, data consumers can understand, discover, and classify data in a better way.

The custom properties feature of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Data Catalog allows you to capture and customize technical and business metadata to enrich a specific object. For example, for a table, you can define its data owner, validity, and frequency of update. Custom properties are flexible, configurable, and easy to use.

In this tutorial, you do the following:
  • Create the following custom properties and associate them to object types:
    • Data Owners
    • Business Description
    • Data Sensitivity
    • Certified
    • Archival Date
  • Populate values for the properties for different objects.
  • Search, filter, and explore data using custom properties.
  • Edit a custom property configuration.
  • Delete a custom property.

Before You Begin

To perform this tutorial, you must have the following requirements:

1. Create Access Policies

You require the CATALOG_NAMESPACE_UPDATE permission to create custom properties.

Add a Policy to Manage Compartments

As an administrator, you add a policy to allow a group to manage compartments in a tenancy.

To add a policy to manage a compartment, follow these steps:

  1. Open the navigation menu and click Identity & Security. Under Identity, click Policies.
  2. In the Policies page, click Create Policy.
  3. In the Create Policy panel, enter the details as described in the following table:
    Field Description
    Name Enter a unique name for the policy. The name must be unique across all policies in your tenancy. You can't change the name later. For example, manage-compartments
    Description Enter a description, such as Grant access to the group to manage compartments in a tenancy.
    Compartment Select a compartment in which you want to create the policy.
    Policy Builder In this section, move the slider to Show manual editor, and enter the following policy rule:
    allow group <the-group-your-username-belongs> to manage compartments in tenancy
  4. Click Create.
Create a Compartment

Create a compartment for the resources that you create in this tutorial.

  1. Open the navigation menu and click Identity & Security. Under Identity, click Compartments.
  2. Click Create Compartment.
  3. Fill in the following information:
    • Name: <your-compartment-name>
    • Description: Compartment for <your-description>.
    • Parent Compartment: <your-tenancy>(root)
  4. Click Create Compartment.
Create a Policy

To create a policy, follow these steps:

  1. Open the navigation menu and click Identity & Security. Under Identity, click Policies.
  2. In the Policies page, click Create Policy.
  3. In the Create Policy panel, enter the details as described in the following table:
    Field Description
    Name Enter a unique name for the policy. The name must be unique across all policies in your tenancy. You can't change the name later. For example, data-catalog-policy.
    Description Enter a description, such as Grant access to object storage resources in any compartment in the tenancy.
    Compartment Select a compartment in which you want to create the policy.
    Policy Builder In this section, move the slider to Show manual editor, and enter the policy rule.
  4. Click Create.

2. Create Custom Properties

Learn how to create various custom properties.

Data Owners
  1. Go to the Home tab of the data catalog for which you want to create the data owners custom property.
  2. Click Custom Properties.
  3. On the Custom Properties page that appears, click Create Custom Property.
  4. In the Create Custom Property panel, enter the following details:
    • Name - Enter Data Owners.
      Note

      You can't use the following special characters in the name:

      & < > " ' / \ = ;

    • Description - Add a description.
    • Datatype - Select String (Plain Text), as the values for data owners (such as email addresses) are simple string texts.
    • Value options - Use this field to configure how values must be entered for the custom property. As there can be multiple data owners of a table, select Allow multiple values.
    • Data catalog object types - Use this field to select the object types with which you want to associate data owners. For example, select Data Entity, Folder.
    • Search results options - Use this field to configure the behavior of the custom property in search results. For the data owners custom property, select:
      • Show in search results: To view data owners right away in the search summary table
      • Allow filtering: To filter the search results based on the names of the data owners
      Note

      • You can configure up to seven custom properties for the Show in search results option.
      • You can configure up to seven custom properties for the Allow sorting option.
      • You can configure up to 20 custom properties for the Allow filtering option.
    • View and edit options - To configure the data owners custom property to appear in the Attributes table of a data entity, select the Allow view and edit check box.
  5. Click Create.
Business Description
  1. Go to the Home tab of the data catalog for which you want to create the business description custom property.
  2. Click Custom Properties.
  3. On the Custom Properties page that appears, click Create Custom Property.
  4. In the Create Custom Property panel, enter the following details:
    • Name - Enter Business Description.
      Note

      You can't use the following special characters in the name:

      & < > " ' / \ = ;

    • Description - Add a description.
    • Datatype - Select String (Rich Text), as the value for business description can have descriptive information.
    • Data catalog object types - Use this field to select the object types with which you want to associate business description. For example, select Data Assets, Attributes.
    • Search results options - Use this field to configure the behavior of the custom property in search results.
      Note

      • You can configure up to seven custom properties for the Show in search results option.
      • You can configure up to seven custom properties for the Allow sorting option.
      • You can configure up to 20 custom properties for the Allow filtering option.
  5. Click Create.
Data Sensitivity
  1. Go to the Home tab of the data catalog for which you want to create the data sensitivity custom property.
  2. Click Custom Properties.
  3. On the Custom Properties page that appears, click Create Custom Property.
  4. In the Create Custom Property panel, enter the following details:
    • Name - Enter Data Sensitivity.
      Note

      You can't use the following special characters in the name:

      & < > " ' / \ = ;

    • Description - Add a description.
    • Datatype - Select Number, as the values for data sensitivity (such as 1, 5, 9) are numbers.
    • Value options - Use this field to configure how values must be entered for the custom property. To allow only a fixed set of values for data sensitivity, select Use list of values. When you select this option, List of values appears and you can enter one or more values for the custom property. You can enter more values for the custom property later; however, you can't delete the values that are already specified.
    • Data catalog object types - Use this field to select the object types with which you want to associate data sensitivity. For example, select Glossary, Term, Category.
    • Search results options - Use this field to configure the behavior of the custom property in search results.
      Note

      • You can configure up to seven custom properties for the Show in search results option.
      • You can configure up to seven custom properties for the Allow sorting option.
      • You can configure up to 20 custom properties for the Allow filtering option.
    • View and edit options - If you want to configure the data sensitivity custom property to appear in the Attributes table of a data entity, select the Allow view and edit check box.
  5. Click Create.
Certified
  1. Go to the Home tab of the data catalog for which you want to create the certified custom property.
  2. Click Custom Properties.
  3. On the Custom Properties page that appears, click Create Custom Property.
  4. In the Create Custom Property panel, enter the following details:
    • Name - Enter Certified.
      Note

      You can't use the following special characters in the name:

      & < > " ' / \ = ;

    • Description - Add a description.
    • Datatype - Select Boolean.
    • Data catalog object types - Use this field to select the object types with which you want to associate the certified custom property. For example, select Data Entity.
    • Search results options - Use this field to configure the behavior of the custom property in search results.
      Note

      • You can configure up to seven custom properties for the Show in search results option.
      • You can configure up to seven custom properties for the Allow sorting option.
      • You can configure up to 20 custom properties for the Allow filtering option.
    • View and edit options - To configure the certified custom property to appear in the Attributes table of a data entity,select the Allow view and edit check box.
  5. Click Create.
Archival Date
  1. Go to the Home tab of the data catalog for which you want to create the archival date custom property.
  2. Click Custom Properties.
  3. On the Custom Properties page that appears, click Create Custom Property.
  4. In the Create Custom Property panel, enter the following details:
    • Name - Enter Archival Date.
      Note

      You can't use the following special characters in the name:

      & < > " ' / \ = ;

    • Description - Add a description.
    • Datatype - Select Date.
    • Data catalog object types - Use this field to select the object types with which you want to associate business description. For example, select Data Entity.
    • Search results options - Use this field to configure the behavior of the custom property in search results. For example, you can select Allow sorting so that you can sort the search results based on dates.
      Note

      • You can configure up to seven custom properties for the Show in search results option.
      • You can configure up to seven custom properties for the Allow sorting option.
      • You can configure up to 20 custom properties for the Allow filtering option.
    • View and edit options - If you want to configure the archival date custom property to appear in the Attributes table of a data entity, select the Allow view and edit check box.
  5. Click Create.

3. Set Values for Custom Properties

From the object detail tabs of the data catalog object type with which you have associated a custom property, you can set, view, and modify the values for the property. Learn how to set the values for the custom properties that you created in the previous topic.

Data Entity Custom Properties

While creating custom properties, you associated Data Owners, Certified, and Archival Date with data entity. To set values for the properties, follow these steps:

  1. Access the Data Entities tab by clicking Data Entities on the Home tab.
  2. In the Data Entity list, select the data entity you want to edit. The data entity details tab opens. In the Custom Properties section, you can see that the Data Owners, Certified, and Archival Date custom properties are listed.
  3. In the Custom Properties section, click the Edit link.
  4. In the Edit Custom Properties panel that opens as an overlay, do the following:
    • In the Data Owners field, add one or more values.
    • In the Certified field, select True or False, based on whether the data entity is certified.
    • In the Archival Date field, select the date on which the data needs to be archived.
  5. Click Save Changes.
Data Asset Custom Properties

While creating custom properties, you associated Business Description with data assets. To set values for the property, follow these steps:

  1. Access the Data Assets tab by clicking Data Assets on the Home tab.
  2. In the Data Assets list, click the data asset you want to edit. The data asset details tab opens. In the Custom Properties section, you can see that the Business Description custom property is listed.
  3. In the Custom Properties section, click the Edit link.
  4. In the Edit Custom Properties panel that opens as an overlay, do the following:
    • In the Business Description field, enter information about the data.
  5. Click Save Changes.
Attribute Custom Properties

While creating custom properties, you associated Business Description with attributes. To set values for the property, follow these steps:

  1. Click + from tabs and select Attributes.
  2. In the Attributes list, select the attribute you want to edit. The attribute details tab opens. In the Custom Properties section, you can see that the Business Description custom property is listed.
  3. In the Custom Properties section, click the Edit link.
  4. In the Edit Custom Properties panel that opens as an overlay, do the following:
    • In the Business Description field, enter information about the data.
  5. Click Save Changes.
Glossary, Category, or Term Custom Properties

While creating custom properties, you associated Data Sensitivity with glossary, category, and Term. To set values for the property, follow these steps:

  1. Access the glossary details tab.
  2. In the Hierarchy pane, select the glossary, category, or term that you want to edit.
  3. Click Edit from Custom Properties. The Edit Custom Properties panel opens as an overlay. In the Custom Properties section, you can see that the Data Sensitivity custom property is listed.
  4. In the Edit Custom Properties panel that opens as an overlay, do the following:
    • In the Data Sensitivity field, select the value describe the sensitivity of the data. The list of values appears based on the values that you configured while creating the property.
  5. Click Save Changes.

4. Search and Filter Using Custom Properties

Customize your search results to use the custom properties you create in data catalog. The following procedure describes how you can customize your search results to use the Data owners custom property.

  1. From Home, click Data Entities.
  2. In the Data Entities list, view the Data owners custom property for all the data entities in the search summary.
  3. The Data owners custom property also shows up under Custom Filters. Select a data owner. The Data Entities list is updated to show only the results that match the selected data owner.
  4. From the sort list, select either ascending or descending for Data owners. The Data Entities list is updated to show the results in the selected order by data owner.

5. Edit a Custom Property Configuration

  1. On the Custom Properties page, from the list of custom properties, click the custom property that you want to edit.
  2. On the details page of the custom property, click Edit.
  3. In the Edit Custom Property panel, make the required changes.
    Note

    • You can't change the datatype for the custom property.
    • You can't clear an already selected Allow multiple values if it was selected previously.
    • You can only add more values for the custom property. You can't delete existing values.
    • You can associate more data catalog objects with the custom property or disassociate an existing data catalog object. You can disassociate a custom property only if the usage of the custom property in any object of that type is zero. When you disassociate an object, a delete job is created.
    • If any data catalog object types are already associated with the custom property, any changes you make impacts the associated types.
  4. Click Save Changes.

6. Delete a Custom Property

  1. On the Custom Properties page, from the list of custom properties, click the custom property that you want to delete.
  2. On the details page of the property, click Delete.
  3. In the Delete Custom Property confirmation box that appears, type Delete to confirm the deletion. When you delete a custom property, any association of the custom property to data catalog objects are removed.
  4. Click Delete.

What's Next?

You can now create other custom properties and set values for them.