It is the responsibility of the system administrator to define and maintain a set of relationship types which can be used to link various assets in the system. Before creating relationships, you must first define the predicates to use. A predicate is a term that links the two sides of a relationship.
For example, you have a "Report" asset which contains a "Business Term" asset. You could define this relationship: "Report contains Business Term". The predicate in this example is "contains". For every relationship, the inverse of the predicate must also be defined. The inverse of the example "Report contains Business Term" would be "Business Term is contained in Report". The active voice should be used when naming predicates (for example "contains"), and the passive voice should be used to describe the inverse relationship (for example "is contained in").
All relationships are displayed on the Related Assets tab of an asset, and, if configured, on relation lookup lists. Additionally, depending on the functional type of the predicate, the relationship might also be displayed elsewhere in the application.
Go to
to view a list of existing predicates.Predicate functional types
The behavior of a predicate is controlled by its functional type. Within a functional type, there is no behavioral difference between predicates. When naming predicates, consider the meaning that you want to convey. For example, a team within a department is a "child category of", rather than a "child of".
Depending on the setup of your environment, a number of these functional types are available:
- Business To Technical - Creates a relationship between a Business Asset and a Technical Asset.
- Catalog Browser - Reserved for future use.
- Grammatic Association - Establishes grammatical association between two objects.
- Inter-type Hierarchy - Creates a tree structure or hierarchy referencing different Business Asset or Technical Asset types at each level.
- Intra-type Hierarchy - Creates a tree structure or hierarchy referencing the same Model Asset or Policy Asset type at each level.
- See Also - Relates similar assets.
- Semantic Relation - Defines a precise single relationship between two assets of the same asset type.
- Simple - Creates a simple association between two objects that do not fit into any other functional type.
- Simple Data Lineage - Allows you to define simple lineage relationships between objects.
- Diagram - Determines which Diagram Assets to make available for use in Process Diagrams.
- Diagram Use - Allows you to relate Diagram Asset types to other asset types.
- Diagram Reference - Reserved for future use. In a future release, you will be able to use this functional type to create a relationship between a business or technical asset and a Diagram Asset.
- Transformation - Creates a lineage relationship to or from an asset whose type is marked as supporting transformations.
- Usage - Defines a relationship where one asset is used in another asset.
Business To Technical
Creates a relationship between a Business Asset and a Technical Asset, for example a relationship between a business term and the database that holds technical data.
If you create a relationship with this predicate type, the subject must be a Business Asset and the object must be a Technical Asset. This type of relationship will display by default on the asset Diagrams page. If you do not see the Diagrams tab when browsing the detail page of an asset, this functional type does not apply.
This table shows a default predicate and inverse predicate with this functional type:
Predicate | Inverse |
---|---|
Represents in | Represented by |
Grammatic Association
Establishes grammatical association between two objects, for example, synonyms, antonyms, abbreviations or grammatically similar terms.
Synonyms are displayed on the detail page of an asset.
This table shows a default predicate and inverse predicate with this functional type:
Predicate | Inverse | Details |
---|---|---|
Synonym | Synonym | Relates equivalent objects. |
Inter-type Hierarchy
Creates a tree structure or hierarchy referencing different Business Asset or Technical Asset types at each level.
This table shows default predicate and inverse predicates with this functional type:
Predicate | Inverse | Details |
---|---|---|
Child Of | Parent Of | A parent-child hierarchy. For example in an industry group to industry relationship, "Materials" is the parent and "Chemicals" is the child. |
type of | child type of |
A "supertype"-"subtype" relationship. For example, a vehicle is a "type of" (supertype) and a boat and a car are "child types of" (subtypes). Boats and cars are varieties of the basic type, vehicle, and inherit some characteristics, while having some specific differences.
|
Intra-type Hierarchy
Creates a tree structure or hierarchy referencing the same Model Asset or Policy Asset type at each level. When creating a new Model Asset type or a new Policy Asset type, predicates of this type are available to select from the Predicate To Parent menu.
This table shows a default predicate and inverse predicate with this functional type:
Predicate | Inverse | Details |
---|---|---|
parent category of | child category of |
A hierarchical grouping, where "parent category of" is the top level group and the "child category of" group sits below the top level group. These are separate groupings which do not necessarily share characteristics, but which are related. For example, a department is a "parent category of" and a team within the department is a "child category of". |
See Also
Relates similar assets. Use this functional type if you want to highlight that there are similarities between assets that do not necessarily have a direct link.
There are no default predicates with this functional type, but you can select this functional type when creating a new predicate.
Semantic Relation
Defines a precise single relationship between two assets of the same asset type.
This table shows default predicate and inverse predicates with this functional type:
Predicate | Inverse | Details |
---|---|---|
Broader | Narrower | One asset has a broader concept than the other, for example "Country" is broader than "Region", and "Region" is broader than "Town". |
Related | Related |
Represents an associative link, roughly equivalent to a Synonym / Synonym Grammatic Association predicate. |
An asset can have only one type of Semantic Relation with another asset of the same type. For example, assume you have created a Business Asset type of "Transport", and create assets called Vehicles, Boats, and Cars. If you create a Broader / Narrower relationship between Vehicles and Cars, to express the concept that a car is a type of vehicle, you then cannot also add a Related / Related relationship between the Vehicles and Cars assets. Similarly, if you create a Related / Related relationship between Boats and Cars, you cannot also create a Broader / Narrower relationship between those assets.
Semantic Relations can be created with any of the available cardinalities: one to one, one to many, many to one, or many to many. If you create a Broader / Narrower relationship between Vehicles and Cars, and the relationship is a one to many relationship, you can also create a Broader / Narrower relationship between Vehicles and Boats.
Simple
Creates a simple association between two objects that do not fit into any other functional type.
This table shows default predicate and inverse predicates with this functional type:
Predicate | Inverse | Details |
---|---|---|
Asset Owned For | Asset Owned By | Expresses an ownership relationship. |
Validates | Is Validated By |
One asset validates another. |
Simple Data Lineage
Allows you to define simple lineage relationships between objects, for example, Column A transfers to Column B, or Column B is transferred from Column A.
On systems with lineage version 3, assets that are related via a predicate of this functional type will display as a lineage link in diagrams.
On systems with lineage version 2, the Simple Data Lineage functional type replaces the Data Lineage functional type.
This table shows default predicate and inverse predicates with this functional type:
Predicate | Inverse | Details |
---|---|---|
licenses | licensed by | One asset is licensed by another. |
stores | stored in |
One asset is stored in another. |
Diagram
Use this predicate type to determine which Diagram Assets to make available for use in Process Diagrams. When configuring relationship types, the subject of the relationship must be one of the following asset types:
- Business Asset
- Technical Asset
- Model
- Policy
- Rule
The object of the relationship must be a Diagram Asset type. All Diagram Asset types that are objects in a relationship that uses the Diagram predicate functional type will be available to select from the nodes panel in Process Diagrams.
When creating new predicates, the following wording is recommended, however you can use any wording that suits your needs:
Predicate functional type | Name | Inverse |
---|---|---|
Diagram | diagram includes | included in diagram |
For more information, see Tutorial - Creating a process diagram.
Diagram Use
Allows you to relate Diagram Asset types to other asset types. When configuring relationship types, the subject of the relationship must be a Diagram Asset type. The object of the relationship must be one of the following asset types:
- Business Asset
- Technical Asset
- Model
- Policy
- Rule
When creating new predicates, the following wording is recommended, however you can use any wording that suits your needs:
Predicate functional type | Name | Inverse |
---|---|---|
Diagram Use | uses | is used in |
For more information, see Tutorial - Creating a process diagram.
Diagram Reference
The Diagram Reference functionality will be available in a future release.
Transformation
Creates a lineage relationship to or from an asset whose type is marked as supporting transformations. Either the subject or object must be a transformation asset type, but not both.
To set an asset type as Transformation, when configuring the asset type, select Use As Transformation.
If you create a relationship with this predicate type, the relationship will display by default on the asset Diagrams page. If you do not see the Diagrams tab when browsing the detail page of an asset, this functional type does not apply. For more information, see Adding lineage.
This table shows a default predicate and inverse predicate with this functional type:
Predicate | Inverse |
---|---|
Flows to | Flows from |
Usage
Defines a relationship where one asset is used in another asset.
There are no default predicates with this functional type, but you can select this functional type when creating a new predicate.