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A Glossary, sometimes called Data Glossary or Business Glossary, is a list of business terms with their definitions. A Glossary is an important tool for maintaining and organizing information about your data. It is used for capturing domain knowledge of information that is commonly used, communicated, and shared in organizations as they are conducting business.
There aren’t any rules for the size and representation of glossaries. They can stay abstract or high-level, but also are allowed to be detailed, describing carefully attributes, dependencies, relationships and definitions. A glossary isn't limited to only a single database, in fact it can cover many applications or multiple databases. Multiple applications can work together to accomplish a specific business need. This means that the relation between a glossary and data attributes is a one-to-many relationship. The glossary can also include and capture more concepts than the concepts representing the application or database itself. It can include concepts, which are used to make the context clearer, but don’t play a direct role (yet) in the application or database design. It can also include concepts, that represents future requirements, but didn’t find their way yet into the actual design of the application or database yet.
When implementing your Glossary it is important to think about how you will structure your business terms and definitions. For example, you could use hierarchies and align these with business domains such as: Finance, Marketing, Sales, HR, etc. You could think of naming standards or introduce term templates for capturing additional information about your business metadata. You could also use relationships for linking business terms, such as Acronyms, Related terms and Synonyms. These relationships could help to avoid creating terms with duplicated names and lower the overhead of management.
In this lab you learn how to create terms using a system and custom term template. You'll also learn how to import and export terms. Lastly, you learn about linking terms to data assets, which helps to relate technical metadata to business metadata.
- An Azure account with an active subscription.
- A Microsoft Purview account (see module 01).
- Create a Term in the Glossary using the System Default Term Template.
- Create a Term in the Glossary using a Custom Term Template.
- Bulk Import Terms into the Glossary via a CSV file.
- Bulk Export Terms from the Glossary into a CSV file.
- Assign a Term to an Asset in the Data Catalog.
- Update an existing Term with Related Terms and Contacts.
| # | Section | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Create a Glossary | Data Curator |
| 1 | Create a Term (System Default Term Template) | Data Curator |
| 2 | Create a Term (Custom Term Template) | Data Curator |
| 3 | Bulk Import Terms | Data Curator |
| 4 | Bulk Export Terms | Data Reader |
| 5 | Assign a Term to an Asset | Data Curator |
| 6 | Update an Existing Term | Data Curator |
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Open the Microsoft Purview Governance Portal and from the Data catalog, navigate to Glossary, and click New glossary.
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Copy and paste the values below into the appropriate fields, set your Azure AD identity as the Steward and Expert, and click Create.
Name
GlossaryDescription
A glossary is a vocabulary of business terms that can be mapped to assets like a database, tables, columns etc. Glossary terms can help establish a common language across the business, abstracting the technical jargon typically associated with data repositories.
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Open the Microsoft Purview Governance Portal and from the Data catalog, navigate to Glossary, and select Glossary.
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Click New term.
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Select the System default term template and click Continue.
💡 Did you know?
A Term Template determines the attributes for a term. The System default term template has basic fields only (e.g. Name, Definition, Status, etc). Custom term templates on the other hand, can be used to capture additional custom attributes. For more information, check out How to manage term templates for business glossary.
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Change the Status of the term to
Approvedand then copy and paste the values below into the appropriate field, then click Create.
Name
Contoso ParentDefinition
This will be the parent term.Acronym
CPResource Name
Microsoft PurviewResource Link
https://aka.ms/MicrosoftPurview
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Open the Microsoft Purview Governance Portal and from the Data catalog, navigate to Glossary, and select Glossary.
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Click New term.
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Click New term template.
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Specify a Template name (e.g.
Contoso Template) and click New attribute.
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Populate the attribute fields as per the examples below and click Apply.
Field Example Value Attribute name Business UnitField type Single choiceChoices Sales,Marketing,Finance,Human Resources,IT,
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Click Create.
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Select Contoso Template and click Continue.
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Change the Status of the term to
Approvedand then copy and paste the values below into the appropriate field, then click Create.
Name
Contoso ChildDefinition
This will be the long description for the child glossary term.Parent
Contoso ParentBusiness Unit
Marketing -
From the Glossary screen, select Terms, then toggle the view to Hierarchical view to see the hierarchical glossary.
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Download a copy of import-terms-sample.csv to your local machine by opening the link in a new tab, right-click within the body of the content, click Save as.
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From the Glossary screen, click Import terms.
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Select the System default term template and click Continue.
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Click Browse and open the local copy of import-terms-sample.csv.
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Click OK.
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Once complete, you should see 50 additional terms beneath the parent (Workplace Analytics). Tip: You can quickly find specific types of terms using the filters at the top (e.g. Status = Approved).
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From the Glossary screen, we want to select ALL terms (top check box) and then de-select terms that do not belong to Workplace Analytics (i.e. Contoso Parent, Contoso Child). All Workplace Analytics terms should be selected. Click Export terms.
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If the export was successful, you should find a CSV file has been copied to your local machine (e.g. Downloads).
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Perform a wildcard search by typing asterisk (*) into the search bar and hitting the Enter key to submit the query. Click on an asset title (e.g.
QueriesByState) to view the details.
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Click Edit.
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Open the Glossary terms drop-down menu and select a glossary term (e.g.
Contoso Child). Click Save.
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Click on the hyperlinked term name to view the glossary term details.
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Click Refresh to view the Catalog assets the term is assigned to.
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From the Glossary screen, open an existing term (e.g.
Aggregation).
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Navigate to the Related tab and click Edit.
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Use the drop-down menu to assign two glossary terms as Synonyms.
💡 Did you know?
Synonyms are other terms with the same or similar definitions. Where as Related terms are other terms that are related but have different definitions.
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Use the drop-down menu to assign two glossary terms as Related terms.
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Navigate to the Contacts tab and assign an Expert and a Steward. Click Save.
💡 Did you know?
Glossary terms can be related to two different types of contacts. Experts are typically business process or subject matter experts. Where as Stewards define the standards for a data object or business term. They drive quality standards, nomenclature, rules.
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Glossary terms with the same name but different descriptions can exist under the same parent term?
A ) True
B ) False -
Glossary terms can be related to other terms in the glossary. Which of the following is not a valid glossary term relationship type?
A ) Synonyms
B ) Antonyms
C ) Related terms -
Glossary terms created using different term templates can be exported together using the the Microsoft Purview Governance Portal (UI) glossary "Export terms" functionality?
A ) True
B ) False
This module provided an overview of how to create, export, and import terms into the Microsoft Purview glossary.