Manage the Semarchy xDG glossary

In Semarchy xDG, the "glossary" is a structured and organized collection of definitions for key data-related terms, acronyms, and concepts used within an organization.

Overview

The primary purpose of a data glossary is to standardize and clarify the language and terminology associated with data to ensure a common understanding among all stakeholders, including data professionals, business users, and decision-makers.

Key aspects

Here are some key aspects of a data glossary in data governance:

Standardization: A glossary provides consistent and agreed-upon definitions for data-related terms, reducing confusion and ensuring that everyone within the organization uses the same terminology.
Data Understanding: It helps individuals, especially those who may not be familiar with technical or domain-specific terms, comprehend the meaning and context of data-related terminology.
Data Documentation: Glossary terms are linked to assets, databases, columns, or metadata within an organization’s data environment. This linkage enhances data documentation by providing contextual information about the data.
Data Governance: Glossaries are integral to data governance efforts, as they help enforce data standards, promote data quality, and ensure that data assets are used consistently and in compliance with regulatory requirements.
Data Stewardship: Data stewards and data management teams use glossaries to provide guidance on data usage, interpretation, and stewardship responsibilities.
Communication: Glossaries facilitate effective communication between technical and non-technical stakeholders by bridging the gap between specialized data terminology and business objectives.
Regulatory Compliance: In regulated industries, glossaries assist in meeting compliance requirements by ensuring that data-related terms are defined and used correctly in reports and documentation.

Creating and maintaining a glossary is a foundational step in establishing a strong data governance framework within an organization. It helps promote data consistency, data quality, and data literacy, ultimately supporting better decision-making and more effective data management.

Glossary vs. Tags

Unlike tags, which are an informal organization (folksonomy), a glossary fulfills two main organizational purposes:

As a taxonomy, that is a hierarchical system for classifying and organizing information based on shared characteristics, facilitating categorization and organization. For example, the "sensitivity level" defined with their different values: "Public, Internal, Confidential, etc." as glossary terms, and associated with data assets.
As an ontology, which is a formal representation of business concepts and their relationships, used to define a business knowledge structure. For example, defining notions such as "products", "customers", and "orders" for an e-commerce organization is the baseline ontology. Assets hosting information about these concepts should be associated with these terms.

The glossary may be defined in the early stages of your governance initiative to enable formal governance from inception. You can also define it at later stages, and promote user-defined and widely used tags to "official and governed" glossary terms.

Browse the glossary

The glossary is organized as a hierarchy of glossary term groups, containing glossary terms.

To browse the glossary:

Select Glossary in the navigation drawer.

The glossary page displays the terms and groups at the top of the glossary. Select one element to drill into it.

A group page is organized into tabs:

General shows the term group documentation, owners and parent term group.
Contents show the child groups and terms in this group.

A term page is organized into tabs:

General shows the term group documentation, owners and domain.
Related Assets show the assets associated to this term.
Related Terms shows the other term in the glossary related to this term. For example, the "Customer" term is related to the "Order" term.
Properties shows the properties of the term.

Manage groups

Create a group

To create an group:

Navigate to the glossary root, or to an existing term group.
Click the Add Term Group button.
The Create Term Group dialog opens.
In the Name field, enter the group name.
(Optional) In the Documentation field, enter the group’s documentation.
(Optional) In the Term Group ID field, enter a unique ID. If you leave this field empty, a random UUID will be generated as the ID. This ID is used to uniquely identify the group and locate it using its URN.
Click Create.

The ID cannot be modified after creation.

Edit a group

In the group’s General tab, you can change its documentation, parent term group, and its owners.

Setting these attributes is similar to the operation you can perform on assets.

Delete a group

To delete a group:

Navigate to the glossary, or to the group containing the group to delete.
In the Contents tab, select the group to delete.
In the editor toolbar, click Delete

If you delete a group that contains terms of groups, these terms or groups automatically move to the root of the glossary tree.

Manage terms

Create a term

To create a term:

Navigate to the glossary root, or to an existing term group.
Click the Add Term button.
The Create Glossary Term dialog opens.
In the Name field, enter the term name.
(Optional) In the Documentation field, enter the term’s documentation.
(Optional) In the Glossary Term ID field, enter a unique ID. If you leave this field empty, a random UUID will be generated as the ID. This ID is used to uniquely identify the group and locate it using its URN.
Click Create.

The ID cannot be modified after creation.

Edit a term

In the term’s General tab, you can change its documentation, parent term group, domain, and its owners.

Setting these attributes is similar to the operation you can perform on assets.

Delete a term

To delete a group:

Navigate to the glossary, or to the group containing the term to delete.
In the Contents tab, select the term to delete.
In the editor toolbar, click Delete

When you delete a term, it is automatically removed from all the assets and terms that relate to it.

Relate terms

You can relate glossary terms using two types of relations:

Container: This relation describes a term that conceptually "consists of" or "contains" other terms. For example, an "invoice" contains "invoice lines" and "customer".
Inheritance: This relation describes a term that derives, or is a sub-category from another term. For example the "customers" and "suppliers" terms inherit from the "party" term.

Relate assets and initiatives

You can relate assets and initiatives to an term by editing them.