Requesting Access to Queries

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

Applies to releases V R6 (5.10.x) to 2022.4

Note

This page is about sharing and accessing queries in version 2022.4 and earlier. In version 2023.1, we introduced a feature for granular query permissions that substantially changes sharing and access for queries. See Share and Access Queries - 2023.1 and Later for details.

Important

Query collaboration relies on Alation being able to send email notifications to users. If email notifications from Alation go to your spam folder, unmark emails from Alation as spam. You can also contact your network admin and request to whitelist the Alation IP.

In Alation, a user can find and view both published and unpublished queries if:

  • This user is owner of these queries.

  • A user is query author and has access to the data source used in the queries.

  • These are queries against a public data source.

  • These are queries against a private data source but the user has access to this data source. Users with the Server Admin role can view queries against all Private data sources.

  • These queries are shared with the user, and this user has access to the data source used in the queries.

Note

If a query uses a Private data source, it can only be opened by users who have access to this data source.

When a user is added as Author to a query on a Private data source that they do not have access to, or when someone shares a query on a private data source that the user cannot access, they will NOT be able to view this query and get a permissions error.

To view such a query, request access to the data source from your Alation admins.

Only the query owner and authors can edit the statement of the query. If you found or were shared a query you want to collaborate on as an author, you can request access from the current query collaborators.

To request access,

  1. Open the query in Compose.

  2. On the info-banner on top of the query statement, click Request Access. This sends a request email to all current query collaborators:

../../../_images/Request_Access.png

One of the collaborators will invite you to collaborate on this query when they receive the email. You will receive an email notification informing you that you now can edit the query.