Configure Lineage

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

By default, the lineage data for QuickSight objects is calculated at the table-to-BI-report level, enabling users to trace lineage from a specific table in an RDBMS data source to a specific view in QuickSight.

From QuickSight enhanced connector version 1.0.0 and Alation version 2023.1, you can additionally enable lineage at the column level. Users will be able to see lineage links from table columns in the underlying RDBMS data source to BI report fields in QuickSight views.

Both the database connected to QuickSight and the QuickSight instance must be cataloged in Alation for lineage between them to become available. For example, if your QuickSight instance is connected to a Redshift database as a source of data for visualizations, both Redshift and QuickSight must be cataloged in Alation as sources:

  • Redshift—as a data source

  • QuickSight—as a BI source

Enable Column-Level Lineage

Applies from version 2023.1

Enable the column-level lineage for the data source. Column-level lineage can be activated by a Server Admin in Admin Settings > Feature Configuration.

To enable column-level lineage:

  1. Log in to Alation as a Server Admin.

  2. Click the three gears icon on top right to open the Admin Settings page.

  3. Under the Server Admin section, click Feature Configuration.

  4. Locate the toggle for the specific data source, for example Automatically extracts Column Level Lineage for Redshift data sources. Click the toggle to activate the feature.

  5. Scroll up to the top of the page and click Save changes to apply the configuration.

Configure Cross-System Lineage

Configuration of data source settings requires the role of Server Admin.

The settings of a data source allow you to configure a link to the BI source that uses the data from the database. This information is used to build lineage relations between metadata objects under the data source and the BI source.

Important

Before you configure lineage, make sure that at least one extraction was performed from the data source and the QuickSight BI source and that you have metadata from these sources in the catalog.

To configure cross-system lineage:

  1. Under your QuickSight BI source, find the relevant BI datasource connection information. You can find the data source information on the DataSources tab of the QuickSight BI source, folder, or report page. The BI server source page lists all extracted datasources for all extracted BI objects. The page of a folder or a report only lists datasources used to create the reports.

  2. Click on the name of the BI datasource to open its page and then open the Connections tab to view the database connection information in the Database Connection field under Properties on the right of the page.

  3. Copy the Database Connection value.

  4. In the Alation catalog, find the data source that is also the BI datasource for QuickSight and open its settings.

  5. Go to the Application Settings section of the General Settings tab and under Application Settings specify the database connection information you have copied from the QuickSight BI source in the BI connection info field. This field links the two sources and enables table-to-BI-report and column-to-BI-column lineage generation between the data source and the BI source.

  6. Click Save.

  7. Before the next extraction from your QuickSight BI source, ensure that the Disable Automatic Lineage Generation checkbox is cleared.

  8. Perform extraction on the QuickSight BI source.