Catalog Sets

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

Catalog sets enable you to group pieces of data together to perform bulk operations on identical or similar data sets. Bulk edits are done on the page of a catalog set, rather than on the individual pages of specific data objects, one by one.

When data objects are included into a catalog set as members, you can update the values of their catalog fields in bulk using this set. You do not need to describe each object separately: a catalog set is your way to control built-in and custom field values on the catalog pages of all set members. Any changes to the set are propagated to all set members. This keeps catalog field values consistent across all identical or similar data objects united in sets.

In Alation, on a page of an object, you can understand if this object is currently a member of a catalog set in the following way:

  • Catalog sets that a data object is currently included in as a member are listed under Sets in the Properties section.

  • Shared fields managed using sets have a catalog set indicator icon:

../../_images/Screen_Shot_2018-11-09_at_11.08.27_AM.png ../../_images/manualSets_01.png

In Alation, you can create two types of sets:

  • Conditional: Data objects will be automatically grouped based on a logical condition.

  • Manual : You will manually select data objects to be united into a set. You can also turn on synchronization of field values on successive child levels for the set members.