Once you have ingested your ER model assets in Atlan, you can:
- Search, discover, and filter models, entities, attributes, relationships, and mappings, cataloged as native assets in Atlan.
- Link ER entities at the conceptual, logical, or physical layer to your crawled data assets. Note that the Atlan UI is optimized for the following linking design: Conceptual entity → Logical entity → Physical entity → Database table or view.
- Trace the object lifecycle across various layers of abstraction or implementation:
- Business glossary
- ER models
- Crawled data assets — tables and views
Models
To view an entity–relationship (ER) model:
- From the left menu of any screen in Atlan, click Assets.
- In the Filters menu on the left, click Source.
- Click Choose connection to filter for assets in a Data Model connection.
- Under the search bar on the Assets page, click the Asset type dropdown.
- From the Asset type dropdown, select a Model to search by a specific asset type.
- Select a model asset to view the asset sidebar or open the asset profile.
Asset preview
The model asset preview includes basic information about the asset, including technical name, alias, model type, description, and total count of associated entities.
Asset sidebar
The sidebar to the right of the asset preview provides high-level information about the asset. Here's what you can view specific to model assets:
- Overview offers a preview of the key characteristics of the asset, including model name, type, and description. You can add an alias, enrich metadata, link domains to your data models, and more from the asset sidebar.
- Entities displays a list of entities in a model, along with entity type and description. This tab also provides you with a search bar to search and sort entities.
Asset profile
The model profile summarizes important details about the asset.
- Overview tab displays details such as technical name, alias, entity count, model type, description, certification status, and owners. The Entities section offers a snapshot of all the entities in a model, listing the entity name and description.
- Entities tab allows you to update metadata such as tags and terms for your entities directly from the model profile.
Entities
To view an entity:
- From the left menu of any screen in Atlan, click Assets.
- In the Filters menu on the left, click Source.
- Click Choose connection to filter for assets in a Data Model connection.
- Under the search bar on the Assets page, click the Asset type dropdown.
- From the Asset type dropdown, select a Entity to search by a specific asset type.
- Select an entity asset to view the asset sidebar or open the asset profile.
Asset preview
The entity asset preview includes basic information about the asset, including technical name, alias, entity type, description, and total count of associated attributes.
Asset sidebar
The sidebar to the right of the asset preview provides high-level information about the asset. Here's what you can view specific to entity assets:
- Overview offers a preview of the key characteristics of the asset, including entity name, type, and description. You can add an alias, enrich metadata, link domains to your entities, and more from the asset sidebar.
- Attributes displays a list of attributes in an entity, along with data type, description, and primary key indicator, if any. This tab also provides you with a search bar to search and sort attributes.
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Relations shows a list of entity relationships:
- Associations displays relation name, associated entity, and cardinality.
- Generalization displays parent-child relationships between entities.
- Layers organizes different levels of abstraction in a tree-like representation: Conceptual entity → Logical entity → Physical entity → Database table or view.
Asset profile
The entity profile displays important details about the asset.
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Overview tab summarizes details such as technical name, alias, attribute count, entity type, associated model, description, certification status, and owners.
- The Layers section organizes different levels of abstraction in a tree-like representation: Conceptual entity → Logical entity → Physical entity → Database table or view. Click an entity name to view more details in the asset sidebar.
- The Attributes section offers a snapshot of all the attributes of an entity, including the attribute name, primary key indicator, data type, nullability, and description.
- Attributes tab allows you to update metadata such as tags and terms for your attributes directly from the entity profile.
- Entity Diagram provides a visual representation of entity relationships.
Entity diagram
An entity diagram is a visual representation of entity relationships. It also allows you to navigate to the next set of related entities as you explore the graph. Note that the entity diagram in Atlan is not a replacement for ER modeling tools, which are optimized for editing objects and displaying an entire model.
The entity diagram in Atlan:
- Is entity-focused only
- Uses crow’s foot notation to represent one-to-many relationships
- Lists attributes that are part of an entity:
- Attributes that form part of a relationship are shown at the top of the list. Clicking on one highlights the attribute in the related entity that forms the basis of the association.
- The association itself can be highlighted and has a sidebar with detailed information.
Layers
The Layers section of an entity or database table helps you navigate across different abstraction layers of entities. A layer is a mechanism to have multiple abstractions for a model or an entity.
- Conceptual — most abstract
- Logical — more defined
- Physical — well-defined and conformant to a target database system