How to download and export lineage

Understanding the flow of data from the source to its destination is a critical need for many organizations. To help you build trust in your data assets, Atlan allows you to view, download, and export your impacted assets and share it with others in your organization.

The impact report includes upstream and downstream assets, along with the following attributes:

• Status — export status and total count of assets exported, only for export option
• Name — asset name and link
• Type — asset type
• Business Name (Alias) — business-oriented alias of assets, if any
• Connector — name of supported source
• Database — name of the database, if applicable
• Schema — name of the schema, if applicable
• Table — name of the parent table or view, only for column assets
• Lineage depth — starts at 1 and increases with each lineage level
• Description — asset description, if any
• Owner Users and Owner Groups — asset owners, if any
• Certification Status and Certification Message — certification status of asset, if any
• Tags and Propagated Tags — tags directly attached or propagated to an asset, if any
• Terms — glossary terms for linked assets
• Announcement Type, Announcement Title, and Announcement Message — announcements on assets, if any
• Source URL — only supported for dbt Cloud and Core, Matillion, Microsoft Power BI, Mode, Monte Carlo, Salesforce, Sigma, Sisense, Soda, and Tableau assets
• Usage — number of queries by number of users, only for supported sources
• Popularity — popularity indicator, only for supported sources
• Last refresh on source — metadata last altered at source
• Workbook, Data source, and Source owner — only applicable to Tableau assets
• Qualified Name — fully qualified name of the asset
• Source Asset GUID — globally unique identifier of the source asset
• GUID — globally unique identifier of the exported asset
• Immediate Upstream and Immediate Downstream — one level directly upstream and downstream, respectively, of the dependent asset.

View impacted assets

The impacted assets view includes asset metadata, BI source URLs, and Atlan URLs for both upstream and downstream assets.

To view impacted assets:

1. In the right menu from any screen, click Assets.
2. Click an asset to navigate to its asset profile.
3. In the asset profile, click Lineage.
4. In the top right of the lineage graph, click the downward arrow and then click View impact to view impacted assets. Note that if the total number of impacted assets exceeds 200, you will only be able to download lineage. In the impacted assets report:
   • To view downstream assets for impact analysis, click Downstream.
   • To view upstream sources for root cause analysis, click Upstream.
5. (Optional) To view the source URL for BI assets, click the source URL option — for example, View in Looker.
6. (Optional) To navigate to the impacted asset in Atlan, click the Atlan URL option.
7. (Optional) Click Impact Report to download the impacted assets report in a CSV file or export to Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel.
8. Click Close to return to the lineage graph.

Download lineage

You can download lineage for your data assets in a CSV file or as an image.

Download lineage in a report

You can download a lineage report for your assets in a CSV format for further analysis. When you share the CSV file with team members, they will also be provided with the BI source URLs and asset links in Atlan. As long as they have access to the asset in the BI tool and Atlan, they’ll be able to open both directly from the CSV file.

To download the lineage report:

1. In the right menu from any screen, click Assets.
2. Click on an asset to navigate to its asset profile.
3. In the asset profile, click Lineage.
4. In the top right of the lineage graph, click the downward arrow and then click CSV File to download the lineage report for the asset. 
5. Once the report has been fetched, click Download report to download it as a CSV file.

You will now be able to view the upstream and downstream lineage of your assets in a CSV file! 🎉

Download lineage as an image

Atlan offers you the option to download lineage as a high-resolution PNG file, providing you with the visual clarity you need for your presentations.

To download lineage as an image:

1. In the right menu from any screen, click Assets.
2. Click on an asset to navigate to its asset profile.
3. In the asset profile, click Lineage.
4. In the top right of the lineage graph, click the downward arrow and then click As an image to download an image of the lineage graph.

You will now be able to view a high-resolution image of your asset lineage! 🎉

Export lineage to spreadsheets

Atlan enables you to export lineage to spreadsheets. This can help you assess the downstream impact of any changes made to an upstream asset for impact analysis. Atlan currently supports exporting impacted assets to:

• Google Sheets
• Microsoft Excel online

Once your Atlan admin has integrated a supported tool, you will be able to export impacted assets to spreadsheets. Your existing permissions and access policies in Atlan will determine whether you can export the impact report, but at a minimum you'll require read permission on the assets you want to export.

Enable lineage export

The export to Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel icons and buttons will only be visible if your Atlan admin has integrated a supported tool. If you cannot see the export icon or button, reach out to your Atlan admin to integrate Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel.

To integrate a supported tool, your Atlan admin must follow the steps in Enable asset export.

Export impacted assets

Atlan allows you to export your impacted assets to spreadsheets and view asset metadata in bulk. At an individual user level, only one export is allowed for each supported tool at a time, the rest will be auto-queued for execution. There are currently no limitations at a tenant level.

You can export lineage from the following areas:

• Overview and Lineage tabs in sidebar for assets with lineage
• Lineage graph for asset-level lineage
• Impacted assets view in lineage graph
• Column assets with lineage from lineage graph

To export lineage:

1. From the left menu of any screen in Atlan, click Assets.
2. To export lineage, in the Assets page, you can:
   • Select an asset, and then from the asset sidebar:
     • In the Overview tab, click the 3-dot icon and then click Impact report.
     • Click the Lineage tab and then click the export icon.
   • Select an asset, and from the top right of the asset card, click the View lineage icon to open the lineage graph:
     • From the top right of the lineage graph, click the downward arrow.
     • For any asset with column-level lineage on the lineage graph, click the view columns menu and hover over a column name to view export options.
3. To export lineage to a spreadsheet tool:
   • Click Google Sheets to export impacted assets to a Google Sheets spreadsheet.
   • Click Microsoft Excel to export impacted assets to a Microsoft Excel workbook.
4. A sign-in dialog will appear and you will be redirected to sign in with your Google or Microsoft account. From the corresponding screen, click Allow to connect to Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. If you're already signed in, skip this step.
5. To track the progress of the export, navigate to the spreadsheet. The Queued status will change to Success once impacted assets have been exported.
6. On the spreadsheet, you can view metadata for your impacted assets. Atlan exports the impact report to two individual sheets within the main spreadsheet, one each for Upstream and Downstream. For any metadata attribute not applicable to a particular asset, the column will display an empty value.
7. (Optional) To view your asset export history, navigate to the Assets page. Next to the search bar on the Assets page, click the 3-dot icon and then click Export. From the Export dialog, expand the History dropdown to view your last 10 exports. Note that only you can currently view your own export history.

That's it, you've successfully exported your impacted assets from Atlan! 🎉