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Metadata quality in Microsoft Purview

Metadata quality is a low-code/no code experience for data stewards and members of the Chief Data Officer’s office, to write any logic to test the metadata health and quality. Data stewards can write complex logic without worrying about coding, and immediately see results in Unified Catalog. Metadata quality comes with a set of predefined logic for each control, that you can read about in the health controls article. As a data steward, you can add more rules to the existing logic, and at the next refresh of the health controls, the new metadata quality logic will be applied to all the metadata, based on the scope (data product or governance domain or any other entity).

Prerequisites

Users need the data health owner role to update and manage metadata quality.

Access metadata quality

  1. In Unified Catalog, select Health management, then select Controls.
  2. On the Controls (preview) page, expand Metadata Quality Management.

Add a metadata quality control rule

  1. On the metadata quality page, select any control to see its list of controls.

    Screenshot of the metadata quality page, with a control selected and it's rule highlighted.

  2. You can add a new rule by selecting the + Add rule button.

  3. The add rule page opens with a list of all available rules for your current scope. (Example scope: Data product)

    Screenshot of the metadata quality new rule menu.

  4. Select a rule, and select OK.

    Screenshot of the metadata quality new rule menu with a rule selected.

  5. Select any more parameters required to complete the logic (For example, select the number of data assets with a classification count)

    Screenshot of a new metadata quality rule, adding the final logic steps to resolve the rule.

  6. Select the checkmark button.

  7. Select Save changes to save your updates.

    Screenshot of the metadata quality rules page with the save changes button highlighted.

Note

As the metadata quality rules run, all pass check contribute to health control scores, and all failed checks contribute to health control actions.

Edit a metadata quality control rule

  1. On the metadata quality page, select any control to see its list of controls.

    Screenshot of the metadata quality page, with a control selected and it's rules highlighted.

  2. Hover over any existing rule and select the pencil icon to edit, or the trash can icon to delete.

  3. If you edit, update any rule logic and select the check mark button.

  4. Select Save changes to save your changes.

Combine rules

  1. Select the checkbox next to more than one rule, then select the Combine rules button.
  2. Select whether you want to combine the rules with the OR or AND operator.
  3. Select Save changes to save your updates.

Reset all rules

At any time you can reset all rules back to their default using the Reset button. If you do, you'll lose any customizations you've made.

Set severity

You can set the severity of your controls, to edit how they'll appear in the health actions when there are rule failures.

  1. Open the Microsoft Purview portal and select Unified Catalog.

  2. Select the Health management drop-down.

  3. Select Metadata quality.

  4. Select Configure severity.

    Screenshot of the metadata quality page, with the configure severity button highlighted.

  5. Select a control category, then select your control.

  6. For each control you can set the severity to one of these options: Low, Medium, High

  7. Select Save to save your changes.

  8. When metadata quality rules are run, your health actions will be updated according to your new settings.

    Screenshot of the health actions page, showing the severity of all the listed health actions.

Default actions

Here's a list of the default actions that are available out of the box:

Finding type Finding subtype Finding Name Severity
Access and use Compliant data use Missing terms of use on data products Medium
Self-serve access enablement Missing access policy on data products Medium
Discoverability Data cataloging Data product not linked to data assets High
Missing description on data products High
Missing published glossary terms on data products High
Missing use case on data products High
Data products connection Data product not linked to data assets Medium
Estate curation Classification and labeling Missing classification on data assets Medium
Health observability Health management monitoring, alerting, and insights
Metadata quality management Data product usability Governance domain description length is fewer than 100 characters Medium
Data product description length is fewer than 100 characters Medium
Published glossary term's description length is fewer than 25 characters Medium
Linked assets Data product description length is fewer than 100 characters Medium
Missing published glossary terms on data product High
Trusted data Data product certification Data product isn't endorsed Low
Data product ownership Missing owners on data assets High
Missing owners on data products High
Data quality enablement Missing data quality scores on data assets Medium
Value creation Business OKRs alignment Missing OKRs on data products Medium

Limitations

Currently you can edit and manage existing health control metadata quality, but can't create new controls.

Next steps