Manage your attributes

An attribute is a characteristic of a data asset.

The information associated to an attribute is generally split into two categories.

The first one contains the technical information of the attribute (technical name, type, nullable, ...), this information is automatically added and updated by sidecar through the "Data asset discovery" capabilities.

The second category concerns the functional information of the attribute. This category is maintained by the users.

An attribute is the bottom level of the hierarchy in sidecar

An attribute can be enriched with the following information:

  • Technical name: The technical name of the attribute. For example the name of the column in a database table.

  • Business name : the name of the attribute will be displayed in most of the screens. For a better user experience, it's important to choose an explicit name that is self-explanatory and not too long. The maximum number of characters for the name is 100,

  • Description: You can provide a very detailled description of the application, this text box is limited to 8000 characters.

  • Business rule: You can provide all the business rules or transformations applied to this attribute in the source system or in the ETL that transfered the data.

  • Classification: You can assign an element of a classification to the attribute. You can assign multiple classifications to the same attribute. For example, you can classify the attribute "Last Name" to the GDPR element "Name". Please visit the "Classification" page for more information.

  • Data type: In this field you will find the data type of the attribute (e.g: varchar(20), datetime, string,...).

  • Is primary key: This field indicates if this attribute is part of the primary key of the table.

  • Is nullable: This field indicates if the attribute is nullable or not.

  • Status: Four types of status are available

    • Active: the attribute is currently in use.

    • Draft: the attribute is visible in sidecar but indicates to the users that the information associated is currently being reviewed or worked on.

    • Deprecated: the attribute is visible in sidecar but indicates to the users that this application and all its data assets & attributes are no longer used in the institution.

    • Hidden : the attribute is not visible by business users

Tip: A complete description of every field is available in sidecar, just search for the application "sidecar" and you will obtain all the definitions, data types and length of each field.

Create an attribute

Attributes can only be added through the "Data asset discovery" capabilities. It is not possible to create an attribute manually.

Please visit the Data asset discovery page to learn more about how to identify new data assets.

Modify an attribute

You can modify all business fields of an attribute, however the technical fields can not be updated.

Please visit the Data asset discovery page to learn more about how to update an attribute.


Delete an attribute

If an attribute is no longer relevant, you can either change the status to "Deprecated" or delete the data asset associated. It is not possible to delete a single attribute.

Please visit the Data asset discovery page to learn more about how to delete an attribute.


Restore an attribute

If you need to restore a deleted a attribute, please contact your sidecar administrator.

See the following section for the detailed procedure : Restore procedure