How to: Use Lineage Effectively

We recommend the following best practices:

• Always check lineage before deleting assets

• Start investigations from Inventory → Asset → Lineage

• Use health tags + lineage together for prioritization

• Focus on assets with:

  • High downstream impact

  • Low usage (high cleanup ROI)

Use Case: Impact Analysis

Before changing a dataset:

• Check downstream assets

• Understand how many reports will break

  • See if there is any activity on the reports

  • Look at the health signals of the report

• Start a workflow to notify the owners and other stakeholders of the dataset and report.

Use Case: Cleanup & Cost Reduction

Go to Inventory and filter on unhealthy assets. Specifically, look for:

• Unused reports built on active models

• Models with no downstream usage

Then:

• Start a workflow to notify the owners and other stakeholders of the dataset and report.

• Archive or delete safely

Use Case: Root Cause Analysis

If a report is broken:

• Trace upstream dependencies

• Identify whether the issue originated in the BI tool or futher upstream