Anomaly Impact¶

Every anomaly carries an Impact: Low, Medium, High, or Critical. Impact ranks how much an anomaly matters, so you know which ones to review first. Anomaly lists are sorted by it, and Flows can start only for anomalies at the level you choose.

Level	What it means
Low	Nothing Qualytics measured suggests the anomaly affects much of your data. Review it when you have time.
Medium	The anomaly affects part of your data. It is worth reviewing in your regular triage.
High	The anomaly is significant in size, measurements, or check importance. Review it soon.
Critical	Among the most serious anomalies Qualytics finds. Review it first.

How Impact Is Decided¶

Impact comes from the checks that failed in the anomaly. For each failed check, Qualytics:

Rates how much failed.
Adjusts that rating by the check's Importance.

The anomaly then takes the highest level among its failed checks. Levels are compared, never added up, so an anomaly with many Low failures is still Low.

How Much Failed¶

Each failed check is rated by whichever of these gives the higher level:

Failed records: the share of the checked records that failed the check in the scan. On a record anomaly, the share is the check's across the whole scan, not just the one row.

Share of checked records that failed	Level
Less than 1%	Low
1% to less than 10%	Medium
10% or more	High

A check that tests the table as a whole rather than individual records, such as Expected Schema, Freshness, or Volumetric, is rated High when it fails. When the scan has no count of failed records for a check that tests individual records, a shape anomaly uses its own count of failed records against the records the scan read. With no count at all, the failure is rated Low.

Impact metrics: when the check has impact metrics with an expected range, a metric outside its range rates the failure High, and a metric far outside it rates it Critical. Far outside means more than twice the maximum, or less than half the minimum. A range limit of zero or below has no far outside, so a metric past it rates High. On a record anomaly, the metric is that record's own value.

Adjusted by Check Importance¶

The rating is then adjusted by the importance of the check that failed. A Medium check leaves it as it is, High and Critical checks raise it, and a Low-importance check holds it at High or below:

Check importance	Low rating	Medium rating	High rating	Critical rating
Low	Low	Medium	High	High
Medium	Low	Medium	High	Critical
High	Medium	High	High	Critical
Critical	Medium	High	Critical	Critical

A Critical check's failures are never Low, and a Low-importance check's failures are never Critical.

To make a check's anomalies rank higher or lower, change its importance through its tags. See Check Importance.

How Was This Decided?¶

Hover over an anomaly's impact, or move to it with Tab, to see an explanation of its level. Under How was this decided?, the explanation lists what set the level, for the failed check that decided it (the first one listed, when several share the highest level):

Failed records: the share of the checked records that failed, that a table-level check failed, or that the rule does not count failed records. Shown when no impact metric is outside its range.
Check importance: the check's importance, shown only when it raised or lowered the level. When several checks failed, it names the check.
Impact metrics: the metric that is outside, or far outside, its expected range, or that none is outside.

In the Failed Checks section of the anomaly, each failed check also shows its own impact, next to its impact metrics. Its explanation works the same way, for that check alone.

When Impact Updates¶

Impact is decided when the anomaly is created. While the anomaly is open (Active or Acknowledged), it is decided again whenever the importance of one of its failed checks changes because of tags (a tag is added to or removed from the check, a tag's weight is changed, or a tag is deleted) or because an AI Managed check is converted to Authored. The update runs in the background, so the new level can take a moment to appear.

Tags on the anomaly itself do not change its impact. Only the tags on the checks that failed do, through the checks' importance.

Note

An anomaly that is no longer open (Resolved, Duplicate, Invalid, or Discarded) keeps the impact it had when it closed.

Where Impact Appears¶

Anomaly details: the Impact value in the Summary section, and the impact of each failed check. See Anomaly Views.
Anomaly lists: the Impact sort, which is the default order, and the Impact filter. See Filter and Sort Anomalies.
Flow triggers: the Anomaly Impact filter on the Anomaly Detected and Anomaly Status Changed triggers, which starts the Flow only for anomalies whose impact is at least, at most, or exactly the level you pick. See Configure a Trigger.
Timeline: impact changes, credited to the person whose action caused them with a Qualytics co-author badge, or to Qualytics alone otherwise.
API: the impact_level field of an anomaly, and the impact_level filter of GET /api/anomalies. See Anomalies API.