Exists In Anomaly Reporting

How the Exists In check reports violations: the anomaly messages it produces, what the numbers mean, how the offending value appears in Source Records, and how to replace the default message with a value from your own data.

Anomaly Messages

At 100% coverage, Exists In reports violating rows as Record Anomalies. Below 100% coverage, a failed coverage assertion produces one Shape Anomaly for the dataset. The two templates are:

Record Anomaly

The field '<field_name>' has value '<row_value>', which does not exist in '<reference_field>'

Shape Anomaly

For the field '<field_name>', X.XXX% of N records (K) have values that do not exist in '<reference_field>'

When a filter is set, both Record and Shape Anomaly messages end with [filter: <expression>].

Scan settings can group a large number of Record Anomalies into one rolled-up Shape Anomaly. This behavior applies across rule types and is documented under Maximum Record Anomalies per Check.

What the Numbers Mean

• X.XXX%: the fraction of filtered target rows that fail the lookup.
• N: the total number of target rows the check evaluated (after the target filter, if any). Rows with NULL values count in this total because they pass.
• K: the number of rows that fail the lookup.

Source Records Behavior

The offending cell is highlighted with an orange outline and an orange-tinted background in the Source Records view, mirroring the platform's standard violation rendering. Only the cell carrying the failing value is highlighted; the reference container is not shown alongside it, so keep the reference field in mind when triaging.

Custom Anomaly Description

Exists In supports Custom Anomaly Description because it emits Record Anomalies. When anomaly_message_field (or the Custom Anomaly Description toggle in the UI) is set to another column on the same row, the Record Anomaly message becomes the value of that column for the violating row. When the referenced column is null, missing, or empty, the standard template is used instead.

Because the option only applies to Record Anomalies, it does not affect Shape Anomalies, which always use the fixed template.

See Also