Observability Introduction

Observability helps data stewards review how data volume, freshness, and field-level metrics change as Qualytics records new measurements. When tracking is enabled, volume and freshness measurements come from a scheduled measurement cycle. Field-level Metric measurements come from relevant Profile and Scan operations. Observability checks evaluate those measurements against their configured criteria and can surface anomalies when the criteria fail.

Why this matters

Important data can change without an obvious warning. A source stops receiving rows, a delivery arrives late, or a numeric field shifts after a business process changes. Observability helps data stewards review these changes when new measurements arrive by:

• Tracking row counts so checks can surface unexpected drops or spikes as anomalies.
• Tracking freshness so checks can flag data that exceeds the expected maximum age.
• Tracking field-level metrics (min, max, average, distinct count, and other measures on a specific field) so you can see how values change across Profile and Scan operations.

When the matching AI check option is enabled, Qualytics can create AI Managed Volumetric and Freshness checks after enough measurements have accumulated. You can also author checks when you need explicit thresholds that reflect your business expectations.

How Observability is organized

The Observability tab sits on three surfaces:

• Datastore scope. Open a Source Datastore and click the Observability tab to see every observability check that belongs to the datastore.
• Container scope. Open a table or file and click the Observability tab to see only that container's checks.
• Explore scope. From the global Explore section, the Observability page lists checks across every datastore you have access to.

At the top of each surface, two tabs group the checks by mechanism:

• Measures. One card per container. Both the Volumetric check (row-count tracking) and the Freshness check (last-modified tracking) live on the same card, so you can see the container's volume and freshness side by side.
• Metrics. One card per Metric check. Metric checks target a specific field and compare measurements recorded by relevant Profile and Scan operations using one of three comparison types.

Read the mechanism deep dives to see how each type is measured, when a measurement counts as an anomaly, and what the chart shows.

Next Steps