How Tags Work¶

This page explains how tags influence Qualytics. It starts with what a tag changes in quality scores, check importance, Flows, and operations, then walks through what a tag holds, how it reaches the assets inside a datastore, what a new anomaly inherits, and what happens to the assets when a tag is edited, moved, merged, or deleted.

How Tags Influence Qualytics¶

A tag does more than label an asset. Wherever it goes, it changes how Qualytics measures, ranks, and acts on that asset.

Quality Scores¶

A datastore's quality score is a weighted average of its tables and files, and a table's dimension scores are a weighted average of its fields. Each table and field gets its weight from the weight modifiers of the tags it carries, inherited ones included. A table tagged with a high weight therefore counts more in its datastore's score, and a table tagged with a negative weight counts less, without ever leaving the score.

Table and field weights are stored, and only some tag changes recalculate them, such as a tag change on the datastore or a move, remove, or merge from a tag's page. A tag added directly to a table, an edited weight, or a deleted tag does not recalculate a table's weight in its datastore score. See When Weights Are Recalculated. To see a score for the tagged assets alone, open the tag's page, whose Quality Score card covers the tables and files that carry it, or filter Explore by the tag. See Weight Modifier for the formula and an example.

Check Importance and Anomaly Impact¶

Every check has an importance (Low, Medium, High, or Critical), and the tags it carries move it. The tag with the highest weight raises it one level for a weight of 2 to 7 and two levels for 8 or more, and a negative weight lowers it one level. A check's importance then decides how much its failures count in the impact of the anomalies it finds, which is how anomaly lists are ranked. Tags on the anomaly itself don't change its impact. See Check Importance and Impact.

Flows¶

A Flow's trigger can filter on tags, so it starts only for events that carry them, such as anomalies tagged PII. Anomaly actions can also filter on tags, and an Archive action can add tags to the anomalies it archives. See Configure a Trigger.

Operations¶

A Profile or Scan can pick its tables by tag instead of by name, so tables tagged later are included without editing the operation. A Scan picked by tag runs the checks of the tagged tables, the checks on tagged fields, and the tagged checks. See Select Tables.

Lists and Explore¶

Datastores, tables, fields, checks, and anomalies can be filtered by tag, and saved filters can keep a tag selection. Explore shows the scores, checks, and anomalies of the tagged assets alone, which is useful for reporting on one domain.

Types of Tags¶

Every tag is one of three types. The type decides who can find and apply the tag, where it can go, and who manages it.

	Global	Team	External
What it is for	The vocabulary the whole organization shares, such as `PII` or `Finance`.	Labels that only make sense to one team, such as `Q3 Close`.	Labels your governance team already maintains in a data catalog.
Who finds and applies it	Every user.	The team's members and Admins.	Every user can find it and filter by it. Only the catalog sync applies or removes it.
Where it can go	Any asset, check templates included.	Assets in the team's datastores only. Not check templates.	The datastores, tables, files, and fields the catalog sync matches.
Who manages it	Admins.	Admins, and users whose team holds the Editor team permission.	The data catalog. In Qualytics, Admins set its category and weight.
Where it comes from	Created in Qualytics.	Created in Qualytics.	Imported by a pull sync from the catalog.
Icon		, or for users outside the team

Everyone who can open an asset sees all the tags on it, whatever their type. A team tag on an asset shows a lock icon to users outside its team, who can't remove it.

See Global Tags, Team Tags, and External Tags.

Moving a Tag Between Types¶

A tag keeps its name, weight, history, and assets when its scope changes. What can change depends on the type:

From	To	How	What happens to the assets
Global	A team	An Admin restricts the Scope when editing the tag.	The tag is removed from every asset outside the team's datastores, and from check templates.
A team	Another team	An Admin changes the Scope.	The tag is removed from every asset outside the new team's datastores.
A team	Global	An Admin changes the Scope to Global.	Nothing is removed.
Global or a team	External	A pull sync from a data catalog with Overwrite Tags on, when the catalog has a tag with the same name.	The tag keeps its assets, becomes global, and the catalog takes over its description and color.
External	Global or a team	Not possible.	External tags are always global and stay managed by the catalog.

To move the assets of a tag to another tag instead, whatever their types, use Move to or Merge from the tag's page. External tags cannot be moved or merged, or be the target.

Grouping Tags¶

The three types are fixed: you can't create a new type. To organize tags further:

Categories group tags by topic, such as Sensitivity, Domain, or Lifecycle. Type a new category in the tag form to create it. The Tags list filters and sorts by category.
Teams each form their own group of team tags. A new team in Settings can own its own tags as soon as it has members with the Editor team permission. In tag pickers, tags are grouped by scope: Global first, then the teams, then External.

What a Tag Holds¶

Every tag in the library has the same settings, whatever assets carry it.

Setting	What it does
Name	Identifies the tag everywhere it appears. Names are unique across the whole workspace, whatever their scope or type, and the comparison is case-sensitive, so `PII` and `pii` are two different tags.
Color	The color of the tag's badge, as a hex code.
Description	What the tag means and when to use it, written in Markdown. It shows on the tag's page.
Category	A free-text group, such as `Compliance` or `Domain`, used to filter and sort the Tags list.
Weight Modifier	A number from `-10` to `10`, `1` by default. It changes how much the tagged assets count in quality scores and how important the tagged checks are. See Weight Modifier.
Scope	Global, open to everyone, or one team, which limits who can find and apply the tag. See Types of Tags.

The field rules (allowed characters, lengths, and defaults) are listed in the Add a Tag field reference.

How a Tag Is Created¶

A tag is created from the Add Tag form on the Tags list, or from the Add tag button in a tag picker, which opens the same form without leaving the asset. Either way, the scope you pick decides who manages the tag: global tags belong to Admins, and a team's tags also belong to the users whose team holds the Editor team permission.

A tag can also be created by naming a new tag when an asset is tagged through the API. A tag created this way is always global, so only Admins can create tags that way.

External tags are not created in Qualytics. They arrive with a pull sync from a connected data catalog.

Tag Inheritance¶

Tags flow down the data hierarchy, from a datastore to the assets inside it. They never flow up: a tag on a field does not reach its table or datastore.

Where the tag is applied	Where it also goes
Datastore	Every table and file in the datastore, and from each of them, its fields and checks.
Table or file	Its fields and its checks.
Field	Its checks. Adding or removing a tag on the field adds or removes it on those checks too.
Check	Every anomaly the check finds from then on.
Check template	Every check created from the template. A tag added to or removed from the template is added to or removed from those checks too.
Anomaly	Nowhere else.

A table, field, or check added later inside a tagged datastore or table starts with its tags.

External tags spread less, because the catalog sync decides where they go. An external tag on a table reaches the table's checks, but not its fields, and an external tag on a datastore stays on the datastore. New tables and fields don't start with external tags, while new checks start with every tag of their table, external ones included.

Removing a tag from a datastore, a table or file, a field, or a check template removes it from the assets it reaches in the same way, including the ones where it was also applied directly.

Timing¶

The asset you tag or untag changes right away. The assets inside it are updated in the background, table by table, so a large datastore can take a moment to show the tag everywhere. Refresh a table, field, or check that does not show the change yet.

When a tag is added to or removed from a datastore, the weights of its tables and fields are recalculated and the datastore's quality score is refreshed once the background update finishes. A tag change on a table or a field does not recalculate the table's weight in its datastore score. See When Weights Are Recalculated. The importance of the affected checks, and the impact of their open anomalies, update on their own in the background.

What a New Anomaly Inherits¶

An anomaly takes its tags when it is created:

The tags of every check that failed, without repeats.
The tags set on any impact metric range that the anomaly falls outside of.

Later changes to the check's tags do not reach anomalies that already exist. An anomaly keeps the tags it started with until someone edits them. Tags on the anomaly itself don't change its impact: only the tags on its failed checks do, through the checks' importance. See What a New Anomaly Starts With.

Changing a Tag¶

Edits to a tag apply everywhere it is used, because every asset points at the same tag.

Change	Effect
Rename	The new name shows on every asset that carries the tag.
Color, description, or category	Shows everywhere right away. Nothing else changes.
Weight modifier	The importance of the tagged checks and the impact of their open anomalies update in the background. The weights of the tagged tables and fields, which quality scores use, are not recalculated by a weight edit. See When Weights Are Recalculated.
Scope, from global to a team	The tag is removed from every asset outside the team's datastores. See Changing a Tag's Scope.

Every change is recorded in the timeline on the tag's page. See Tag Page.

Moving, Removing, and Merging¶

The tag's page offers three actions that change many assets at once. They need the Data Catalog module.

Action	What happens to the assets	What happens to the tag
Move to	The tag is taken off the selected assets, or all of them, and another tag is put on instead.	Both tags stay in the library.
Remove	The tag is taken off the selected assets.	The tag stays in the library and on every asset you did not select.
Merge	Everything that uses the tag switches to another tag: assets, Flows, schedules, and saved filters.	The tag is deleted, with its history and comments. The remaining tag records the merge in its timeline.

Moving or removing a tag from a datastore, a table or file, a field, or a check template also moves or removes it on the assets that asset reaches: the tables, fields, and checks inside a datastore, the fields and checks of a table or file, the checks of a field, and the checks created from a check template. Each action only touches the assets you can edit, and the dialog says how many assets change before you confirm. External tags cannot be moved, removed, or merged, and cannot be the tag another one moves or merges into.

See Move a Tag to Another Tag, Remove a Tag from Assets, and Merge Tags.

Deleting a Tag¶

Deleting a tag removes it from the library and from every asset that carries it, existing anomalies included. Nothing moves to another tag, and the delete cannot be undone. To keep the assets tagged under another name, merge the tag instead. See Delete a Tag.