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Schema Change Monitoring

Schema change monitoring tells you when the structure of the tables in your source changes, such as a table being dropped or a column being removed or changing type. Ataccama ONE records every change it detects as a finding. You choose which changes also raise an alert, so you hear about the ones that could break your reports, pipelines, or DQ rules.

What schema change monitoring provides

With schema change monitoring, you can:

  • Track structural changes: See which tables were created or dropped, and which columns were added, removed, or changed.

  • Choose what raises an alert: Select the changes you want to be alerted about, for a whole source and for individual catalog items.

  • Notify and escalate: Send schema change alert notifications by email, Slack, or Microsoft Teams, or escalate to a ticket in ServiceNow or Jira.

How ONE detects schema changes

Schema changes are changes to the tables in the source itself, such as a Snowflake database, not to the catalog items in ONE. For example, if you delete catalog items and import them again, the tables in the source haven’t changed, so no schema change is detected.

Schema changes are detected whenever metadata import runs, whether you run it manually or on a schedule. Metadata import also runs as part of profiling and DQ evaluation. If metadata import doesn’t run, schema changes aren’t detected, so make sure it runs regularly on the sources you want to monitor.

Types of schema change

You can choose to be alerted about the following changes:

Change What it means Where you set it Finding type Severity

Table created

A new table appeared in the source.

Source

Asset created

Low

Table dropped

A table was removed from the source.

Source and catalog item

Asset deleted

Critical

Column added

A new column appeared in the table.

Catalog item

Attribute added

Low

Column removed

A column was removed from the table.

Catalog item

Attribute deleted

Critical

Column changed

A column changed in a way other than its data type, such as its length.

Catalog item

Attribute changed

Low

Column type changed

A column’s data type changed.

Catalog item

Attribute type changed

High

Schema change findings and alerts

Each change ONE detects creates one finding. The finding’s severity depends on the type of change, as listed in Types of schema change. The finding is Active when it’s created and becomes Inactive 24 hours after detection. A later scan doesn’t update or close it earlier.

If the change is one you selected for alerting, ONE also raises an alert.

Because schema changes belong to the table in the source, findings and alerts do too. If several catalog items represent the same table, for example through different connections, they all get the alert if alerting for that change is on for at least one of them.

Schema change alerts are grouped as follows:

  • Changes detected on the same table in the same scan are grouped into one alert.

  • Later changes go into a new alert, not an existing one.

  • Schema changes are not grouped with other finding types, such as DQ or freshness findings.

If an alert contains findings with different severities, the alert takes the highest one.

A Table created alert is raised on the new table’s catalog item. Like other alerts, an alert becomes Inactive once its findings do, and its resolution stays as you set it. See Alert status lifecycle.

Set up schema change alerting

Setting up schema change alerting involves enabling it on the source and choosing which changes raise an alert. You can then change the selection for individual catalog items.

Step 1: Enable schema change alerting for a source

No changes are selected by default, so turning on alerting alone doesn’t raise any alerts. To enable alerting and choose the changes:

  1. Go to Sources and open the source you want to monitor.

  2. Select the Monitoring tab.

  3. In Schema change alerting, select Configure.

  4. Turn on Enable schema change alerting for this source.

  5. In Source alerting, select the table-level changes that raise an alert anywhere in the source.

  6. In Catalog item alerting, select the column-level changes that raise an alert on every catalog item in the source.

  7. Select Save changes.

If no metadata import is scheduled for the source, the Schema change alerting card shows No scheduled metadata import. To schedule one, select Schedule metadata import.

Alerting on every catalog item can create a large volume of alerts, depending on how often the schema changes in the source. To keep the volume manageable, leave Catalog item alerting empty and select changes only on the monitors of the catalog items that need them.

If you turn off alerting for the source, its catalog items don’t get schema change alerts, even if they have their own selection. The exception is a table that another catalog item also represents, with alerting on for that change. Changes are still recorded as findings.

Step 2: Choose which changes raise an alert on a catalog item

Catalog items use the selection from Catalog item alerting on the source, and their monitor settings show Inherited. The Schema changes settings are available on the primary monitor only. To change the selection for one catalog item:

  1. Open the catalog item and go to its DQ monitor.

  2. Select Configure monitor.

  3. Select Schema changes.

  4. In Create alerts for, select the changes that raise an alert for this catalog item.

    Besides the column-level changes, you can select Table dropped here, so you’re alerted if this table is dropped without being alerted about every table in the source.

  5. Publish the monitor.

Once you change the selection, the catalog item no longer follows the source, and later changes to the source selection don’t apply to it. To follow the source again, select Reset.

For details about the monitor settings, see the Schema changes settings.

Review schema changes

The DQ monitor of a catalog item shows a Schema changes card with the number of active changes of each type. The card is shown even when schema change alerting is off.

Select the card to open Schema change findings. For each change, the list shows its finding type, status, severity, and when it was first detected and last seen, and the alert it raised, if there is one.

Schema change alerts appear in the alerts feed with your other alerts. To see only these, filter by Finding type and select Schema changes. To learn more about working with alerts, see Investigate Alerts.

See also

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