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Lineage

Lineage in Ataccama ONE lets you trace and visualize how data flows across your systems from source to destination, including every transformation along the way.

Why lineage matters

When a report shows unexpected numbers or a dashboard breaks, your first question is usually: where did this data come from?

Without lineage, answering that question means piecing together information from documentation, coworkers, and code. Lineage lets you trace that path directly: see which tables feed into a report, what transformations are applied, and where issues might have originated.

Lineage helps you:

  • Find the root cause of data issues. Trace problems upstream to their source instead of troubleshooting by trial and error.

  • Understand how data is calculated. See which transformations, joins, and aggregations produce a given report or metric.

  • Assess the impact of changes. Before modifying a table or pipeline, see every downstream asset that depends on it.

  • Satisfy compliance requirements. Demonstrate to auditors where sensitive data originates and how it flows through your systems.

How lineage works in ONE

Ataccama Lineage is powered by lineage scanners: modules that connect to your data systems, extract metadata about data flows, and structure it for visualization.

The process has three stages:

  1. Scan — The scanner connects to your data sources (databases, ETL tools, BI platforms) and extracts metadata about tables, columns, transformations, and their relationships.

  2. Import — The extracted metadata is uploaded to ONE, where connections are mapped to your existing catalog items.

  3. Explore — You visualize lineage in an interactive diagram, tracing data flows at both the catalog item and attribute level.

Scanner deployment options

You can deploy the lineage scanner in two ways:

Built-in scanner

Runs directly within Ataccama ONE.

You configure scan plans in the application, run them on a schedule, and import results without leaving the platform.

Standalone scanner

Runs as an independent application using Docker Compose.

You configure scan plans locally, run scans, and manually upload the resulting lineage files to ONE. Best for on-premise sources or environments with restricted network access.

Both options produce the same lineage metadata and support the same source technologies.

Get started

Review Supported Technologies to confirm your data sources are compatible with the lineage scanner.

1. Configure and run a scan

Set up a scan plan that tells the scanner which sources to analyze and how to connect to them.

For the built-in scanner, go to Knowledge Catalog > Scan Plans and create a new plan. See Built-In Lineage Scanner.

For the standalone scanner, configure a JSON scan plan file and run it via the command line. See Standalone Lineage Scanner.

Each source technology has specific configuration requirements. See Scanner configurations for detailed setup guides.

2. Import lineage to ONE

After a successful scan, import the results into ONE.

For the built-in scanner, running the scan plan imports the results into ONE.

For the standalone scanner, import the generated lineage file manually into ONE.

During import, you map connections from the scan to your existing data connections in ONE and choose whether to add to or replace existing lineage.

See Import Lineage.

3. Explore your data flows

Once imported, you can explore lineage from any catalog item.

From the Lineage tab, you can view an asset’s upstream and downstream dependencies, trace how individual attributes flow through transformations, and view the transformation path to understand exactly how a source value becomes a target value.

See Lineage Diagram for navigation tips and features.

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