Administer Data Quality Settings

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

The Admin Settings page is the central control panel for Alation Data Quality administrators. It provides access to manage global settings for your organization. From this page, you can enable or disable features, configure role-based permissions for users, set up approval workflows for monitors, and manage webhook integrations.

Access to this page is controlled by user role and permissions so that you can tailor the Data Quality module to fit your organization’s governance policies and operational needs.

Permission Management

The following table shows the actions users can perform within the Data Quality module based on their assigned Alation role. The Can view permission is mandatory for all roles. You can grant or revoke write access by selecting the Can create monitor checkbox for each role.

Role	Create & Manage Monitors	View DQ Results
Catalog Admin	Yes (default)	Yes (default)
Server Admin	Yes (default)	Yes (default)
Source Admin	Yes (default)	Yes (default)
Steward	Yes (default)	Yes (default)
Composer	View only (default)	Yes (default)
Explorer	View only (default)	Yes (default)
Viewer	View only (default)	Yes (default)

Configure Admin Settings

1. Navigate to the Data Quality dashboard.

2. In the top-right corner, click Admin Settings.

3. Configure the Data Quality capabilities:

   • Data Profiling: Enables on-demand statistical analysis for tables and columns, such as row counts, null rates, and distributions. Disable this feature to restrict compute-intensive profiling operations.

   • Data Sampling: Enables queries to run on a sample of rows instead of a full table during profiling or failed row analysis. This reduces the compute load on large datasets.

     If enabled, you can also select Sample using service account to execute sampling queries with a designated service account.

   • Export CSV: Controls the ability for users to export Data Quality results, such as check outcomes or failed row data, to a CSV file. Disable this for organizations with strict data export policies.

   • Recommend Checks: Activates the LLM-powered engine that suggests relevant DQ checks during monitor creation based on online column metadata. Disable this if your organization restricts LLM-assisted features.

4. In the permissions management section, you can control the actions users can perform based on their assigned Alation role.

   • To grant write access, select the Can create monitor checkbox for each role. (Default: Can view)

5. In the approval workflow setup section, you must configure the approval process for a DQ monitor:

   • Enable the Workflow: Enables the approval workflow. When enabled, users must submit new monitors or changes for review before they become active.

   • Approver Group: Select the Alation users or groups authorized to review and approve monitor submissions. Only users in this group receive approval notifications.

   • Admin Bypass: Designate specific admin users who can publish monitors immediately, bypassing the approval process.

6. In the webhook configuration section, configure the outbound webhooks to send real-time notifications for Data Quality events.

   • Registration: Register a new webhook by providing a Display name and the endpoint URL.

   • Notification and incidents scope: Defines the granularity of the notifications sent by the webhook.

     • Per monitor base: Select to send one notification that summarizes the status of an entire monitor run.

     • Per check base: Select to send a separate notification for each individual check within a monitor run.

   • Authentication mechanisms: Defines the authentication method for the webhook subscription.

     • Static Header Token: Select to authenticate using a fixed token sent in an HTTP header.

       • URL: Enter the destination URL of the external system that receives the webhook notifications.

       • Token Header: Enter the name of the HTTP header that contains the authentication token.

       • Token: Enter the secret token value that the external system uses to verify the request.

7. In the top-right corner, click Save.