Building a Data Catalog: A Guide to Planning & Implementing

Building and implementing a data catalog can help your enterprises’ data community discover and use the best data and analytics resources for their projects. That’s according to a new report from Data.world that explores how a data catalog can help businesses achieve faster results — and make better decisions.

building a data catalog

Download the full report.

One of the keys to data catalogs is the element of collaboration.

This guide walks you through the following steps in building and implementing a data catalog:

  • Choose a pilot project: Data.world cautions to avoid the urge to immediately onboard your entire organization. “Instead, begin with a clear, well-defined analytics pilot project,” the report states.
  • Engage the right people: Look for the experts among you that will complete the actual tasks of creating, managing, and using your data catalog.
  • Select and connect data sources: “Populate the data catalog with the data sources you need to achieve your pilot project’s objective,” Data.world encourages, as a first step.
  • Educate and drive usage: Ultimately, your goal will be will be to help the pilot team use the data catalog as part of their daily workflows and toolchains.
  • Measure success: Encourage your pilot team and executive sponsors to identify and track key metrics to quantify the impact of using the data catalog.

As for the next steps to address the importance of data catalogs in your business, Data.world covers that, as well, in its new report. According to the company, the framework in this report is designed to give you a solid example of how your business can plan, build, deploy, manage, and grow your data catalog.

Catalogs are an essential foundation to building your data-driven culture. It’s important to invest time in planning your data catalog implementation. A strong foundation will support your entire organization as it grows and your data needs become more complex. — Data.world

The new guide from Data.world helps businesses walk through the basic steps to getting a data catalog up and running, and the challenges involved in implementing a system.

Download the new guide, “How to Plan and Launch Your Modern Data Catalog,” courtesy of Data.world, that provides metrics to measure the impact of building a data catalog, and highlights strategies to engage stakeholders.

Comments

  1. Why start with a project instead of a core business application, like the ERP?

    I’m watching a team doing exactly what is recommended by this white paper and it seems to make the data catalog have little to no value for anything other than the created data set for the pilot project. I’ve been using the analogy of a library full of books, but only the one used for a research project are listed in the card catalog and only for the parts of the books that were included in the research. The library still has all the books, but none of them can be found using the card catalog or reviewed to see if they are a better option since they are not listed.

    Just seeing the power and potential of a Data Catalog being limited by the “project” approach recommended in the white paper.