The Validio Business Glossary is a centralized repository for business term definitions that enables a consistent data vocabulary across your organization. You can define terms with descriptions, aliases, domains, and owners, and then assign those terms to catalog assets and schema fields to provide business context for your data.

Glossary terms with a domain assigned also power the Domain Lineage graph, which visualizes how data flows between business domains.

The Business Glossary is located under the Catalog > Glossary tab.

Prerequisites

Viewing the glossary requires glossary:READ permission (granted to the Viewer role by default). Creating, editing, deleting, and importing terms requires glossary:WRITE permission (granted to Editor and Admin roles by default). For more information, see About Validio RBAC.

Glossary Term Properties

The glossary list page displays all terms in a table with the following columns:

Each term row has an Actions menu, where you can manage (Update and Delete) individual terms. See Managing Glossary Terms.

Browse and Search Glossary Terms

You can search, filter, and sort to find relevant terms:

• Search -- Type keywords into the search bar to filter by term name, description, and aliases. Alias matching helps avoid duplicate terms — for example, searching "ECL" matches the term "Expected Credit Loss".
• Filter -- Use the filter toolbar to narrow results by Domain or Owner.
• Sort -- Use the sort menu to change the sort field and the ordering of terms.

To view more information about a term, click the term row to open its details sidebar, or click the term name to navigate to the term details page.

View Glossary Term Details

Click a glossary term row to open the information sidebar, or click the term name in the list to navigate to a term details page.

Glossary Term Sidebar

Opening the sidebar from the glossary list shows a quick view of the term:

• Header section -- Term name, description, aliases, domain, and owner, with inline editing. The description supports markdown formatting and AI description generation.
• Usage statistics -- Count of catalog assets and schema fields assigned this glossary term.
• Linked resources -- Links to view the catalog assets and schema fields assigned this glossary term in the assets list or lineage.
• Resource info -- The glossary term ID and timestamps for creation and last update.

Glossary Term Details Page

Click the term name in the list to navigate to the term details page. The page is organized into four tabs:

• Overview -- Header section, usage statistics, linked resources, and an activity log of changes (creation, updates, assignments, and removals).
• Data quality -- Per-dimension data quality cards aggregated across every schema field directly assigned to the term. Each card summarizes how those fields are performing on a single data quality dimension over the selected time range. Use the time range filter at the top of the tab to scope the rollup. Fields the term reached through propagation are not included until the assignment is promoted to direct — see Glossary Term Propagation.
• Assignments -- The list of catalog assets and schema fields assigned to the term, including those propagated via lineage. Filter each list by Assignment type to show only direct or only propagated assignments, and use bulk selection to view assignments in lineage, promote propagated assignments to direct, or remove them.
• Upstream terms -- Other glossary terms that reach this term via field-level lineage. The trace starts from the term's direct field assignments, so a term with only propagated assignments has nothing to show here. This view helps you see which business concepts feed into a composite or derived term.

Data Quality Dots on the Glossary List

The glossary list includes a Data Quality column that summarizes term-level health using one colored dot per dimension. Each dot communicates one of three states for that dimension:

Only direct assignments count toward these states. Fields the term reached through propagation leave the dots unchanged until they are promoted to direct.

Hover on a dot to see the dimension name and current state. For more on dimensions, see Data Quality Dimensions.

Data Quality Tab

The Data quality tab on a term details page expands the dot view into a per-dimension card grid. Each card shows:

• The dimension name and the passing percentage of validators declaring that dimension on the term's directly assigned fields.
• A trend over the selected time range.
• Drill-down to the validators contributing to that card.

Use the time range filter at the top of the tab to scope the rollup (e.g., last 7 days, last 30 days). Cards reflect the workspace data quality thresholds for passing, warning, and failing.

Managing Glossary Terms

You can create, edit, and delete glossary terms from the Glossary tab. You can also import and export terms in bulk using CSV files. Editing and deleting can be done from the sidebar, the term details page, or the actions menu on each term row. To automate assigning terms to assets, see Glossary Term Suggestions.

Create a Glossary Term

1. Navigate to Catalog > Glossary.
2. Click + New term.
3. (Required) Enter the term Name.
4. (Optional) Add a Description, Aliases, Domain, and Owner.
5. Click Create to save the term.

Edit a Glossary Term

1. Click a term row to open the sidebar, or navigate to the term details page.
2. Click Update to open the update dialog.
3. Modify the term properties as needed.
4. Click Save to apply changes.

Delete a Glossary Term

1. Click the actions menu on a term row, or use the actions on the term details page.
2. Select Delete.
3. Confirm the deletion in the dialog.

Deleting a term removes all of its assignments to catalog assets and schema fields.

Import Glossary Terms from CSV

You can bulk-create or update glossary terms by importing a CSV file. A common workflow is to export the glossary first, edit it in a spreadsheet, and re-upload it.

1. Navigate to Catalog > Glossary.
2. Click Import in the toolbar.
3. Upload a CSV file using the headers below. Header names are case-insensitive, and the file must include at least a name or an id column.
4. Click Import to process the file.

CSV Columns

How Rows Are Matched and Applied

Terms are matched on id when it is filled in, and on name otherwise. Matched terms are updated, and unmatched rows create a new term.

How a cell is treated depends on whether the column is there at all:

• Column omitted from the file -- the stored value is left unchanged.
• Column present but the cell is blank -- the stored value is cleared.

This means a file containing only name and description updates those fields and leaves aliases, domain, and owner untouched.

Import Results

After the import, a summary reports how many rows were created, updated, skipped, and failed. Rows identical to the stored term are skipped rather than rewritten, so re-uploading an unedited export makes no changes.

Rows needing attention are listed below the summary with one of two severities:

Export Glossary Terms to CSV

You can export your glossary to a CSV file for backup or sharing.

1. Navigate to Catalog > Glossary.
2. Click Export in the toolbar to download all terms.

To export only specific terms, select them using the checkboxes and click Export selected in the selection toolbar.

The exported file is named glossary-terms-YYYY-MM-DD.csv. The export uses the same headers the importer reads, so an exported file can be edited and uploaded back. Owners are written as email addresses, or as the user ID for users without one.

Bulk Actions

Select multiple terms using the checkboxes in the glossary list to access bulk actions:

• Delete selected -- Delete all selected terms (requires glossary: WRITE).
• Export selected -- Export selected terms to CSV (requires glossary: READ).

Related Resources

• Domains
• Classifications
• Glossary Term Assignments
• Glossary Term Propagation
• Glossary Term Suggestions
• Data Quality Dimensions
• About Domain Lineage