Practical Data Governance
Governance doesn't have to be a separate programme. ATD embeds governance metadata directly into your data catalog — so the people closest to the data are the ones maintaining it.
Start Free TrialGovernance gaps hide in plain sight
Most data teams know which fields are sensitive. The problem is that knowledge lives in someone's head — not in the catalog. When that person leaves, or when a regulator asks, the answer isn't findable.
Undocumented PII
Fields containing names, emails, or financial data are often undocumented in schema registries — invisible to compliance reviews.
No clear ownership
When an issue arises, nobody is sure who is accountable for a given dataset or field. Escalations stall.
Stale documentation
Governance artefacts — spreadsheets, Confluence pages — fall out of sync with the actual data. Teams stop trusting them.
Sensitive data exposure
Without classification, sensitive fields are treated the same as public ones — in reports, exports, and shared schemas.
Flag PII and sensitivity — field by field
ATD's Data Dictionary lets you mark any field as PII and assign it one of six sensitivity tiers. These classifications live alongside the schema itself, so they're always in context and always up to date.
- PII badge surfaced in the dictionary list — visible before opening any individual field
- Sensitivity classification stored per field — not per table or dataset
- Visible in every export format: CSV, Markdown, HTML, JSON Schema, OpenAPI
- Configure which governance columns are shown per dictionary
| Field | Type | PII | Sensitivity |
|---|---|---|---|
| customer_id | INTEGER | — | Public |
| VARCHAR | PII | Restricted | |
| full_name | VARCHAR | PII | Confidential |
| signup_date | DATE | — | Internal |
| country_code | VARCHAR | — | Public |
Assign and track data ownership
ATD's Data Owners module lets you register individuals or teams as accountable owners and link them to specific Data Feeds, APIs, or Pipelines. Ownership is visible in reports — so governance conversations have names attached.
- Register owners as named individuals or team roles
- Link any asset type — feed, API, pipeline — to an owner
- View all assets owned by a specific person or team in one click
- Ownership included in PDF reports for governance meetings
- Change history captures ownership transfers over time
Share dictionaries without sharing access
When an auditor, partner, or external team needs to see your schema documentation, you shouldn't have to give them a platform login. ATD generates a tokenised public link to any dictionary — read-only, no account required.
- One-click link generation from any dictionary detail page
- The public view shows the full field table and all export buttons
- Generate multiple links per dictionary — different links for different audiences
- Revoke any link instantly — it stops working immediately
- No other part of the platform is visible to the link recipient
/public/dict/a3f8c2e1... /public/dict/9d12b7f4... Every change, timestamped and attributed
ATD's change history log captures every update to every asset — who changed it, when, and what changed. When a compliance review asks "who last updated the classification on this field?" the answer is already there.
Attributed changes
Every edit is recorded with the user's name and timestamp — no anonymous updates.
Full history per asset
The complete change log for any Feed, API, Pipeline, or Project is viewable in the UI.
Scoped per organisation
Each organisation's audit trail is fully isolated — one org's activity is never visible to another.
Governance-ready reports
Export any asset as a PDF report — complete with metadata, ownership, and classification — for meetings or audits.
Everything you need to govern your data estate
Start governing your data estate today
14-day free trial. No credit card required. Bring your own schema and see governance in practice.