Alation asset import

The alation asset import package loads metadata from a CSV file that matches the format of one extracted using either of the asset export packages (basic or advanced).

Use cases

• Bulk load details from the CSV file into Atlan, to enrich assets in Atlan
• Create new assets in bulk in Atlan, based on the details in the CSV file
• Migrate manual enrichment done to one set of data assets to another (for example, when migrating from one data warehouse to another but retaining the same data structures)

Configuration

Assets

• Import assets from: select how you want to provide the input file to be processed (the format must match the CSV file format produced by an export)

  Direct uploadS3 object

  Directly upload a CSV file containing the assets. Note that this is generally limited to ~10-20MB.

  • Assets file: the CSV file containing enriched details, to load, for assets.

  Specify the details of an S3 object, for which there is no size limit.

  • S3 region: the S3 region where the input file is hosted. If you are using the S3 storage back-end for the Atlan tenant itself, you can leave this blank.
  • S3 bucket: the S3 bucket where the input file is hosted. If you are using the S3 storage back-end for the Atlan tenant itself, you can leave this blank.
  • S3 object key: the complete object key for the S3 object — including any prefix ("directory" structure) and the filename itself.

  When not using Atlan's S3 back-end storage

  When using your own (rather than Atlan's) S3 storage for the input, you must first set up a cross-account bucket policy for Atlan to have access to your S3 bucket and the object within it.

• Remove attributes, if empty: by default, any value that is blank in the CSV file will simply be ignored. If you would prefer the value to instead be overwritten on the asset in Atlan (i.e. that value removed from the asset), you can select the field here. Any fields selected here whose values are empty in the file will result in the value being removed from the asset in Atlan.

  Atlan tags are always overwritten

  Note that the Atlan tags (atlanTags) column will always be replaced wholesale. Therefore, if the Atlan tags column is empty in the CSV input, but the asset in Atlan has tags assigned, after running the import that asset will no longer have any tags assigned.

• Input handling: how to handle assets in the CSV file that do not exist in Atlan

  Create fullCreate partialUpdate only

  Create a full-fledged asset that can be discovered and maintained like other assets in Atlan.

  Create a "partial" asset. These are only shown in lineage, and cannot be discovered through search. These are useful when you want to represent a placeholder for an asset that you lack full context about, but also do not want to ignore completely.

  Only update assets that already exist in Atlan, and do not create any asset, of any kind.

  Does not apply to related READMEs and links

  READMEs and links in Atlan are technically separate assets — but these will still be created, even in Update only mode.

• Fail on errors: whether an invalid value in a field should cause the import to fail (Yes) or log a warning, skip that value, and proceed (No).

• Case-sensitive match for updates: whether attempts to match assets should be done case-sensitively (Yes) or case-insensitively (No).
• Table/view agnostic?: whether the import should strictly adhere to the types Table, View and MaterializedView in the input CSV, or allow these to be matched interchangeably.

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