Designing business terms (IBM Knowledge Catalog)

When you design a business term, you must decide the meaning that the term represents, where it fits in the category structure, and its relationships with other artifacts.

Properties of business terms
Relationships between business terms

You must have the required permissions to create governance artifacts. See Required permissions.

Properties of business terms

Business terms have these standard properties that are similar to other governance artifacts.

Property or behavior	Supports?	Explanation
Must have unique names?	Yes	Business term names must be unique within a category.
Description?	Yes	Optional. Include a description to help users find this business term.
Add relationships to other business terms?	Yes	See Relationships between business terms.
Add relationships to other types of governance artifacts?	Yes	See Relationships with other types of governance artifacts.
Add relationship to asset?	Yes	See Asset relationships in catalogs.
Add custom properties?	Yes	See Custom properties and relationships.
Add custom relationships?	Yes	See Custom properties and relationships.
Organize in categories?	Yes	The primary category for the artifact determines who can view or modify the artifact. See Categories.
Import from a file?	Yes	See Importing governance artifacts.
Import from a Knowledge Accelerator?	Yes	See Components of Knowledge Accelerators.
Export to a file?	Yes	See Exporting governance artifacts.
Managed by workflows?	Yes	See Workflows.
Specify effective start and end dates?	Yes	See Effective dates.
Assign a Steward?	Yes	See Stewards.
Add tags as properties?	Yes	See Tags.
Assign to an asset?	Yes
Assign to a column in a data asset?	Yes
Automated assignment to assets during profiling or enrichment?	Yes	See Automatic term assignment.
Predefined artifacts?	Yes, limited	See Predefined business terms.

Relationships with other types of governance artifacts

You can add relationships between business terms and other types of governance artifacts. Relationships with most types of artifacts are informational. However, when you add relationships between business terms and data classes, those business terms are automatically assigned to assets when their related data classes are assigned during metadata enrichment. For example, you can create a business term Contact method and relate it to the data class Email address. When the metadata enrichment process detects a column that matches the data class Email address, both the data class Email address and the business term Contact method are assigned. See Automatic term assignment.

However, a data class is not automatically assigned when one of its related business terms is assigned to a column.

If you include business terms in rules (or data class, policy, reference data set), you can see them listed on the Related content page of the business term.

Relationships between business terms

You can use relationships between business terms to provide context and add meaning to those terms.

You can create multiple kinds of relationships between business terms in the Related terms section:

Symmetrical one-to-one relationships. See Synonym relationships and Standard relationships.
Hierarchical one-to-many relationships. See Hierarchical type and part relationships.

When you create a relationship from one business term, the appropriate relationship is automatically added to the other business term. You can create multiple relationships of all kinds between business terms.

Synonym relationships

You can specify that business terms are synonyms of each other in the Synonyms section. A term can have multiple synonym terms. For example, if you have the business term communication technique, you can add the term contact methods as a synonym.

Synonym relationships are not inherited. For example, if term A is a synonym of term B, and term B is a synonym of term C, terms A and C are not automatically synonyms.

If you include this business term in a rule condition, any synonyms are not automatically included. You must explicity specify synonyms in rule conditions.

Standard relationships

You can create standard relationships that indicate a symmetrical association between two business terms in the Other related business terms section. You can create multiple standard relationships.

Standard relationships are not inherited. For example, if term A is related to term B, and term B is related to term C, terms A and C are not automatically related.

Hierarchical type and part relationships

You can develop a hierarchy of meaning by creating relationships that have a specified direction between business terms. When you specify a hierarchical relationship, the inverse relationship is automatically implemented. You can specify a hierarchical relationship from either direction. You can create a relationship from a term to another term that is higher in the hierarchy, or to another term that is lower in the hierarchy.

You can create the following kinds of hierarchical relationships:

Type

Is a type of: The current business term is a conceptual instance of another term that is broader in scope.
Has a type of: The current business term is a broad term that has narrower or subtype terms as conceptual instances.

Part

Is a part of: The current business term is a component of, a part of, an attribute of, or a member of another term.
Has a part of: The current business term has component, part, attribute, or member business terms.

You can view the hierarchy of the term relationships from business terms that are lower in the hierarchy. Click Show hierarchy to view the type of relationships of the business terms and to emphasize the dimension or usage of the terms. Click Show list to return to the list of business terms you have added to this type of relationship.

Evaluating rules and inheriting business terms of type relationships

When you're configuring your data protection rule and data location rule settings and Business term inheritance is selected, dependent business terms of a hierarchical type relationship are included as rules are evaluated. For example, the business term Loan has a type of relationship with Home loan and Car loan. The business term Loan and its subtypes Home loan and Car loan are all included when the rules are evaluated. For more information on rule conventions, rule action precedence, and masking method precedence, see Managing rule settings.

Type relationships

You can create type relationships that describe how terms are conceptually related. You can add multiple type relationships to a term.

Relationship	Description	Example	Inverse relationship
Is a type of	The current business term is a subtype of another term that is broader in scope.	The business term Home Loan is a subtype of the broader term Loan. Similarly, the terms Car loan and Student loan are also subtypes of the broader term Loan. These terms, Home Loan, Car Loan, and Student Loan, can have the Is a type of relationship with the broader term Loan.	Has a type of
Has a type of	The current business term is a broader term that has subtypes.	The business term Loan has subtypes of Home Loan, Car Loan, and Student Loan.	Is a type of

The following figure illustrates the Is a type of and Has a type of relationships with the example of the term Loan:

Is a type of and Has a type of relationships

Part relationships

You can create part relationships that describe how terms are related as components. You can add multiple part relationships to a term.

Relationship	Description	Example	Inverse relationship
Is a part of	The current business term is a component of another term.	The business terms Hybrid Rate, Fees, and Margin are components of the term Home Loan.	Has a part of
Has a part of	The current business term has component terms.	The business term Home Loan has component terms of Hybrid Rate, Fees, and Margin.	Is a part of

The following figure illustrates the Is a part of and Has a part of relationships with the example of the term Home Loan:

Is a part of and Has a part of relationships

Learn more

Parent topic: Business terms