Designing classifications (IBM Knowledge Catalog)

Last updated: Oct 16, 2024

When you design classifications, you must review the existing predefined classifications and decide whether the set is enough for your needs. If any of them need to be edited, or if you need to add new classifications to the existing set, you can design custom classifications. Custom classifications describe the level of sensitivity or confidentiality of the data according to the data privacy regulations in your organization. For example, you can design a new classification to label the “Public data” for your customers that you use in a correspondence with them.

To author classifications, you must have this user permission:

Access governance artifacts

Additionally, you must have one of these category collaborator roles in the primary category for the classification:

Admin
Owner
Editor
A custom role with the permission to create classifications.

Properties of classifications

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

Properties of classifications
Property or behavior	Supports?	Explanation
Must have unique names?	Yes	Classification names must be unique within a category.
Description?	Yes	Optional. Include a description to help users find this classification.
Add relationships to other classifications?	Yes	See Relationships with other classifications.
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 for governance artifacts and catalog assets.
Add custom relationships?	Yes	See Custom properties and relationships for governance artifacts and catalog assets.
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	Assigned during enrichment. See Designing metadata enrichment.
Predefined artifacts?	Yes	See Predefined classifications.

Relationships with other types of governance artifacts

Types of artifacts that can be related to classifications include:

In data protection rules, you can include classifications in conditions to identify the type of data to restrict.

Relationships with other classifications

For the currently processed classification, you can define a relationship to other classifications:

Parent classification: You can select the main classification to which you want to assign the currently processed classification. It will be part of the parent classification.
Dependent classification: You can select the classifications that depend on the currently processed classification.

Each Knowledge Accelerator includes custom classifications for a specific industry that further distinguish business terms and categories for search, filtering, and management purposes. For examples of these classifications, see Knowledge Accelerators.

Learn more

Predefined classifications

Parent topic: Classifications