About attributes and attribute types

An attribute is a characteristic that describes an asset by means of an individual field. The attribute's type defines the class of information that the attribute contains.

You can add an attribute to an asset if the attribute's type is in the relevant assignment of the asset's type.

Examples of attributes and attribute types

The following table contains attribute types and a description of the attribute that can be added to an asset.

Attribute type	Description of the attribute	Example of an attribute
Definition	The description with background information on the asset	Asset: Customer Definition: A person, company or organization that purchases a commodity or service.
Last Review Date	The date on which the asset was reviewed.	02/05/2020
Frequency	The rate at which an asset changes over a particular period of time.	Daily
Rows Failed	The number of rows that failed a rule.	15
Personally Identifiable Information	A boolean field to indicate whether an asset contains personally identifiable information.	True

Kinds of attribute types

Attribute types can contain different kinds of information, for example, free text, dates and numbers.

Field	Description
Date	A date value. If you edit attributes of this type, you can pick a date using the date selector. Note The date format that is displayed in the UI, can be different depending on the language settings in your user profile. For example, dd/mm/yyyy or yyyy/mm/dd.
Multiple Selection	A field that allows multiple values that you can select from a predefined list.
with values	The values from which you can select one or more.
Number	A number, or a number with a fraction.
Only integers. (..., -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, ...)	Checkbox to only allow integer numbers.
Metric	Checkbox to make this attribute type a metric. This allows you to assign this attribute type as a metric when you create a data quality rule.
Selection	A field that allows a single value that you can select from a predefined list.
with values	The values from which you can select one.
Text	Textual input which may contain formatting.
Plain Text	Checkbox to disable formatting.
True/False	A binary option that allows you to indicate whether something is true or false.
Metric	Checkbox to make this attribute type a metric. This allows you to assign this attribute type as a metric when you create a data quality rule.

Note An attribute can contain up to 100.000 bytes, which corresponds to roughly up to 100 000 characters in the source code of the attribute.