About relations

Kinds of relations

In the latest user interface, a relation can be of one of the following kinds.

Kind	Description
Explicit	Shows how one asset is related to another asset directly. Previously, explicit relations were referred to simply as relations, a naming convention still used in the classic user interface. The latest user interface uses the term "explicit relations" to distinguish them from the newly introduced "derived relations".
Derived	Shows how one asset is related to another asset that is multiple relations away. The Derived Relations feature is available only in the latest user interface, and only if the Derived relation support setting in Collibra Console is activated.

Differences between explicit and derived relations

The following table describes the differences between explicit and derived relations.

Explicit relation	Derived relation
Shows how one asset is related to another asset.	Shows how one asset is related to another asset that is multiple relations away.
A direct, manually created connection between two assets.	An indirect connection between two assets that is automatically inferred based on existing explicit relations.
Needs to be manually created for an asset.	Can't be manually created for an asset.
Appears as a relation table, tile, or list on an asset page.	Appears as a relation table or list on an asset page, with to indicate that the relation is derived.
Represents an edge in the knowledge graph. It is physically registered (persisted) in the database.	Represents a path in the knowledge graph. It is calculated dynamically based on existing explicit relations and is not persisted in the database.
Use this if there is no existing path to the asset, or if there is an existing path but it doesn't convey the same business meaning that you need.	Use this if there is an existing path that already conveys the same business meaning that you need. However, if you experience performance issues with a derived relation, use an explicit relation instead.