Terms

Metadata Manager provides a centralized mechanism for handling terminology and associating relevant terms with objects and measures. The application keeps a timestamped change log for each term. Any terms set up in Metadata Manager can be added to a measure or object.

Handling Different Definitions for the Same Term

Users of the platform should, in most instances, all be on the same page about definitions. However, different groups of users may have a legitimate need to use different definitions for the same term. To facilitate this, the terms screen provides a namespace field for different teams. By default, the namespace will be considered AA (Application Agnostic). The namespace + name must be unique.

Adding Terms to Measures and Objects

In the terms panel of Measure Workshop and Object Workshop, other zones within Ursa Studio, users can add any available term to the measure or object. In addition to the manual addition of terms to measures and objects, there are two mechanisms by which terms would get automatically added to measures or objects:

• Inheritance of Terms from Upstream Objects: By default, a measure or object will inherit the non-field-linked terms of upstream objects as soon as they are added to the measure or object. The inheritance can be blacklisted on a per-measure or per-object basis if the user in fact does not want the automatic inheritance to occur. Inherited terms show up alongside manually added terms in the same panel but with an added informational tooltip showing their provenance. The mechanism to blacklist their inheritance is the same x button as the user would see to remove a manually added term. If an inherited term is blacklisted, it will still show up in the terms panel, but it will be struck through with a black line.

• Inheritance of Terms from Field Names: If a measure or object uses a field name with a label that is an exact match with either a term’s name or of its “matcher” names, then that term will be automatically added to the measure or object. These are considered “field-linked terms.” The same display and blacklisting options described above apply.

Downstream Effects of Terms

In Analytics Portal, any terms that are associated with a measure will be shown in the definition popups. In addition, any terms that are associated with a field on the measure will generate a tooltip icon in the appropriate column header of Case Review. Carriage returns in term definitions will be respected whenever the term definition is displayed onscreen.

Linking to Value Sets

Any term can be linked to one or more value sets. If a measure has terms that are linked to value sets, the names and contents of the value sets will be visible in the definition popups of Analytics Portal.

Linking to Other Terms

Terms can reference related terms. Any linked terms will be mentioned in the definition of the term in Measure Workshop and will be visible in the definition popups in Analytics Portal.