What is the difference between Data Dictionary, Data Catalog and Business Glossary?

Organizations today are investing heavily on robust data management tools to enable them to make decisions and take actions that maximize the benefit to the organization.

Data management needs to be integral part of the overall business strategy so that everyone in the organization understands data and uses it in the same way. But where do you start? There are three tools we suggest that will help you organized and will improve your data management strategy:

1.?????Data Catalog

2.?????Data Dictionary

3.?????Business Glossary

They might sound similar, but are they? Yes, and no. They’re fairly different in what they are and how they’re used.

Let’s review each and clarify their uses before jumping into the differences.

Data Catalog:

A data catalog is an organized inventory of an organization’s data assets that users would like to use, manage or understand.

Data catalog provides users with a clear, accessible view of:

• what data the organization has
• where it came from
• where it is located now
• who has access to it
• what risks or sensitivities may be involved?

all in one central location.

Data driven organizations recognize that an excellent centralized Data Catalog is the most efficient way to unleash the power and hidden value of all the data they work so hard to create and maintain.

Data Dictionary:

A data dictionary or metadata repository is a centralized repository of information such as collection of names, definitions, and attributes about data elements that are being used or captured in a database.

This repository of information is frequently useful for users that work on the backend of your systems and applications so that they can more easily design a relational database or data structure to meet business requirements.

A data dictionary will probably require you have a more formal data governance program in place with a governance committee consists of individuals from both the business and IT side.

The business team is in charge for requesting changes to a metric’s definition, while the IT team is in charge for implementing the change and communicating it with the organization.

Business Glossary

A business glossary contains concepts and definitions of business terms mostly commonly used in day-to-day activities within an organization—across all business functions—and is intended to be a single authoritative source for most commonly used terms for all business users. It is the starting point for all organizations that have any kind of data initiative in play.

A business glossary is the bridge that connects the business terms and concepts to policies, business rules, and associated terms within the organization. Below are the things you should have while creating a business glossary:

• Cross-functional input, as well as consensus/approval for mutual understandings of key business concepts and terms.
• Accessibility to common business terms—words, phrases, acronyms, or business concepts—across the organization so that everyone speaks and understands the same business language.
• Cross reference terms and their relationships. This will assist in building context and easily identify relationships between terms for business users.

Although you don’t necessarily have a data governance program in place to build, use, and maintain a business glossary, you should still have a governance strategy for the business glossary itself. In order to have cross-functional consensus, you need stakeholders from every business functions whose role it is to discuss terms and concepts that might overlap departments. This will allow for approval and documentation of definitions, which is critical, especially if two departments define the same metric differently. It’s fine to have two different definitions as long as the stakeholders have verified that it is an acceptable deviation, and it is documented and made accessible for the business users who needs it.

Below is the table that clearly shows out the difference between a data dictionary, business glossary and data catalog along with the examples:

Differences in Application

Every business requires both Data Dictionaries and Business Glossaries and more importantly combining capabilities from both into a collaborative Data Catalog is the only way to make the most of your data.

Adopting Best Practices for Data Initiatives

Even though the terms—business glossary, data dictionary, and data catalog—sounds very similar, they play very different roles within your organization. Each is valuable, but not completely relevant for each organization. It entirely depends on where you are currently at with your analytics maturity and how much time and resources do you need to dedicate to build and maintain each artifact.