With millions of business and technical assets in the catalog, it can be time-consuming to discover the data that you're looking for. You can search for assets by accessing the search bar on the top of any page in Data Governance and Catalog.
To view technical assets, ensure that the following prerequisites are met:
•The organization administrator grants you the Read permission on technical assets through access policies in Metadata Command Center.
•The organization administrator has marked the custom attributes as searchable and filterable in Metadata Command Center so that you can search for assets in Data Governance and Catalog.
Select a search method
You can search for assets by entering a keyword or a query in the search box at the top of each page. You can also let the system select the search method appropriate for your input.
The following image shows the search bar in Data Governance and Catalog:
Keyword search
Select Keyword to search for assets using a keyword or phrase that might be used in the name, alias name, business name, description or ref ID of the asset. As you start typing inside the search bar, you can see search suggestions to start discovering your data. You can click one of the matching entries, search for all assets of a particular asset type as they appear as suggestions below the matching entries, or press Enter to view all results. The system displays the assets that are an exact match of the keyword or phrase that you entered. If your asset names or descriptions contain non-English language content, then you can enter search keywords or phrases in those languages.
The following image shows the results for the keyword soft:
To find matches even when you misspell, interchange, or miss a keyword, select the Flexible option.
The following image shows the results for the keyword soft with the Flexible option selected:
Query search
Select Query to search for assets by progressively building a complex search query. A search query is a phrase or a combination of search terms that you can use to find assets in your catalog. Using a search query typically provides you with a more precise set of results. When you click inside the search box, you can see the recently searched queries followed by search query suggestions. As you start typing your search terms, the search box intelligently adjusts the search query suggestions.
The following image shows the results of query used to search for all the process assets in the catalog:
Adaptive search
Select Adaptive to let the system determine the appropriate search method between Keyword and Query based on your input. The search engine dynamically suggests the most relevant assets that appear at the top of the search suggestions. When you search using a keyword, the top search results return assets that contain the exact match for the asset name, alias name, business name, description, ref ID and technical description. Along with the exact matches, the search also returns assets that contain fuzzy match for the keyword.
Filter search results
If the search results don't include the assets you're looking for, you can use search filters. Filters such as asset type, asset lifecycle, created and updated date, and so on. help you narrow your search results and find the asset that you are looking for.
The Filters pane on the left displays the total number of matched asset types for the specified keyword. If you expand the asset type, you can see the number of matched assets for each type. If your search result has at least one asset type, the Filters pane dynamically displays additional filters. You can apply one or more filters on this pane to narrow your search results. These additional filters enable basic and advanced searches to provide the necessary search results. The value of additional filters vary depending on the asset and catalog source type of your search result. For example, if your search result contains 'Business Terms' as Asset Type, the Additional Filters section might display Critical Data Element and Joining Date as the additional filter options. Joining Date is a custom attribute for which you can select a date to narrow your search. Critical Data Element is a system attribute for which you can select the values. Depending on the values chosen for these dynamic filters, the search displays the intended results.
If the Data Marketplace Administrator has connected Data Marketplace to Data Governance and Catalog, the Filters pane displays the Data Marketplace filter. When you use the Data Marketplace filter, the page displays the assets that are added to one or more data collections in Data Marketplace, including the assets that are added to unpublished data collections. For more information about how a Data Marketplace Administrator connects Data Marketplace to Data Governance and Catalog, see the Set Up Data Marketplace help in Data Marketplace. For more information about data collections, see the Working With Data Collections help in Data Marketplace.
The following image shows the Filters pane and the additional filters:
The Catalog Sources filter allows you to retrieve search results based on the type of catalog source that you select. For example, if you select Oracle, only the Oracle catalog source type appears in the search result. The Catalog Sources Instances filter retrieves all the objects based on the name of the selected catalog source. For example, if you select the name of the catalog source instance as ORACLE_DataElement1, all the assets with the catalog source name as ORACLE_DataElement1 appear in the search result.
View search results
To change the layout of the Search Results page, click the Action menu on the top of the page, and select the Table layout. The Card layout is selected by default. Depending on the asset type, you can select to view various details of the asset.
The following image shows the export, layouts, and view you can select on the Search Results page:
To view the detail summary of the selected asset, select Details from the Action menu. This opens a preview pane which displays the Overview tab with basic details of the asset, and the Related Assets tab which displays the relationships of the asset.
From the search results page, click the name of an asset to open the asset in a new page and view complete details of the technical or business asset such as lineage information, relationships, and associated glossary, and classifications. The following image shows an example of the 'customers' data set details page:
Ranking of search results
The results of your search term are typically ranked according to the following conditions:
•Search term match with one or more asset names.
•Search term match with properties within assets.
•Frequency with which the search term appears across assets.
•Similarity with other terms across Data Governance and Catalog.
•Relevant results based on other matching criteria.
Construction of search queries
A search query is a phrase or a combination of search terms that you can enter in the search box to find asset types, asset names, assets with comments, assets with ratings, and so on.
The following table lists some of the common search terms that you can use in your search query to find accurate search results:
Search Term
Description
Search Term Examples
' ' or " "
Use quotes if you want to search for the exact form of a term. If you want to search for an entry that contains multiple words, a special character, or a whitespace character, enclose the words in single quotes or double quotes.
Metric 'Net Profit',
"GDPR-Violations"
*
Use wildcard entry * to search for all the assets in the catalog that you can view or to enter partial terms so that you can find results for full terms.
business terms with 'phone num*'
catalog source Amazon*
*phone
*cust*
( )
Use parentheses if you want to search for connected assets and if the search query contains a predicate for an asset type.
(column with name Customer) related to table shows all columns that have the name 'Customer' and are also related to a table.
,
Use commas to separate multiple search queries.
domain 'Party Data', subdomain Measures
Synonyms
You can use alternative names in the search box that provide the same results.
policies or policy
with reserved word
Use the with reserved word with an asset type to search for specific terms within an asset.
processes with description 'medical reimbursement'
which are reserved word
Use the which are reserved word to search for assets based on their attributes.
Business terms which are Critical Data Element
containing reserved word
Use the containing reserved word followed by an asset type to search for assets with a parent-child relationship.
domain containing business term
T
Use a captial T between a date and a timestamp as a separator.
2025-05-28T18:45:00Z
Z
Use a captial Z at the end of a timestamp to denote local time.
2025-05-28T12:30:00Z
Synonyms used in search queries
Synonyms are alternative keywords you can enter in the search bar that provide the same results. For example, keywords like bt, business term, terms, term will fetch you results for the business term asset type. You can use synonyms in the search bar to search asset types or search by asset attributes.
Asset type synonyms
The following table lists synonymous search keywords to search asset types:
Asset Type
Synonymous Search Terms
AI model
aimodels, aimodel, ai model, or ai models
Business term
business term, business terms, terms, bt, or term
Business term, domain, metric, or subdomain
glossary or glossaries
Data access assets
data access asset or data access assets
Data set
datasets, data sets, data set, or dataset
Domain
domains or domain
Manual data element
manual data element or manual data elements
Metric
metrics or metric
Policy
policies or policy
Process
processes or process
Data quality rule occurrence
dq occurrence or dq rule
Data quality rule template
dq template or data quality template
Subdomain
subdomains, subdomain, or sub domains
System
systems or system
Azure data factory folder, Databricks folder, IICS folder, SSIS folder, folder, IICS v2 folder, or IPC folder
folders or folder
File
files or file
File system container
file systems, filesystems, or filesystem
Power BI cloud report, SSRS report, Tableau worksheet, Tableau dashboard, or BI report
reports, bi report, bi reports, or report
Table
tables or table
View
views or view
Column
columns or column
Classification
data classifications, classifications, or data classification
Data element
data elements or data element
Data element classification
data element classifications or data element classification
Data entity classification
data entity classifications or data entity classification
Technical data set
technical datasets, technical dataset, technical data set, or technical data sets
Data source
data sources or data source
All assets
objects, assets, all items, all objects, object, everything, or all assets
Business assets
business assets or business asset
Technical assets
technical assets or technical asset
Resource
source, catalog sources, resource, sources, or resources
Ratings of assets
ratings or rating
Comments of assets
comments or comment
Business intelligence report
Report, Reports, BI Report, or BI Reports
Attribute synonyms
The following table lists synonymous search keywords to search by asset attributes:
Attributes
Synonymous Search Terms
Critical Data Element (CDE)
cde or CDE
Type
filetype or filetypes
Created On
created or createdon
Description
description or descriptions
External ID
ref id, external id, or refid
Modified By
updated by or updated
Modified On
modified or updated
Resource Name
resource name or resource names
Stakeholder Identity
stakeholders or stakeholder
Average Rating
rating or ratings
Certification
certified or certification
Rating
rated or rating
Comments
commented or comments or comment
Reserved words
Reserved words are words that are reserved for specific functions in Data Governance and Catalog.
The reserved words include the following words:
•ALL
•ARE
•TYPE
•AND
•ANY
•AS
•CONTAINING
•DAY
•DAYS
•EQUALS
•GREATER
•HOUR
•HOURS
•HAS
•IN
•INBOUND
•IS
•LAST
•LESS
•BETWEEN
•MATCHING
•NOT
•NULL
•OR
•OUTBOUND
•RELATED
•TRAVERSE
•REPEAT
•UNTIL
•HOPS
•UNBOUNDED
•RELATIONSHIPS
•ROLE
•THAN
•THROUGH
•TO
•WHERE
•WHICH
•WITH
•WITHIN
•WITHOUT
•HAVING
•STAKEHOLDER
Note: If you want to use a reserved word in a query filter, enter the reserved word string in quotes.
