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ULM: Custom Field Formatting

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Deprecation Notice

The Upload Logical Metadata (ULM) API will be deprecated in the 2024.3 release of Alation in early September. We recommend you move as soon as possible to the alternatives listed in the API Release Notes.

This page explains how to construct the JSON for referring to specific types of custom fields. You can then use these JSON payloads to work with the values of custom fields on specific catalog objects using the Upload Logical Metadata API.

If you want to create a new custom field, use the Custom Field API. We are working on making it possible to change the definition of the custom field itself, for example its name or available options.

The value for custom field depends on the type of custom field as shown below.

NOTE: The custom field name in the request should be its singular name.

Object Set or Reference Custom Field

Following is the format for custom fields that belong to object sets and references.

{"<custom_field_name>": [{"type":"<otype>", "key":"<key>"}]}

and could be any of the following

Description
dataRepresents a data source<datasource_id>
Example:
{"related_ds":[{"type":"data", "key":"1"}]}
schemaRepresents a schema<datasource_id>.<schema_name>
Example:
{"related_schema":[{"type":"schema", "key":"1.emp_schema"}]}
tableRepresents a table<datasource_id>.<schema_name>.<table_name>
Example:
{"related_table":[{"type":"table", "key":"1.emp_schema.employee"}]}
attributeRepresents a column<datasource_id>.<schema_name>.<table_name>.<column_name>
Example:{"foreign_key":[{"type":"attribute", "key":"1.emp_schema.department.dept_id"}]}
articleRepresents an article<article_title>
Example:
{"related_article":[{"type":"article", "key":"Employee Salary Ranges"}]}
userRepresents a user<email_address>
Example:
{"Steward":[{"type":"user", "key":"[email protected]"}]}
groupprofileRepresents a user group<group_name>
Example:
{"Steward":[{"type":"groupprofile", "key":"test-users"}]}

People Set Custom Field

Following is the format for people set custom field.

{"<custom_field_name>": [{"type":"<otype>", "key":"<key>"}]}

and could be any of the following

Description
userRepresents a user<user_name>
Example:
{"Steward":[{"type":"user", "key":"user_name"}]}
groupprofileRepresents a user group<group_name>
Example:
{"Steward":[{"type":"groupprofile", "key":"test-users"}]}

πŸ“˜

Get email addresses

If you're using emails as your user names, you can use the User v1 or User v2 API to get a user's email address.

Picker Custom Field

Following is the format for a picker field

{"<custom_field_name>": "<picker_value>"}

<picker_value> is one of the options specified for the picker field.

For Example:

{"Salary Range": "20000"}

Multi Picker Custom Field

Following is the format for a multi picker field

{"<custom_field_name>": ["<multi_picker_value1>","<multi_picker_value2>","<multi_picker_value3>"...]}

NOTE: The value of multi picker field is a list of values, each value in the list is separated by ,.

<multi_picker_value> is one value of selected options specified for the multi picker field.

For Example:

{"Role": ["Engineer","Sales","Database Analyst"]}

Rich Text Custom Field

Following is the format for a rich text field

{"<custom_field_name>": "<rich_text_html_value>"}

<rich_text_html_value> is the value of the rich text custom field. This value can have HTML tags. Please check the HTML Sanitization guide for which HTML tags are allowed.

For Example:

{"Related External Links": "<p>Here is one:<br><a>http://myexample</a></p>"}

Date Custom Field

Following is the format for a date field

{"<custom_field_name>": "<date>"}

<date_value> is the date set for a date field. Value could be in any of standard date formats:

DD-MM-YY or

YYYY-MM-DD or

Month Day Year or

DD/MM/YYYY

Example:

{"Employee Joining Date": "May 1 2017"}