Metadata is for life, not just for Christmas.

All who have children know the calls for a pet, which becomes louder and louder at Christmas. But what happens to the pet when the first joy about the new family member has faded? Who takes care of it and sees that it is well?

It's the same with pets as with metadata: everyone wants it, but who takes care of its timeliness and ensures its quality? In our DX Community "Data Quality", metadata manager of the City of Vienna Michael Fatzi reported on how the City of Vienna has tackled this problem with dataspot. and provides a species-appropriate home for its metadata .

With the establishment of Data Excellence in the City of Vienna with dataspot. an extensive data landscape of over 200,000 metadata records was brought to life. These describe the data of the city administration, which is accessible to all employees, but must also be quality assured in order to deliver the full benefit to all.

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Michael Fatzi ensures that the high demands placed on metadata in terms of up-to-dateness, availability, flexibility as well as company-wide consistency are met. Metadata quality management ensures the quality of the metadata itself.

The metadata manager makes it clear: To achieve high data quality, a solid foundation is necessary. Stringent methodologies and approaches for all data excellence areas make metadata management feasible.

How does the City of Vienna ensure the quality of its metadata?

When it comes to data quality, metadata is treated like real data: By means of defined data quality indicators (DQIs) in dataspot. The DQIs define for dedicated metadata what constitutes a "good" metadata point and also in which framework the measured quality is to be understood. Based on these definitions and the metadata, which is connected like any other data source, the Quality Framework can perform the measurements in the DWH. Michael Fatzi aggregates these results in a metadata dashboard and makes them available in a processed form per data domain.

How does this work in practice?

What constitutes good metadata quality is defined by the data stewards of the individual areas themselves: As experts in their own domains, they are best placed to make this assessment. To ensure that the metadata remain harmonized and comparable across the data domains, typical DQ areas such as completeness, timeliness or accuracy are taken into account in the creation of the indicators.

Once the indicators are defined in dataspot. the quality can be measured in the DWH. The Quality Framework performs the measurements and displays the results in a metadata dashboard. Here, the dashboard offers different views - per data domain or holistically. This addresses the needs of both metadata managers (overall view) and data stewards (data domain view) and makes the current status of the metadata visible.

Huge success: What's different now?

Michael Fatzi considers it a great success that a standard for metadata quality has been established. It is clear to all participants in the DX organization what is required to maximize the benefits of metadata. The clear and timely view of the status of metadata allows him, as metadata manager, to ideally support the city's data stewards with targeted offerings. The automated framework provides support where it is needed without major additional effort - and Michael Fatzi is left with more time for other metadata management projects.

What was necessary to achieve this success? Michael Fatzi sees the strong foundation that the City of Vienna has built in the areas of data excellence and metadata management in recent years with dataspot. as essential. As a result, there is clarity regarding the goals, approach, and expectations that have subsequently enabled implementation. Also, the high DX training level of the data stewards makes it possible to run a mature metadata management. Overall, Michael Fatzi shows the DX community how to integrate metadata into the organization over the long term so that metadata has ongoing benefits, not just in its creation.