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Articles by Category

Data Quality
What is Data Relevance? Definition, Examples, and Best Practices
Learn more about data relevance and how it can improve your data quality.
May 29, 2023
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5
min read
Data Quality
What is Data Security? Definition, Examples, and Best Practices
Learn more about how data security plays a role in your data quality practices.
May 29, 2023
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5
min read
Data Quality
What is Data Reliability? Definition, Examples, and Best Practices
Learn more about how data reliability plays a role in your data quality practices.
May 29, 2023
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5
min read
Data Quality
What is Data Usability? Definition, Examples, and Best Practices
Learn what data usability is and what role it has to play in improving data quality across your data stack.
May 29, 2023
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5
min read
Data Quality
What is Data Validity? Definition, Examples, and Best Practices
Learn more about how valid data can play a part in your data quality strategy.
May 29, 2023
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5
min read
Data Quality
What is Data Completeness? Definition, Examples, and Best Practices
Data completeness is one of the ten dimensions of data quality. In this post, you'll learn what it means, why it matters, and how it's measured.
May 28, 2023
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2
min read
Data Quality
What Is Data Accuracy? Definition, Examples, and Best Practices
Data accuracy is one of the ten dimensions of data quality. In this post, you'll learn what it means, why it matters, and how it's measured.
May 28, 2023
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3
min read
Data Quality
What is Data Freshness? Definition, Examples, and Best Practices
Data freshness is one of the ten dimensions of data quality. In this post, you'll learn what it means, why it matters, and how it's measured.
May 28, 2023
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3
min read
Data Quality
What is Data Consistency? Definition, Examples, and Best Practices
Data consistency is one of the ten dimensions of data quality. In this post, you'll learn what it means, why it matters, and how it's measured.
May 26, 2023
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2
min read
Data Quality
A Framework to Understand How Poor Data Quality Hurts Business Performance
How does data quality impact business performance? In the best case, poor data quality creates more work for your data team. In the worst case, it costs you time, frustrates stakeholders, jeopardizes revenue, and damages customer sentiment.
May 25, 2023
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6
min read
Data Culture
Data Mesh vs. Data Fabric: Key Differences and Which to Choose in 2023
How to choose the right data architecture: Weighing the pros and cons of Data Mesh and Data Fabric.
May 25, 2023
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6
min read
Data Culture
Data Modernization for your Data Stack
Data modernization is the key to unlocking actionable insights and staying ahead in today's rapidly evolving digital landscape. Read our tips on how to improve your ongoing cloud migrations.
May 25, 2023
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5
min read
Data Quality
Data Monitoring v Data Observability
Learn more about how data quality tests, data monitoring, and data observability differ, while still improving data quality in their own ways.
May 25, 2023
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5
min read
Data Observability
What Data Observability Is, What It’s Not, and Why it Matters
Data observability is arguably the hottest concept in the data space today, but few have a clear sense of what it means. This blog post offers a definition of data observability, differentiates it from related concepts, and emphasizes why it's important.
May 24, 2023
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8
min read
Data Quality
Concepts and Practices to Ensure Data Quality
There are a multitude of potential data quality issues, and equally many ways to improve. This post describes two guidelines, three concepts, and four best practices to preserve trust in data.
May 24, 2023
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10
min read
Data Culture
What are Data Products?
Explore the evolving world of data products (or data as a product), their impact on decision-making, how they're integrated into businesses, and what the implications of this new phrase is.
May 24, 2023
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4
min read
Announcements
Announcing Metaplane’s Spring 2023 G2 awards
Read about our feature G2 badges using reviews from actual Metaplane users.
May 24, 2023
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3
min read
Data Culture
5 Things to Know About Microsoft Fabric
Understanding Microsoft Fabric: From OneLake's unique data storage to flexible compute setups.
May 24, 2023
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5
min read
Data Observability
Machine Learning Observability vs Data Observability
Learn more about an up and coming space, machine learning monitoring, and how the use cases and functions differ from data observability.
May 24, 2023
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5
min read
Data Quality
Best Data Catalogs: An Evaluation Guide
Data catalogs are being adopted to improve data quality and help analytics and data engineering teams better understand what's available to use. Read on if you're currently evaluating data catalogs!
May 24, 2023
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5
min read
Data Quality
Benefits of Data Lineage for Better Data Quality
Learn how you can use data lineage, provided by data observability tools, to improve data quality across your modern data stack.
May 24, 2023
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5
min read
Data Culture
Data Mesh vs. Data Lake: Key Differences and Which to Choose in 2023
A detailed guide comparing Data Mesh and Data Lake architectures, and factors to consider when choosing.
May 24, 2023
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5
min read
Data Observability
How to Evaluate Data Observability Tools
A framework for data practitioners to evaluate data observability and quality monitoring tools.
May 23, 2023
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6
min read
Data Observability
Data Observability vs. Software Observability
Overview of the similarities and differences between the established field of Software Observability and the emerging category of Data Observability.
May 23, 2023
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12
min read
Data Culture
The Future of Business Intelligence: 5 Transformative Shifts in the Data Landscape
Business intelligence is evolving, and it's happening right now. Discover the 5 transformative shifts set to redefine the future of BI.
May 23, 2023
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5
min read
Data Observability
Backfilling Data in 2023: Best Practices
Discover how to effectively backfill data in 2023, manage complex challenges, and uphold high data accuracy standards.
May 23, 2023
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5
min read
Data Culture
Data Reliability Engineering: A Guide to Ensuring Data Quality in the Modern Data Stack
Read this post to understand if you should formally assign or hire a member of your team to focus on data reliability.
May 23, 2023
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4
min read
Data Culture
Stale Data Leads to Bad Business Decisions
Using stale data for decision-making can have dire consequences. In this blog post, we explore the risks and emphasize the significance of accurate data.
May 23, 2023
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4
min read
Data Culture
Data Contracts: Bridging the Gap Between Business and Data
Discover the significance of data contracts as a bridge between business and data in our blog post. Uncover their definition, key elements, benefits, and effective implementation tips.
May 23, 2023
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5
min read
Data Culture
The Future of Data Analytics and Data Science
Discover the key trends shaping data analytics and data science: automation, the rise of machine learning and LLMs, and the democratization of data.
May 23, 2023
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5
min read
Data Culture
What are Data Product Managers?
Learn more about Data Product Managers, their origin, impact on businesses, and traits to develop to make it a career.
May 23, 2023
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5
min read
Data Culture
The Role of Data Observability in Data Governance Policies
With countries focused on creating new data governance policies to protect users - it's more important than ever to learn about how data observability can help you avoid heavy regulatory fines.
May 23, 2023
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5
min read
Data Culture
What is a Data Mesh? Definition, Examples, and Best Practices
Get an in-depth understanding of the Data Mesh architecture, its real-world applications, and the keys to its successful adoption.
May 23, 2023
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5
min read
Data Quality
Data Quality Metrics for Data Warehouses (or: KPIs for KPIs)
A framework of data quality metrics, a shortlist of metrics, and a process for identifying which metrics your team should use.
May 22, 2023
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15
min read
Data Observability
How To Justify Investing in Data Observability
The four most common reasons for how data leaders justified an investment into data observability, spanning concrete to intangible (but still critical) reasons.
May 20, 2023
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6
min read
Data Observability
Monte Carlo Data and Methods: Exploiting Randomness for Problem Solving
May 20, 2023
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7
min read
Data Observability
DevOps and DataOps Demystified: Guide to Similarities and Differences
Explore the key differences between DevOps and DataOps methodologies and learn how implementing both can drive better business outcomes for data-driven organizations.
May 18, 2023
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6
min read
Data Quality
How to Use Machine Learning for Robust Data Quality Checks
Learn how machine learning can help make your data quality checks more robust, empowering data and analytics engineers to make reliable and accurate data-driven decisions
May 16, 2023
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6
min read
Data Observability
Prioritizing Data Observability: Why Now?
Five important reasons for why you should consider making data quality a priority now, instead of waiting until it becomes an issue.
May 15, 2023
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5
min read
Data Culture
Decision Guide to Choosing a Data Integration Tool
How to make the right choice in a market bursting with options
May 15, 2023
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6
min read
Data Observability
The Origins, Purpose, and Practice of Data Observability
Data observability is an emerging technology that solves an age-old problem: understanding the state of data systems to increase awareness and trust.
May 15, 2023
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9
min read
Data Quality
The Definitive Guide to Snowflake Data Lineage
Learn how to extract and use data lineage in Snowflake to optimize your data pipelines and improve data engineering workflows.
May 15, 2023
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15
min read
Data Quality
Stay Fresh: Two Ways to Track Update Times for Snowflake Tables and Views
Discover how to ensure your data is fresh and up-to-date in Snowflake with two essential tools: the MAX function and the LAST_ALTERED column.
May 14, 2023
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3
min read
Data Quality
Stay Fresh: Four Ways to Track Update Times for BigQuery Tables and Views
Master Data Freshness in Google BigQuery: Keep your insights up-to-date and your decisions data-driven with our guide to monitoring table and view updates in BigQuery.
May 14, 2023
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4
min read
Data Quality
Three Ways to Retrieve Row Counts in Redshift Tables and Views
Understand your data better in Amazon Redshift with accurate row counts. Discover how using COUNT functions and system statistics can optimize your data management.
May 12, 2023
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5
min read
Data Quality
Three Ways to Retrieve Row Counts for Snowflake Tables and Views
Explore various methods to obtain row counts in Snowflake, from simple SQL queries to leveraging table statistics, for performance optimization and data analysis.
May 12, 2023
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4
min read
Data Quality
Four Efficient Techniques to Retrieve Row Counts in BigQuery Tables and Views
A comprehensive guide on retrieving row counts in tables and views for Google BigQuery. We detail practical methods, discuss their trade-offs, and provide useful code snippets.
May 12, 2023
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4
min read
Data Observability
The Four Pillars of Data Observability
How much data do we need to reconstruct a useful picture of our data? That’s the question we attempt to answer in this article. The groupings of questions we need to answer in order to describe our data are the “pillars” that underlie data observability in 2023.
May 10, 2023
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5
min read
Data Quality
How to Set Up Data Quality Tests
Data engineers use unit testing for data quality today, but quality assurance needs more. In this post, we offer best practices for robust data quality standards.
May 10, 2023
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4
min read
Data Quality
The Root Causes of Data Quality Issues
Understand 5 key sources of data quality issues: input errors, infrastructure failures, incorrect transformations, invalid assumptions, and ontological misalignment. Learn to combat these with smart strategies to turn data into your strongest asset.
May 3, 2023
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5
min read
Data Observability
Data Observability in 10 years
Predicting the future of data observability: 10 years from now, automation and generic metadata will be key in incident management and data management.
April 27, 2023
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7
min read
Changelog
Introducing WHERE Clause for Monitors
Metaplane adds WHERE clauses to monitor configurations, enabling targeted data segment monitoring. Useful for adapting to business changes or focusing on specific areas, like pricing updates or new service launches.
April 26, 2023
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3
min read
Data Observability
Data Observability Defined
Data observability is vital for ensuring high-quality data and informed decision-making. We cover its benefits, challenges, and how it impacts businesses.
April 20, 2023
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4
min read
Changelog
Introducing Monitors as Code
You can now manage your Metaplane monitors alongside your other model configuration options in dbt.
April 18, 2023
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1
min read
Changelog
A Redesign of Metaplane's Incidents
We've redesigned incidents from the ground up to help you identify the root cause with confidence and communicate with stakeholders with ease.
April 13, 2023
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5
min read
Changelog
Metaplane Daily Slack Update
Metaplane's new Daily Update Slack message helps turn down the noise by putting all of our less-timely updates into a single, convenient spot.
April 4, 2023
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2
min read
Changelog
Introducing Suggested Monitors
Metaplane now provides helpful suggestions to help you ensure that all your most important tables and columns are monitored.
March 30, 2023
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3
min read
Changelog
A New Way to Manage your Monitors
Metaplane has built a new way to manage your monitors, including improved filtering, bulk actions, and increased visibility into the status of your monitors.
March 28, 2023
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2
min read
Data Observability
Column-Level Lineage: An Adventure in SQL Parsing
A deep dive into the technologies we used to build Metaplane's new column-level lineage map, and the lessons we learned about SQL parsing along the way.
March 22, 2023
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6
min read
Changelog
Metaplane’s New Column-Level Lineage Map
Metaplane's new lineage visualization helps you prevent downstream issues, identify root causes, and spread data awareness across your organization.
March 16, 2023
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5
min read
Changelog
Introducing Metaplane's Public API
We built Metaplane for data engineers, and we’re always on the lookout for ways we can help you make your monitoring more robust, more flexible, and more powerful. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce our first public API.
March 1, 2023
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2
min read
Changelog
Introducing Partition Monitors: find data quality issues in segments of your data
Easily monitor specific data segments with Metaplane's new partition monitors to identify root causes of data quality issues in seconds.
February 9, 2023
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4
min read
Changelog
Microsoft Power BI Integration
Metaplane now supports Microsoft Power BI. When you connect Metaplane to Power BI, our platform automatically ingests metadata about workspaces, reports, and dashboards and builds table level lineage.
February 2, 2023
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1
min read
Changelog
Announcing Data Test Previews in Pull Requests
Data Test Previews gives busy data teams a hand by automatically testing any changes made to their data in a development branch.
January 24, 2023
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4
min read
Announcements
The Next Stage of Metaplane
We've raised $8.4M in funds to bring data observability to every data team.
January 10, 2023
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10
min read
Data Observability
Great Expectations and Metaplane
Great Expectations is suited for catching known issues by testing binary criteria on critical tables. Metaplane is suited for catching unknown issues by testing scalar criteria on a wide range of assets.
January 3, 2023
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3
min read
Data Observability
Using dbt Tests with Metaplane
dbt tests are suited for catching known issues, by testing binary criteria on critical tables. Metaplane is suited for catching unknown issues, by testing scalar criteria on a wide range of assets.
January 3, 2023
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3
min read
Announcements
Partner Highlight - Orchard Analytics
Orchard Analytics is an analytics consultancy that builds data infrastructure for high-growth companies. With Metaplane, Orchard Analytics and their clients are now the first to know about data quality issues. This not only builds trusted data sets for their clients, but also establishes Orchard Analytics as a trusted partner.
November 21, 2022
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4
min read
Data Culture
Five Talks on Organizations and Teams in Data from Coalesce 2022
More words of wisdom on how to build data teams starting with the first hire, keeping up with changing roles, and taking care of the people on your team.
November 1, 2022
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6
min read
Changelog
PagerDuty Support for Data Incidents
We now support PagerDuty as a destination for data incidents, so that users can be paged once for groups of related alerting monitors, rather than per individual alerting monitor.
November 1, 2022
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1
min read
Data Culture
Five Talks on Careers in Data from Coalesce 2022
Insights from the best in the business on transitioning into analytics engineering, identifying your strengths, thriving in your organization, and charting the path forward.
October 25, 2022
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5
min read
Announcements
Metaplane Partners with Snowflake to Ensure Trust in Data
We’re delighted to announce that Metaplane has joined the Snowflake Partner Network, empowering data teams with superior quality and observability.
October 24, 2022
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3
min read
Changelog
Announcing Impact Analysis in dbt Pull Requests
Metaplane now integrates with GitHub for impact analysis on dbt pull requests. Know which models and BI assets are affected by changes, share analysis with stakeholders, and see data incident causes via dbt history.
October 19, 2022
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4
min read
Announcements
Partner Highlight - Horizon Data
South African data consultancy Horizon Data's founder shares how Metaplane helped his team move from reactive to proactive data quality monitoring for high-growth startups.
October 18, 2022
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3
min read
Data Quality
Data Quality Fundamentals: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How You Can Improve It 
Data quality has a profound impact on the success of an organization. In this blog post, we highlight what it is, why it matters, what challenges it presents, and key practices for improving it.
October 5, 2022
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3
min read
Changelog
Announcing Data Incidents
Incidents help group together related failing tests so data teams can be the first to know about data quality issues.
October 3, 2022
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3
min read
Data Quality
A 6-Step Process for Managing Data Quality Incidents
Need to streamline your data quality issue management process? In this blog post, we take inspiration from site reliability engineering to craft a six-step process for handling your data incidents.
September 30, 2022
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9
min read
Data Observability
The Data Observability Playbook: Best Practices for Data Engineers
If you already know data observability would benefit your company, but don't how to evaluate, buy, and implement it, this blog post is for you.
September 21, 2022
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9
min read
Data Observability
Should You Buy, Borrow, or Build a Data Observability Tool?
If you're ready to adopt data observability but don't know which path to take, this post is for you. Discover the benefits, costs, and risks of building a tool from scratch, leveraging open-source software, and buying a commercial solution.
September 15, 2022
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6
min read
Data Observability
The Most Common Misconceptions About Data Observability
As the new kid on the block, data observability often goes misunderstood. In this blog post, we strive to correct the misconceptions we hear most frequently.
September 14, 2022
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6
min read
Data Observability
6 Signs You Need a Data Observability Tool
As data observability tools grow in popularity, many data leaders are asking themselves, “Does my team need one?” In this blog post, we share six signs you need one and three signs you don't.
September 8, 2022
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5
min read
Data Quality
The Importance of Data Quality for PLG Companies
Product-led companies are fundamentally data-driven. Data about the product, customers, and users facilitates every part of the PLG business and the product behind it. Given the central role of data, problems with data quality can have massive impacts on revenue, customer sentiment, team efficiency, and strategy and forecasting.
August 10, 2022
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7
min read
Data Culture
Proxy and Practicality
Jason's post on AE roundup inspired so many ideas that they have overflowed into a post.
August 9, 2022
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5
min read
Announcements
Announcing the First Snowflake-Native Data Observability Application
Snowflake debuted their native application framework at Summit 2022, which is poised to change how software is deployed on top of data. Metaplane has built the first data observability application that can be deployed directly within your Snowflake instance, for enhanced security and ease-of-adoption.
July 19, 2022
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3
min read
Data Quality
5 Common Data Quality Challenges (and How to Solve Them)
From getting to know hundreds of data teams, we've discovered that the most common data quality challenges result from both human and machine errors. Here are the top five problems we've encountered.
May 25, 2022
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5
min read
Data Culture
11 Data Leaders Worth Following in 2023
From 'Tech Bros talk Data Scams' to 'Thoughtful Data Modeling', here are 11 data leaders making waves in 2023.
May 23, 2022
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6
min read
Changelog
Introducing Snowflake Table and Column Usage Analytics
Metaplane now monitors table+column usage analytics for Snowflake: understand how critical data is used, what should be tested, and how to prioritize data quality issues.
April 14, 2022
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4
min read
Changelog
Announcing Warehouse To BI Tool Data Lineage
Learn about Metaplane's warehouse to BI tool data lineage visualization tool and how you can build data awareness, prevent downstream BI issues, and decrease data debt.
April 5, 2022
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3
min read
Data Quality
Data Quality Begins and Ends Outside of the Analytics Team
The people traditionally most concerned with data quality are naturally the people debugging data issues themselves, being analytics teams. Conversations around data quality have been focused around data pipeline tests and anomaly detection. What about ensuring data quality both upstream and downstream of analytics workflows?
March 22, 2022
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5
min read
Data Culture
How to Maximize the Value of Your Metadata
Practical guide to using metadata effectively and assessing metadata-driven tools like discovery and observability offerings.
January 19, 2022
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10
min read
Data Culture
How To Become A Great Data Analyst
Starting as a data analyst can be intimidating, but it doesn't have to be! Lucas Smith shares six steps you can take to become a great data analyst.
October 14, 2021
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15
min read
Data Culture
Inside Data with Ben Cohen @ SpotOn
We interview Ben Cohen, a seasoned data leader from Cars.com, Braintree, Cameo, and now SpotOn.
August 26, 2021
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6
min read
Announcements
Announcing SOC 2 Type II Compliance
Security has been a priority from Day One, now affirmed with a SOC 2.
July 22, 2021
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2
min read

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