Besides modeling, SqlDBM's rich documentation features can help your team understand the underlying architecture of your database or application. Using these features, you can quickly find relevant tables and fields and collaborate across functional domains.

Database Documentation

To access, click on the "Database Documentation" link on the left pane.

All the objects in your project will be displayed on the left side of the screen, grouped by schema. Column templates are also displayed here to allow users to edit their column descriptions.

On the main part of the screen, the schema, its objects, and their columns are displayed, filtered by the first or currently selected schema. Selecting a new object will update the schema filter to point to it.

Snowflake projects include tables, views, and materialized views on this screen. All other projects are limited to tables only at this time.

Metadata and fields in Database Documentation

Database Documentation gives SqlDBM a way to search and maintain object properties from a single screen. These properties range from informational (e.g., data type), metadata-only (e.g., logical name), and physical/DDL-related (e.g., comments).

Model Governance and dbt-enabled fields may not be available by default and might need to be enabled upon request. Please contact your account manager for more information.

dbt meta-enabled fields require a Model Governance role. Both dbt meta and standard fields will be found on the Database documentation screen.

While dbt meta-enabled fields require a Model Governance role, standard properties

Standard Data Dictionary fields:
- (object) Name (read-only)
- (data) Type (read-only)
- Options (read-only)
- Null option (read-only)
- Tags (Snowflake) (read-only)
- Flags
- Logical Name
- Description
Model Governance fields:
- Model Governance fields are user-defined and any number can be created and maintained in a project.
dbt-enabled fields:
- Meta fields - users can include many kinds of metadata (e.g., owner, medallion status, department) under the dbt meta tag. To do so, mark the "Include as dbt meta" checkbox on any Model Governance field.
- Standard dbt properties - dbt source and model properties (e.g., tests, freshness, docs) will be available as pre-configured fields in the database documentation.

For additional information on maintaining dbt properties, please see the related article at the end of this page.

Search

Using the search box on the left side of the screen, you can quickly locate tables and fields.

The wildcard match of the search term will look for matches in all available fields (including Model Governance fields):

Object names
Column names
Descriptions
Tags (Snowflake, more coming soon)
Flags
Logical Names
Fields (Model Governance and dbt)

Click on any search result to navigate directly to the relevant table and fields.

View and Maintain Descriptions and Logical Names

You can view and maintain a functional description of any table or column using the text input on the right side of the screen.

Note that any descriptions entered here will automatically be generated as DDL comments through the Forward Engineer functionality.

Logical names can also be maintained here in a similar manner. Note that logical names are not reflected when generating DDL through Forward Engineering.

Definition Indicator

When you click on the database documentation icon, on the left- hand of the screen you’ll see an expandable tree of:

The schemas you’ve created (if any at this time)
Objects with no schemas
Column templates

Next to these objects are colored indicators that will allow you to quickly identify if the schema, table, columns or column templates are missing, partially missing or have complete definitions.

Color Key:

Database Objects

Schema
- Green - Indicates that the schema, all tables, and all columns have text in their definition fields.
- Orange - Indicates that one or more instances within the schema, tables, or columns have missing text in their definition fields.
- Grey - Indicates that there is no text in the definition fields for the schema, tables, or columns.
Table
- Green - Indicates that the table and all of its columns have text within the definition fields.
- Orange - Indicates that one or more instances of the table or its column(s) are missing text in the definition's fields.
- Grey - Indicates that there is no text in the definition fields for the table or its columns.
Column
- Grey - Indicates the column is missing text in the definition field
- Green - Indicates the column has a text in the definition field

Column Template

Template -
- Green - Indicates the table template and all of its columns have text within the definitions field.
- Orange - Indicates either the table template or one or many columns within that template that are missing text within the definition field.
- Grey - Indicates the table template and its columns have no text entered in the definitions field.
Template columns -
- Grey - Indicates the column is missing text in the definition field
- Green - Indicates the column has a text in the definition field

Export and Import

You can maintain functional descriptions offline and with team members without a SqlDBM access using the export and upload functionality.

For more information on this feature, please see the related article at the end of this post.