Searching and finding your data has never been easier with Zeenea Explorer

As a data consumer, you likely experienced the frustration of not being able to find the information you needed for a specific report or use case. Either you couldn’t locate the data because it was scattered in various sources, files, or spreadsheets, or maybe you were confronted with an overwhelming amount of information that you didn’t even know how to begin your search.

To respond to these common challenges, Zeenea developed a dedicated application for data and business teams to easily search for, find, discover, and explore their enterprise data assets: Zeenea Explorer. In this feature note, discover how Zeenea Explorer is the fastest and most efficient way for your teams to find the information they need!

How does searching work in Zeenea?

Similar to how you would search for an article or product on Google, data teams are provided with a smart search engine to search for their enterprise data assets.

Zeenea Explorer – Homepage – © 2023

Zeenea automatically indexes and updates all your enterprise metadata from your various sources. However, as mentioned in our eBook The Five Technological Breakthroughs of a next-generation Data Catalog, Zeenea decided from the get-go that a simple indexation system would prove limited and would fall short of providing the most relevant results for the users. We therefore chose to turn our search capabilities into a powerful innovation zone.

So, we integrated at the core of our platform:

• Standard, flat, indexation of all the attributes of an object (name, description, and properties) weighing it up in accordance with the type of property,
• A Natural Language Processing layer that takes into account typing or spelling errors,
• A semantic analysis layer that relies on the processing of the knowledge graph,
• A personalization layer that relies on user classification according to their uses, and will in the future be enriched by individual profiling.

Searching for an asset in Zeenea Explorer

With that said, for business consumers to easily find the information they need, all they have to do is type in the search engine a keyword or phrase and Zeenea Explorer will retrieve it!

In addition, for even quicker exploration and discovery, the results page will highlight all of the areas in which the keyword appears, whether it is in the asset’s title, description, etc.

Refine your search results through a smart filtering system

Zeenea Explorer offers a smart filtering system to contextualize your results. Use Zeenea’s preconfigured filters such as by item type, connection, contact, or by your organization’s own custom filters. Select any of these options, or combine them, and your results will update instantly to more focused results in the Active Filters section. Click on the small “x” button to remove a filter at any time.

If you are browsing by Topic (see details below), our catalog enables you to view the filters that are used in the Topic for you to better understand its context, and to inspire your next searches.

What if I don’t know what I’m looking for?

It can be overwhelming to search through hundreds and thousands of data assets in the catalog. To avoid drowning in an ocean of information, Zeenea has other ways to explore the data catalog.

In the above paragraph, we discussed how Zeenea provides a smart search engine for keyword searches (high-intent). But for people who don’t know what exactly they are looking for (low-intent), our platform provides other exploratory paths.

Browse by Topic

In Zeenea Studio, your stewards and curators can create Topics in the Catalog tab by simply selecting the filters that represent a specific theme, use case, or anything else that is relevant to your business.

Data & business teams on Zeenea Explorer can therefore quickly browse through the catalog by Topic via the homepage or via the search engine at the top of the catalog. Configured by your stewards, each Topic is distinguished by its own color, initials, and description for additional context.

Learn more in our February 2023 Product Release →

Browse by Item Type

If you are sure of the type of data asset you are looking for, such as a dataset, visualization, data process, or custom asset, directly access the catalog with it pre-filtered with the type of asset you need.

For all pre-configured catalog items (Datasets, Visualizations, and Data Processes) the description is automatically included by Zeenea. For all Custom assets and categories, the description is to be documented by your stewards – the same as for Topics.

Browse through the Business Glossary

Quickly navigate through your enterprise’s Business Glossary by directly accessing the Glossary assets that were defined or imported by your stewards in Zeenea Studio. Clicking on the Glossary Item Type will take you to the list of definitions under that Glossary category to easily find the definitions you need for your use cases. Again, you will be presented with a description of the Glossary Item just like the other exploration paths.

Try Zeenea Explorer’s advanced searching capabilities for yourself

Try Zeenea Explorer’s search engine, filtering system, different exploration paths, and all of our other next-gen features by signing up for the Live Product Tour!