Most governance programs are better run than their evidence suggests. The glossary is maintained, the policy library is approved, and a steward network covers the critical domains. Then an auditor names a reported figure and a closed quarter and asks to see the policy operating, and someone has to assemble the answer by hand.

Three gaps decide whether that request takes an afternoon or a month:

• Binding. The glossary says what revenue means, and the Power BI measure computes whatever someone coded two years ago. Nothing in the estate connects the two, so a divergence surfaces as an escalation.
• Coverage. Catalog population depends on stewards finding time to document assets. Turnover and reorgs reset it, and the coverage report ends up counting activity.
• History. A definition's current state is easy to show. What it said last March, who changed it, and which reports it reached takes a reconstruction project with a deadline set by someone outside the company.

What changes with MetaKarta

Every definition carries its history. Glossary changes run through a review and approval workflow, with every transition logged and a diff between the published definition and the one under review. What a definition meant on any prior date, and who changed it, comes back from a version query.

Terms bound to the fields that implement them. Glossary terms map to the columns, measures, and report fields they define, and semantic lineage traces a definition from the source to the report. Opening Business Glossary on a Power BI report lists every field with a governed definition, and every field without one.

Coverage computed from the estate. MetaKarta harvests metadata from the systems you run, so the catalog starts from the estate itself. A well-documented model can bootstrap a glossary with links back to its data elements, and stewards spend their hours on review and exceptions.

The approved definition is the one that runs. Semantic Hub compiles approved definitions into the native artifacts of the BI tools and warehouses that compute the numbers. Documentation describes what should be true. Compilation makes it true.

How it works

MetaKarta runs on one shared metadata repository, so the glossary term, the lineage behind it, the steward's decision, and the compiled definition describe the same object.

• Glossary workflow: Propose, review, approve, and publish, with Editor, Reviewer, Approver, and Publisher roles and a logged comment on every transition
• Version and configuration management: Published and development versions side by side, Compare Metadata between any two versions, and a History tab on every object
• Semantic mapping and lineage: Terms bound to physical fields, with definition lookup and semantic usage traced across systems
• Sensitivity classification: Labels proposed from data classification and inferred along lineage, with steward review before they apply
• Active harvesting: Metadata collected from the estate across 400+ native connectors, so coverage tracks the systems themselves
• Native compilation: Approved definitions deployed into each BI tool and warehouse as that platform's own artifact

See it on your own estate

Three checks make a useful evaluation of any governance platform, including ours:

1. The closed-quarter check. Name one figure from last quarter's filing. Ask what its definition said at quarter close, who changed it since, and which reports carried each version.
2. The bound-term check. Pick one glossary term your auditors care about. Ask to see every physical field that implements it, and whether the BI measure computes what the glossary says.
3. The undocumented-field check. Open one executive Power BI report. Ask how many of its fields have a governed definition, without anyone counting by hand.

Built on nearly 30 years of metadata engineering

MetaKarta's metadata technology runs inside the products of Microsoft Purview, Informatica from Salesforce, IBM, Oracle, and Qlik Talend. MetaKarta brings that engine to your governance program directly, on a shared repository that keeps its records through every reorg.

When the policy, the definition, and its history live on the same record, the audit request becomes a query. Every definition can defend itself.

Get in touch to learn more about how MetaKarta turns a governance policy into evidence you can query.

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