modellerUpdated 2026-06-12

Data Tags

What this covers

Live Data Tags drawer opened from Model Builder.

Data tags are user-defined labels that group columns by sensitivity, category, or business domain. Tags serve two purposes: they document which columns carry sensitive data (making models auditable), and they drive column-level access control when combined with persona restrictions (see Column-Level Security). This article explains how to create, assign, and manage data tags.

Before you start

What data tags are not

Tags are for access control and governance, not data classification. They tell Tessallite "this column is PII" so the platform can restrict it — they don't tell the data lake "this column is PII" for compliance scanning. Classification belongs at the source; tagging belongs at the semantic layer.

Creating a tag

  1. Open the Data Tags panel in Model Builder (Toolbelt sidebar).
  2. Click Add Tag.
  3. Enter a tag name (e.g. PII, Financial, Internal Only).
  4. Optionally enter a description explaining what the tag means and who should have access.
  5. Assign columns in the Columns section (you can also do this later — see below).
  6. Click Create.

Assigning columns to a tag

  1. In the Data Tags panel, click the edit (pencil) icon on the tag — or do this while creating it.
  2. In the Columns section of the dialog, choose a Table from the dropdown.
  3. Tick the columns the tag should cover. Each assigned column appears as a chip labelled table_name.column_name; click the chip's × to remove it.
  4. Repeat with other tables if the tag spans more than one.
  5. Click Update (or Create). The tagged columns now show a tag chip in the table editor's Attributes tab.

You can assign the same column to multiple tags (e.g. customers.email could be both PII and Contact Info).

Grouping strategy

Choose a tagging strategy that matches your governance model:

StrategyTagsBest for
By sensitivityPII, Sensitive, Financial, PublicRegulatory compliance (GDPR, HIPAA)
By audienceExternal, Internal, ExecutiveRole-based access in multi-persona models
By domainCustomer, Product, FinanceLarge models with cross-functional teams

Whichever strategy you choose, apply it consistently. Mixed strategies make persona restrictions harder to reason about.

Viewing tags in the model

Tagged columns display a small tag chip next to the column name in the table editor's Attributes tab (double-click a table on the canvas to open it). The lineage graph shows a "N tagged cols" count on semantic nodes that have tagged columns. The Data Tags panel itself lists every tag with its assigned columns — expand a tag row to see them.

Best practices

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