The task
Scenario. You've got a request for a product-sales dashboard. Before opening your BI tool, get build-ready: find the certified table to build on (not a lookalike), confirm the metric definition against what's governed, and read how people already query that table so the dashboard matches real usage.
The ask
- The trusted, certified source to build on
- The governed definition — does it match how the team calculates it?
- The joins, filters, and questions the table already answers
Hero prompt
Get me build-ready for the product-sales dashboard — the certified source to build on, the Revenue definition, and how people actually query that table.
Step by step
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Find the trusted source.
Find the certified table for <topic> — prefer a mart or gold layer, and steer me off lookalikes.
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Confirm the definition.
Pull the governed term for <metric> on that table and tell me if it matches how we calculate it.
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Read how the table is used.
Show the popular joins, common filters, and the business questions this table already answers.
What you'll give it
Required context
- The dashboard topic / the metric it's about
- The team's stated calculation, if you have it, to confirm against the governed one
Optional context
- Any cut you know you need (by region, by product), so the filters come back relevant
- Works from a ticket, a Slack ask, or ad hoc
What Atlan creates
Outputs
- The one certified source to build on — its layer, owner, and certification — with a note to avoid the un-trusted lookalikes
- The governed definition with a verdict: confirmed — matches, or a flagged difference (tax handling, one-time items, gross vs. net)
- The build recipe from SQL Intelligence: popular joins (with the key and when to use), common filters, and the business questions the table already answers
Summary. You start building on the certified source with the official number and the questions the data already answers — so the dashboard is right the first time, and a definition mismatch is caught before building, not after.
Nothing is written — it stops at build-ready. You build in your BI tool from there.
Follow-up prompts
Keep going once the first answer lands.
Map it to tiles
Turn those business questions into a dashboard layout — which become KPI tiles, which a trend, which a detail table.
Get the cut
Which filter do I use for a by-region view, and how is it applied?
Avoid the trap
For the top lookalike, show why it's not the trusted one — uncertified, wrong grain, or stale.
Tips & troubleshooting
SQL Intelligence is the hero move — how the table is really queried is the recipe for the dashboard.
- Match the tool to the work. Any AI tool works; it reads and prepares, so it's safe to run for any request.
- Automate or chain it. Run it the moment a dashboard request lands, so every build starts from the certified source and the real usage.
- It only reads. No writes — it stops at build-ready and never builds or changes anything.