The task
Scenario. "How is MRR calculated?" keeps landing on the data team. It's not a task, it's a question — and the answer already lives in a governed glossary term. Anyone can ask Atlan for it directly instead of routing it through an engineer.
The ask
- The governed definition of the metric
- The calculation
- Where it's documented, and who owns it
Hero prompt
How is MRR calculated here, and where is that documented?
Step by step
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Look up the governed term for the metric.
Find the governed glossary term for <metric>.
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Return its definition and calculation.
Show the plain-English definition and the exact calculation.
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Show who owns it and which certified assets carry it.
Tell me who owns the term and which certified tables or columns use it, so I query the official one.
What you'll give it
Required context
- The metric or term name (an alias is fine — MRR, monthly recurring revenue)
Optional context
- Whether you want the SQL/formula or just the plain-English definition
- No Atlan training needed — ask like you'd ask a coworker who knows
- If the metric is defined in more than one glossary (say a team copy and a company one), ask for the certified, company-level term so you get the canonical number
What Atlan creates
Outputs
- The governed term — e.g. the VERIFIED "Monthly Recurring Revenue" term, owned by finance: "the normalized amount of subscription revenue the company expects to earn each month from active customer contracts; excludes one-time charges but includes usage not contracted to recur"
- The calculation, and the certified assets that carry the term
Summary. The official definition, straight from the source, in one ask. The person who needed it never had to interrupt an engineer.
Nothing is written — it reads the governed term and returns it.
Follow-up prompts
Keep going once the first answer lands.
Show me the math
If the term only stores a prose definition, reconstruct the calculation from the linked certified column so I can see the exact math.
Which one's canonical?
Among the certified assets that carry this term, which is the most-queried one I should treat as canonical?
Is it on the column?
Is the calculation documented on the specific column I'd query, or only on the term?
Tips & troubleshooting
The governed, certified term is the answer — not the first column that happens to be named for the metric.
- Match the tool to the work. Any AI tool works; the recipe reads and returns, nothing to set up.
- Automate or chain it. Put it behind a Slack assistant so "how is X calculated?" is answered from Atlan without a ticket.
- It only reads. No writes — the point is self-serve: whoever asked could have asked Atlan directly.