---
title: "Use Case Guide: Business Glossary & Metrics Catalog"
url: "https://atlan.com/resources/use-case-glossary/"
description: "A guide to building a metrics catalog and business glossary in Atlan to unify definitions, ensure governance, and improve trust in data."
keywords: "atlan, use case guide business glossary"
---

> Atlan is hosting Context Conference, bringing together the leaders and builders at the frontier of giving AI the context it needs to understand their business. It runs online on October 28, 2026, from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM ET. Atlan co-founder Prukalpa Sankar opens and closes the day. Leaders from AstraZeneca, BNY and Verizon share why they invest in context and what they get from it. Registrants get early access to The AI Context Gap, a new study from MIT Technology Review Insights. Register: https://atlan.com/context-conference/

**Use Case Guide: Business Glossary & Metrics Category.** An Atlan resource page; its description follows under the page's own heading.

## About this guide

A playbook for creating a single source of truth for metrics and business terms in Atlan. Challenges addressed: siloed knowledge, inconsistent definitions, lack of governance, and costly duplication of work.

### Metrics catalog: three maturity levels (pages 4-6)

1. Create a business glossary of key metrics with definitions, calculation logic, and context.
2. Link glossary terms to physical assets and saved queries, so end users can validate lineage and run queries themselves.
3. Add governance: clear ownership, glossary-level access policies, edit requests, and certifications.

### Business glossary: two maturity levels (pages 12-13)

1. Create glossaries of key business terms, unifying definitions across departments; also an onboarding tool.
2. Layer on governance: owners, certifications, and glossary edit policies.

### Measuring impact (pages 8, 14)

Metrics include fewer tickets about metric or term confusion, time saved understanding definitions, and costs avoided from inaccurate reporting. For public KPIs, the guide covers reducing compliance risk, including fines for incorrect external reporting.

## Related resources

- [Use Case Guide: Impact Analysis](https://atlan.com/resources/use-case-impact-analysis) (guide)
- [Translating User Stories to Metadata](https://atlan.com/blueprint-resource-user-stories-to-metadata) (guide)