---
title: "Use Case Guide: Root Cause Analysis"
url: "https://atlan.com/resources/use-case-root-cause/"
description: "A guide to using Atlan's lineage and tool integrations to speed up root cause analysis, reduce downtime, and boost data team productivity."
keywords: "atlan, use case guide root cause analysis"
---

> 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: Root Cause Analysis.** An Atlan resource page; its description follows under the page's own heading.

## About this guide

A playbook for root cause analysis in Atlan: identifying and resolving data issues faster. It addresses time lost troubleshooting faulty dashboards, discrepant metrics, or broken pipelines.

**The problem space.** Without end-to-end visibility across the data landscape, tracing issues to their origin is slow. The page links this to team frustration and burnout, citing studies showing high attrition among data engineers.

### Two levels of solutions

1. **Trace upstream with end-to-end lineage** (page 4). Visually trace an affected asset's upstream dependencies (tables, columns, dashboards). Column-level lineage in Atlan's UI pinpoints the faulty upstream asset.
2. **Bring in operational tools** (page 5). With custom metadata, metadata from pipeline orchestrators (Airflow, dbt) and data quality platforms (Monte Carlo, Great Expectations) appears alongside assets, showing whether issues stem from pipeline failures, failed tests, or transformations.

### Measuring business impact (page 6)

Time to complete root cause tickets against SLAs, and mean time to recovery for breakages.

## Related resources

- [Use Case Guide: Impact Analysis](https://atlan.com/resources/use-case-impact-analysis) (guide)
- [Use Case Guide: Data Exploration](https://atlan.com/resources/use-case-data-exploration) (guide)
- [Data Governance Examples: Real-World Case Studies for 2025](https://atlan.com/data-governance-examples/) (explainer)