K can help you automatically conduct impact assessments to assess the impact of changes to data items and identify impacted users. Common scenarios where an impact assessment would be helpful include:
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Checking which data assets and users are impacted by a potential change
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Assessing the testing effort required for a change
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Quickly verifying which data assets have been impacted by an incident or issue
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Generating a list of users, data owners, or stewards of impacted data assets to contact
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Data migration analysis
About the K Impact Assessment
The K impact assessment can be performed across different directions and levels:
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Direction: Relative to the data asset, the direction you want to assess impact across the data lineage — e.g. Upstream vs Downstream
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Assessment level: At what data level you want to conduct the impact assessment. Based on the type of data asset selected, there are 4 assessment levels:
|
Assessment level |
Included in assessment |
Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Table level |
Tables, Dataset Tables, Reports, Pipelines, ML Models |
Performs a coarse grain assessment and returns all impacted assets at the table/report/pipeline level |
|
Column level |
Columns, Fields, Sheets |
Performs a fine grain assessment and returns all impacted assets at the column/field level |
|
User level |
Users |
Performs a user assessment and returns all data assets that a specific user has created or used |
|
Collection bounded |
Coarse grain assets within a collection instance |
Performs a collection assessment and returns all table-level assets within the collection |
How to run an impact assessment
Step 1 — Select impact assessment target
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To assess a single data asset: go to the Data Profile page, click … in the header, and select Assess Impact
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To assess multiple data assets: create a list containing all the assets you want to assess, or select a collection instance — then open it and select Assess Impact from the … menu
Step 2 — Configure impact assessment settings
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Click the green New Impact Assessment button
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If the button is greyed out, the impact assessment target has not been confirmed yet
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Confirm the assessment settings and click Next:
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Assessment Level: Table, Column, User, or Collection Bounded (options shown dynamically based on the asset type selected)
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Direction: Upstream or Downstream
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Confirm the next level of assessment detail and click Run:
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Depth limit — for large assessments, start with a lower depth and increase if needed
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Expansion limit — the number of connected assets displayed per node, ranked by trust score
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Usage period
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Source limits (optional)
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Step 3 — Check and access your impact assessment results
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While running, the status displays as Amber. Once ready to review, it turns Green
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You can view assessment settings from the results screen. Click … → Copy to new assessment to tweak settings and re-run
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To Refresh an assessment, click … → Refresh — this re-runs with the same settings against the latest data
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To re-run across a different time period, use Copy to new assessment and update the usage assessment date
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Click on the row to open your impact assessment results
All users can view previously run impact assessments.
Viewing impact assessment results
The default view shows results in list format, where you can:
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Click the open button on any asset header to open its Data Profile in a new tab
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Toggle between impacted users and impacted assets views — and filter by depth (number of hops from the starting object)
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Change filters, download results, or adjust displayed columns
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Download results via the download button, or access additional export options from the … menu
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Click Save to preserve your current filter configuration for future visits
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Click Close to return to the impact assessment history page
You can also switch to a visual Map view, which:
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Automatically applies any filters set in the list view
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Supports legend overlays — expand via the bottom icon
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Includes a search function to locate specific nodes when the map is large
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Can be exited at any time by clicking Close to return to the list view
Additional actions
From the … menu on any assessment row:
|
Action |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Assessment details |
View the settings used for this assessment |
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Refresh assessment |
Re-run with the latest data sources loaded to K |
|
Impacted asset by user export |
A list of all users and the impacted assets they use |
|
Detailed lineage report |
A detailed Excel export listing each connection row by row |
Refreshing an impact assessment
When an impact assessment requires a refresh (e.g. due to archiving or a platform release), its status will show as Pending with a tooltip advising that a refresh is required.
To action this: click … on the assessment row and select Refresh assessment. You will be notified when the refreshed assessment is ready (if email notifications are configured).
💡 Related: See Lineage Mapper for visualising the data flows that underpin your impact assessments, and Collections for collection-bounded impact assessments.