Data Governance
Understand the data before you write the rules.
Profiling shows what a new supplier file or ERP extract actually contains, and turns the patterns it finds into candidate rules your data owners approve.
The capability
Evidence-based data quality
Validation rules are often written from assumptions: part numbers always look like this, weights are always in pounds, every row has a country of origin. When a new supplier file or ERP extract arrives, those assumptions are tested in production, usually by failed loads and incorrect records.
Data profiling measures a dataset before it is trusted. For every column, Autonera calculates completeness, distinct values, value patterns and numeric ranges. Pattern analysis reduces values to shapes, such as letters and digits, so the dominant format and its outliers become visible immediately.
From the profile, Autonera proposes candidate rules: required values, dominant patterns, ranges and uniqueness. Each candidate shows how many rows it would fail before it is selected, ranges can be adjusted, and nothing is activated until the data owner approves it. The approved rules then run in validation, onboarding and monitoring.
How it works
Profile a lighting supplier's file and discover rules
Select a column to see its completeness, patterns and range. Select candidate rules to highlight failing rows, adjust the weight range, then send the rules for approval.
PROFILE: SUPPLIER PART NO.
- Complete
- 100%
- Distinct
- 12
- Patterns
- 2
Value patterns (A = letter, 9 = digit)
- AA-9999-A11
- AA9999A1
CANDIDATE RULES
- 01LT-4410-AAA-9999-A
- 02LT-4411-AAA-9999-A
- 03LT-4412-BAA-9999-A
- 04LT-4413-BAA-9999-A
- 05LT4414BAA9999A
- 06LT-4415-CAA-9999-A
- 07LT-4416-CAA-9999-A
- 08LT-4417-AAA-9999-A
- 09LT-4418-AAA-9999-A
- 10LT-4419-BAA-9999-A
- 11LT-4420-BAA-9999-A
- 12LT-4421-CAA-9999-A
Functional capabilities
What Data Profiling & Rule Discovery includes
- Column profiling
- Completeness, distinct counts, value frequencies and numeric ranges for every column.
- Pattern analysis
- Reduce values to structural patterns to reveal dominant formats and outliers.
- Candidate rule discovery
- Propose required, pattern, range and uniqueness rules from the observed profile.
- Failure preview
- Show which rows each candidate rule would fail before it is selected.
- Review before activation
- Route selected rules to data owners for approval before they take effect.
- Profile comparison
- Compare profiles across deliveries to detect changes in a source over time.
Problems it solves
Where this work usually breaks down
- 01
Rules written from assumptions
Validation rules reject valid data or accept bad data because nobody measured the source first.
- 02
Outliers hidden in large files
A weight entered as 18.4 instead of 1.84 is invisible in a ten-thousand-row spreadsheet.
- 03
Formats that vary by supplier
Part numbers with and without separators, and country names instead of codes, break matching and mapping.
- 04
Rules activated without review
A new rule goes live and blocks hundreds of records that were acceptable.
Autonomous operations
How autonomous execution changes data profiling & rule discovery
Agents profile every new delivery automatically, compare it with previous deliveries and propose rules or corrections for review.
Agents carry out
- Profile each new delivery on arrival
- Detect changes against previous profiles
- Propose candidate rules with failure previews
- Prepare correction requests for suppliers
People decide
- Approve or adjust candidate rules
- Decide whether outliers are errors
- Own rule activation per domain
Evidence recorded
- Profiles stored per delivery
- Rule proposals with their supporting statistics
- Approval history for activated rules
In industrial operations
A lighting distributor onboards a new manufacturer
A new manufacturer's first product file arrives with thousands of rows and no documentation of its formats.
- The file is profiled column by column before mapping.
- Pattern analysis shows part numbers missing separators and countries written as names.
- Range analysis exposes a weight ten times larger than its siblings.
- Candidate rules are approved by the category owner and applied to the manufacturer's future deliveries.
Result: Onboarding starts with known issues and evidence-based rules instead of a failed first load.
Related capabilities
Works alongside
Schema Drift & Data Contracts
Detect source schema changes, assess mapping impact and approve controlled updates.
Feature guideEntity Resolution & Duplicate Detection
Normalize, score and cluster records, with an ambiguous band for steward review.
Feature guideAttribute Survivorship
Field-level rules that decide which source value wins, with impact preview.
Feature guideData Mapping & Transformation
Source-to-target mappings and transformations you can preview and validate.
Feature guideSupplier Onboarding Portal
Supplier submissions mapped, validated and reviewed before they reach your catalog.
Capability areaData Governance
See where Data Profiling & Rule Discovery fits in the wider Data Governance capability.
Buyer FAQs
Questions evaluators ask
What does a profile include?
Completeness, distinct values, value frequencies, structural patterns and numeric ranges for each column, plus uniqueness where relevant.
Are discovered rules applied automatically?
No. Discovered rules are candidates. They show their failure impact and are activated only after approval.
Can profiles be compared over time?
Yes. Profiles of successive deliveries can be compared to detect shifts in completeness, patterns or ranges.
Does profiling work on ERP data as well as supplier files?
Yes. Any dataset ingested into Autonera, including ERP extracts and existing master data, can be profiled.
How does this relate to data quality monitoring?
Profiling discovers rules from evidence. Data quality monitoring applies approved rules continuously and tracks results.
Your next step
See Data Profiling & Rule Discovery on data like yours.
Bring a real file, catalog or record set. We will walk through how Autonera would handle it and where your team keeps the final say.
Book a Demo