## How Workday Prism Analytics lineage works

URL: https://docs.atlan.com/apps/connectors/business-intelligence/workday-prism-analytics/concepts/how-workday-prism-analytics-lineage-works

> Understand how Atlan mines Workday Prism Analytics Data Change Tasks to build lineage between Prism tables and their upstream sources.

Prism tables are usually loaded by a **Data Change Task**, Workday Prism Analytics' own mechanism for loading, transforming, and combining table data. Atlan mines each Data Change Task's configuration to build lineage between the Prism table it loads and whatever fed that load, whether that's another Prism table, an upstream system such as Snowflake, or a file upload.

Data Change Tasks aren't cataloged as their own assets in Atlan—a Data Change Task exists only as the lineage edge it produces, and as context attached to that edge.

## How lineage is built

```mermaid
flowchart LR
 Source[Upstream source] -->|Data Change Task| Process((Process))
 Process --> Table[Prism table]
 Table --> Column[Prism column]
```

For every Data Change Task that Atlan can resolve into a source and a target, Atlan creates one `Process` asset per Data Change Task:

- The `Process`'s **outputs** is the Prism table the Data Change Task loads.
- The `Process`'s **inputs** is whatever the Data Change Task reads from—see [source types](#source-types) below.
- If the Data Change Task's source is a SQL query, Atlan surfaces that query as the `Process`'s SQL, and builds column-level lineage (`ColumnProcess`) between the referenced upstream columns and the loaded Prism columns.
- The Data Change Task's own identity and semantics—its name, its operation, and its source type—are attached to the `Process` as [additional ETL context](#find-data-change-task-details-on-process-assets), so you can see what actually happened without leaving the lineage graph.

## Source types

Workday classifies each Data Change Task by where its source data comes from. Atlan handles each kind differently:

| Source type | What it means | How Atlan represents the upstream side |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Transformation | The source is another Prism table or a Prism-derived dataset. | Resolved to the existing Prism `Table` if it's been crawled; otherwise a [partial](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/catalog/lineage/what-are-partial-assets/llms.txt) `Table` labelled as a Dataset. |
| External database (for example, Snowflake) | The source is a query against an externally-connected system. | If that system's connection has been crawled by Atlan, the SQL is resolved to the real upstream table and columns. Otherwise, a partial asset is created. |
| OMS | The source is a Workday report. | A partial `CustomEntity` asset labelled as a Report—Atlan has no dedicated asset type for a generic Workday report. |
| SFTP | The source is a file on an FTP connection. | A partial `File` asset. |
| Uploads | The source is a browser file upload—it has no name of its own in Workday. | A partial `File` asset, named after the Data Change Task itself. |

For the OMS, SFTP, and Uploads source types, lineage is created at the table level only—Atlan doesn't have a way to link individual Prism columns back to a Workday report, an FTP file, or an upload, since these aren't structured, column-aware sources in Workday.

## Find `Data Change Task` details on `Process` assets

Open a `Process` asset's overview to see the Data Change Task that produced it:

- **Data Change Task**: the Data Change Task's display name.
- **Operation**: the type of load the Data Change Task performed, for example `Insert` or `Delete`.
- **Source Type**: the Data Change Task's source type, one of the values in the [source types](#source-types) table.
- **Task ID**: the Data Change Task's unique identifier in Workday.
- **Query**: if the source was a SQL query, the query Workday ran to produce the loaded rows.

## What isn't supported

- Data Change Tasks aren't cataloged as standalone assets—you won't find a searchable "Data Change Task" asset type in Atlan. Their context lives entirely on the `Process` assets they produce.
- Lineage for Buckets (Prism's staging area for uploaded files, ahead of a Data Change Task) isn't currently supported.
- Column-level lineage is only built for sources Atlan can parse as SQL or resolve to a crawled table—table-level lineage only is created for report, file, and upload sources.

## See also

* [What does Atlan crawl from Workday Prism Analytics?](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/connectors/workday-prism-analytics/what-does-atlan-crawl-from-workday-prism-analytics/llms.txt): Full metadata reference including asset mapping tables.
* [What are partial assets?](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/catalog/lineage/what-are-partial-assets/llms.txt): How Atlan represents upstream or downstream assets that haven't been crawled.
* [Crawl Workday Prism Analytics](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/connectors/workday-prism-analytics/crawl-workday-prism-analytics/llms.txt): Configure and run a Workday Prism Analytics crawl.

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