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Set up team access (persona)

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Create a persona to scope what a team sees in Atlan and what they can do with those assets. A persona bundles a set of users and groups, the metadata, data, and domain policies that govern their access, and the display preferences (landing page, sidebar tabs, asset filters) that shape their view. Once you create the persona, every user or group you add inherits its policies and view automatically.

Prerequisites​

  • You are an admin in Atlan, or you have the Governance Admin sub-role.
  • You know who the persona is for: which users or groups will belong to it, and which assets or actions you want to scope.
  • You have a plan for the persona's policies: metadata, data, business graph, and domain policies are all optional, but a persona without policies doesn't actually grant any access yet.

Create persona​

  1. In your Atlan workspace, click Settings from the left menu.

    If you are using the Old UI (Classic), from the left menu, click Admin.

  2. Click Persona to open the personas list.

  3. Click the Get started button (if this is your first persona) or the New persona button (if you already have personas).

  4. Enter a meaningful name for the persona, optionally a description, then click Create. You now have an empty persona. The next sections add users, policies, and preferences.

Add users and groups​

A persona needs at least one user or group to do anything. You can add more (or remove members) at any time.

  1. Open the persona, then click the Add button to the right of the Users and groups box.

  2. Select users, groups, or both:

    • Under the single-user icon, select individual users.
    • Under the double-user icon, select groups.

  3. Click Update to save. Members immediately inherit the persona's policies (none yet, until you add them in the next section) and view.

Add policies​

Policies are how the persona actually grants or restricts access. Add one policy per set of assets and permissions you want to control. The higher the level you define the policy at, the better: for example, a policy at the database level automatically covers future schemas and tables in that database.

  1. In the persona, switch to the Policies tab.

  2. Click New Policy and choose the type that fits what you want to control:

    • Metadata policy: grants or restricts permissions to change metadata (descriptions, ownership, tags, custom metadata, data quality rules).
    • Data policy: grants or restricts permissions to query data and preview samples.
    • Business Graph policy: controls which assets appear in the business graph view for users in this persona.
    • Domain policy: grants or restricts access to specific domains and their assets.
Glossary policies require manual updates for new glossaries

There is no "All Glossaries" option in persona policies. Each glossary must be added to the persona policy individually. When a new glossary is created in your workspace, it is not automatically included in any existing persona policies. You must manually add it to each affected persona. If users outside the intended scope can see a new glossary, this is almost always the cause.

Add metadata policy​

  1. Choose Metadata Policy.

  2. Under Name, briefly describe the policy's intention, for example, Marketing team: read-only on Snowflake.

  3. Under Select a connection, choose the connection on which to apply the policy.

  4. (Optional) Under Asset selector, narrow the policy to specific assets. By default, all assets in the connection are included.

    • Click the x in the All assets box, then click the Add link.
    • In the Add Assets dialog, choose Browse (pick from databases), Search (find individual assets), or Custom (use qualified names).
    Custom selector tip

    With the custom asset selector, you can add /* after a database name to select all schemas inside it.

  5. (Optional) Under Configure permissions, click Edit to choose which permissions the policy grants. By default, all permissions are granted. Hover over each checkbox to see what it controls.

  6. (Optional) Under Deny selected permissions, choose whether the policy should explicitly deny these permissions instead of granting them.

    Deny overrides every grant

    If enabled, this denial overrides grants from any other policy for the same users, across every persona they belong to.

  7. At the bottom of the Metadata Policy sidebar, click Save.

Add data policy​

  1. Choose Data Policy.

  2. Under Name, briefly describe the policy's intention.

  3. Under Select a connection, choose the connection on which to apply the policy.

  4. (Optional) Under Asset selector, narrow the policy to specific assets. By default, all assets in the connection are included. Use the same Browse / Search / Custom flow described under metadata policies.

  5. (Optional) Under Deny Query, choose whether the policy should explicitly deny the ability to query and preview data on these assets.

    Deny overrides every grant

    A deny overrides grants from any other policy for the same users, across every persona they belong to.

  6. Click Save.

Add Business Graph policy​

  1. Choose Business Graph Policy.

  2. Under Name, briefly describe the policy's intention.

  3. Under Select connection, choose the connection to apply the policy to.

  4. (Optional) Under Asset selector, narrow the policy to specific assets. By default, all assets in the connection are included.

  5. Click Save.

Add Domain policy​

  1. Choose Domain Policy.

  2. Under Name, briefly describe the policy's intention.

  3. Under Select domain, choose the domain or domains the policy applies to.

  4. (Optional) Under Configure permissions, click Edit to choose which permissions the policy grants. By default, all permissions are granted.

  5. Click Save.

Add rich documentation (optional)​

Help other admins understand why this persona exists and who manages it. Inside the persona:

  • Under Summary > Channels, add any Slack channels relevant to the persona.
  • Under Resources, add links to external resources (PDFs, repositories, Notion, Confluence, Google Drive, or anything with a URL).
  • Under Readme, write a richly-formatted description of the persona.

Set preferences (optional)​

Tailor what users in the persona see: landing page, asset types, sidebar tabs, filters, and custom metadata visibility. See Customize the persona view for the full walkthrough.

Need help?​

If a persona isn't granting access the way you expect, double-check whether any other persona the same user belongs to has a deny rule. Deny always wins. If you still need help, contact Atlan Support.

Next steps​

Now that the persona exists, populate it and shape what its members see: