Alation, Inc., the data intelligence company, today announced the launch of Alation Workflow Automation to help data stewards meet the increasingly complex data governance needs of enterprise data environments. The solution leverages Alation Automation Bots and extends existing platform workflow automation capabilities to automate manual and repetitive tasks.

Data stewards play a crucial role in establishing processes that enforce governance policies, enabling users to trust and understand what data is available and the appropriate usage guidelines for that data. As enterprise data proliferates and environments have become more complex, the demands on data stewards have significantly increased. Data teams often struggle to scale to meet the influx of data from thousands of sources, resulting in a data governance gap. Poorly described data descriptions and usage guidelines result in misunderstandings, misuse, and compliance risks. Additionally, manual, repetitive tasks, such as security classifications and policy updates, are error-prone, leading to missing or inaccurate metadata, poor data curation, and unreliable data usage across the business. 

Alation Workflow Automation addresses these gaps by optimizing data governance processes from curation to consumption. Alation Automation Bots increase metadata quality by proactively checking for missing security classifications, titles, and terms and prompting data stewards to act. These rulesets and workflows can be further customized to reflect organizations’ unique needs. The solution also provides visualization of data governance progress through dashboards that display rule adherence. Alation Workflow Automation eliminates the need to expand data steward teams, fosters faster, more reliable decision-making, and ensures cost-effectiveness while delivering trusted and AI-ready data enterprise-wide.

“Alation Automation Bots will streamline data governance by maximizing data steward efficiency and focus our team's efforts on high-value areas through constant catalog updates,” said Spencer Percy, Senior Data Management Analyst at Kinross. “These bots will enhance scalability by automating workflows, ensuring the long-term sustainability of the platform. This empowers data professionals to address real-world business challenges effectively. Alation Automation Bots will be fundamental to our organization's ongoing data-driven evolution, promoting enhanced workflow automation and more robust data governance. Alation is central to our platform's enduring success and automation-forward approach.”

"Workflow Automation is critical in today's complex data environment, enhancing the way organizations govern their data with significant improvements in speed, quality, and compliance," said Junaid Saiyed, CTO at Alation. "By leveraging Alation Workflow Automation, organizations can automate the more mundane data management tasks, enabling data stewards to focus on strategic initiatives that propel business impact. This shift boosts metadata quality and ensures adherence to regulatory standards more efficiently. As a result, organizations can drive quicker decision-making, improve operational efficiencies, and manage growing data volumes without the continuous need to increase headcount. Alation Workflow Automation is essential for any enterprise aiming to sustain and accelerate their data governance initiatives in a scalable and cost-effective manner."

Alation Workflow Automation streamlines data governance and improves operational efficiency with: 

• Alation Completeness Bot: This bot ensures that all titles and descriptions are accurately filled out and properly categorized into specific domains, quickly identifying and correcting gaps in metadata.
• Alation Compliance Bot: This bot streamlines key data governance tasks, such as security classifications and policy updates, improving data consistency and compliance. It identifies data classified as Personally Identifiable Information (PII) using standard patterns and supports custom rules to ensure compliance with regulations.
• Alation Current Content Bot: This bot includes a set of rules that verifies available fields in the catalog, such as date, and compares it with a timeframe to identify whether data is current and up-to-date. By automating these checks, the bot helps maintain the integrity and relevance of data governance. 
• Alation Metadata Management Bot: This bot ensures data stewards and data owners receive timely alerts when new metadata is added to key databases, such as new tables or columns. These notifications allow users to promptly curate content in the data catalog, ensuring that business users clearly understand how to utilize data effectively. 
• Customizable Workflows: These capabilities provide collaborative, user-friendly workflows tailored to data stewards and governance teams. These workflows are enabled with Alation Catalog Sets, Alation Workflow Center, and a robust set of APIs and developer recipes that can send notifications when set rules are triggered. These help streamline tasks, send alerts, and link various activities to accomplish a specific initiative.

Alation at Gartner Data & Analytics Summit London 2024 

• Visit booth #410 to discover how Alation expands data intelligence enterprise-wide and enhances the consistency and accuracy of data governance initiatives. 
• Join Jon Eklöf, CDAO of GKN Aerospace Engines, for a session titled “Is Hype Clouding Your Judgement? Ensuring Your Data & Analytics Initiatives Deliver Business Value” at 3:15 PM BST on 13 May. Discover how to make sure your data and analytics initiatives deliver business value. 

About AlationAlation is the leader in enterprise data intelligence solutions, enabling self-service analytics, cloud transformation, data governance, and AI-ready data. More than 550 enterprises build data culture and improve data-driven decision-making with Alation, including Cisco, Nasdaq, Pfizer, Salesforce, and Virgin Australia. Alation has been named to Inc. Magazine’s Best Workplaces list four times, is a 2022 UK’s Best Workplaces™ in tech and Best Workplaces™ for Women, and recognized as a 2022 and 2023 UK’s Best Workplaces™. For more information, visit www.alation.com.

Media ContactLauren LloydPR Director541-490-6115lauren.lloyd@alation.com