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Your first connection and check

A walkthrough from a fresh account to your first passing (or failing) check result. This page is the fast path; every screen it visits has its own guide under Using the app.

1. Sign in

Sign in at your CatalystData URL with the account details from your Marketplace subscription (see Getting started if you haven't subscribed yet).

2. Add a connection

Go to Connections → Add Connection. You'll need:

  • A connector type — see Connect a data source for the currently supported connectors and what each one needs
  • Host, database, and an auth type appropriate to that connector

Click Test Connection before saving to confirm CatalystData can reach the data source. The saved connection appears in the list:

The Connections screen with one connection

3. Discover checks

On the connection's row, click Discover Checks. CatalystData scans the connection's tables and columns, then opens Recommendations with a suggested check for what it found — a null check on a mostly-non-null column, a unique check on what looks like a primary key, and so on. Accept the ones that make sense; each becomes a check you can edit later, and reject the rest.

The Recommendations screen after a scan

The scan also populates the Data Catalog and Lineage screens.

4. Add a check by hand

Go to Checks, pick the connection, choose the Table checks or Column checks tab, and click Add check on a table (and pick a column, for column-level checks) to choose a check type. See the check reference for every check type and its parameters. A good first check: row_count on your most important table, with a min_count that would catch an empty load.

The Checks screen, Table checks tab

5. Run it

Checks run automatically on their schedule (see Scans), or run one immediately from the Checks screen. Go to Results to see the outcome — pass, fail, error, or warning — along with the metric value and threshold that produced it. Open a failed result to see the rows that failed and leave a comment for the team.

The Results screen

6. Get notified when it fails

Go to Alerts → Channels → Add Channel and configure email, a webhook, or a Slack/Teams incoming webhook. Then go to Alerts → Rules → Add Rule, link the channel to your check (or to all checks in a schedule), and choose a condition — fire on any failure, only on errors, or after a set number of consecutive failures. See Alerts and scheduling for the full set of channel types and conditions.

The Alerts screen

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