Data Lineage

Definition

Data lineage refers to the lifecycle of data, tracking its origin, where it moves, how it's transformed, and its ultimate destination. It provides a comprehensive audit trail that explains what happened to data over time, including all changes, aggregations, and derivations. This traceability is essential for understanding data quality, validating data accuracy, and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. By visualizing data flows, from initial source systems (e.g., ERP, supplier feeds) through intermediate stages (e.g., PIM, data warehouses) to final consumer applications (e.g., e-commerce storefronts, analytics tools), data lineage offers transparency into the entire data journey.

Why It's Important for E-commerce

In e-commerce, maintaining high-quality and trustworthy product data is paramount. Data lineage helps businesses understand the reliability of their product information, especially when data is sourced from multiple external systems and undergoes various enrichment processes within a PIM. It enables e-commerce teams to quickly identify the root cause of data errors on product pages, verify compliance with industry standards (e.g., for sustainability claims), and track the impact of data transformations. This transparency ensures that product data presented to customers is accurate, consistent, and compliant, building trust and reducing returns or customer service inquiries related to misinformation.

Examples

• Tracing a product's 'material composition' attribute from a supplier's ERP system, through a PIM's data enrichment rules, to its display on an e-commerce website.
• Investigating why a specific product image appears distorted on a marketplace by tracking its journey from DAM to PIM and then to the marketplace feed.
• Auditing compliance for a 'vegan' product claim by verifying its origin in the ingredient data provided by the manufacturer.
• Understanding how a pricing error occurred by following the data flow from the ERP system, through PIM, to the final e-commerce channel.

How WISEPIM Helps

• Enhanced data transparency: WISEPIM provides clear visibility into where product data originates and how it changes, improving trust and accountability.
• Simplified compliance: Easily audit product data for regulatory compliance by tracking its lineage through WISEPIM's robust data management features.
• Faster error resolution: Quickly identify the source of data quality issues by visualizing the data's journey within and outside WISEPIM.
• Improved data governance: Strengthen data governance by understanding data dependencies and transformations, ensuring consistency across all channels.

Related Terms

Also Known As