Ingested Descriptions from Source

If documentation already exists in the source where assets live, Catalog can pull that information in automatically during metadata ingestion. This includes column, field, table, and dashboard descriptions.

Data warehouses: Snowflake, BigQuery, and Databricks (using Unity Catalog) ingest table and column descriptions from INFORMATION_SCHEMA, DDL comments, and metadata.

BI tools: Looker, Tableau, and Power BI bring in dashboard and field descriptions from semantic models and workbooks.

Transformation tools: dbt (from manifest.json and schema.yml) and Coalesce Transform (node and column descriptions) flow descriptions into Catalog automatically.

SaaS sources: Many Fivetran-connected sources (for example, Salesforce, HubSpot, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Marketo) auto-document standard fields from API documentation.

Once ingested, you're free to leave the source descriptions as they are or enrich them by adding a Catalog-native description.

This method helps keep documentation in sync with upstream systems and reduces duplication of effort. It’s especially useful when teams already maintain good metadata practices at the source.

In this example, a table description was imported directly from Snowflake and a Catalog description has been added on top.

Troubleshooting

If descriptions don't appear or behave unexpectedly, use this table to diagnose and resolve common issues.

Symptom	Likely cause	Action
Descriptions not appearing	Source lacks descriptions, Catalog lacks access, or ingestion not run	Confirm the source has descriptions and Catalog has access. Check that the ingestion schedule has run.
Ingestion configured but descriptions still missing	Configuration or sync issue	Contact catalog-support@coalesce.io for assistance.
Existing assets vs net-new	Timing of when descriptions appear	For existing assets, descriptions are pulled on the next ingestion run. For net-new assets, descriptions come in with the first ingestion.

If your source descriptions can't be ingested (for example, custom sources or tools Catalog doesn't connect to), use Upload existing descriptions to load them from a CSV.