The Glossary is where you create and maintain definitions — descriptions of the business and data terminology used across your organization.
A clear, well-maintained glossary is the foundation for trustworthy reporting: it's what lets a sales report and a finance dashboard refer to "Active Customer" and mean the same thing.
Good to know: In dScribe, the Glossary and the Catalog share the same underlying structure. Both contain assets, and Definition is one of the default asset types alongside Report and Dataset. Everything you can do with an asset in the Catalog — search, document, link, validate — also applies to definitions.
What's a definition?
A definition documents a single business or data term — its meaning, calculation, owner, and connections to other content. Common examples:
Revenue — the total income from sales in a given period, before deductions
Active Customer — a customer who has logged in within the last 30 days
FTE (Full-Time Equivalent) — a unit representing one full-time employee's working hours
Net Promoter Score — a metric of customer loyalty based on a 0–10 likelihood-to-recommend question
Each definition has its own page where users can read the explanation, see who owns it, and click through to the reports, datasets, and other definitions it relates to.
Creating definitions
There are four ways to create a definition in dScribe. Use whichever fits your workflow.
From the web portal
The most common way to create a definition is directly in dScribe Catalog at app.dscribe.cloud/catalog.
Click the + icon in the top header.
From the Select Asset type dropdown, choose Definition.
Fill in the name, description, and any other properties.
Save.
Best for one-off definitions, or when you're documenting a term as part of a broader review.
From the Power BI extension
If you're working in a Power BI report and notice a metric that needs documentation, you can create a definition without leaving the report.
Open the dScribe extension in your Power BI report.
Click the visual or report element you want to document — this creates a hotspot linked to that element.
In the Add related documentation panel, click Create manually.
Fill in the definition details and save.
The new definition is automatically linked to the report element you selected, so users hovering over it in Power BI will see it in context. For more info, see the documentation on dScribe in Power BI.
From a CSV upload
If you have a list of definitions in a spreadsheet — for example a glossary you maintained outside dScribe — you can import them in bulk.
Go to app.dscribe.cloud/catalog/onboarding and click Import CSV.
Download the CSV template if you don't already have a file in the right format.
Add your definitions. Name, Asset Type, Description and Validation Status are required columns.
Add extra columns to map to any custom Properties you've configured in dScribe.
Upload the file, choose your delimiter (semicolon or comma), and confirm the import.
Good to know:
Properties of type Hierarchy or Contributor can't be imported via CSV yet.
To update existing definitions instead of creating new ones, include a column with the asset's exact ID.
Best for bulk creation of already documented definitions.
Auto-detect from files
dScribe can scan files you upload — or content from a connected source — and automatically suggest new definitions and relationships based on what it finds.
The flow involves both administrators and editors:
1. An administrator uploads a file
Go to Admin portal > Integrations > File Uploads.
Click Upload Files to upload directly, or use Upload via API for automated ingestion.
Wait for the file status to change to Indexed.
Click Find suggestions next to the uploaded file.
2. Editors review the suggestions
Go to Home > AI Suggestions.
Review the Automated asset suggestions and Automated relation suggestions.
Approve or reject each one individually, or use Approve all / Reject all to process them in bulk.
Best for organizations starting from existing documentation — PDFs, internal wikis, design specs — where the AI can extract a starting catalog you can refine.
Customizing the definition detail page
Each definition has a detail page with properties, owners, and related assets. The fields shown — and how definitions relate to other assets — are configured by your administrator.
If the standard layout doesn't fit your organization's needs, an admin can:
Add custom properties to capture fields like steward, calculation logic, defininition type...
Define relation types to link definitions to specific kinds of assets (e.g. "is parent of", "is calculated from")
For more, see Configuration of asset types, properties, and relations.
Where to go next
→ Search — find definitions across your catalog
→ Comments and suggestions — collect feedback on a definition
→ Ownership and suggestions — assign owners and review proposed edits
→ dScribe in Power BI — surface definitions inside reports
Have a question or can't find what you're looking for? Use the chat icon inside the catalog to reach the dScribe support team.