Besides modeling, SqlDBM's rich documentation features can help your team understand the underlying architecture of your database or application. Using these features, you can quickly find relevant tables and fields and collaborate across functional domains.

Database Documentation

To access, click on the "Database Documentation" link on the left pane.

All the tables in your project will be displayed on the left side of the screen and on the right, at the column level.

Metadata and fields in Database Documentation

Database Documentation gives SqlDBM a way to search and maintain object properties from a single screen. These properties range from informational (e.g., data type), metadata-only (e.g., logical name), and physical/DDL-related (e.g., comments).

Depending on your license, you may have access to additional fields beyond what standard Database Documentation provides—this includes Data Governance and dbt-enabled fields. Please see the related articles at the end of this page for more info on dbt and Data Governance fields.

While dbt meta-enabled fields require a Data Governance license, standard properties (e.g., tests, freshness, docs) will be available to all Enterprise plans. Both dbt meta and standard fields will be found on the Database documentation screen.

While dbt meta-enabled fields require a Data Governance license, standard properties

Standard Data Dictionary fields:
- (object) Name (read-only)
- (data) Type (read-only)
- Options (read-only)
- Null option (read-only)
- Tags (Snowflake) (read-only)
- Flags
- Logical Name
- Description
Data Governance fields:
- Data Governance fields are user-defined and any number can be created and maintained in a project.
dbt-enabled fields:
- Meta fields - users can include many kinds of metadata (e.g., owner, medallion status, department) under the dbt meta tag. To do so, mark the "Include as dbt meta" checkbox on any Data Governance field.
- Standard dbt properties - dbt source and model properties (e.g., tests, freshness, docs) will be available as pre-configured fields in the database documentation and will be available to users on all Enterprise plans.

For additional information on maintaining dbt properties, please see the related article at the end of this page.

Search

Using the search box on the left side of the screen, you can quickly locate tables and fields.

The wildcard match of the search term will look for matches in all available fields (including Data Governance fields):

Table names
Column names
Descriptions
Tags (Snowflake, more coming soon)
Flags
Logical Names
Fields (Data Governance and dbt)

Click on any search result to navigate directly to the relevant table and fields.

View and Maintain Descriptions and Logical Names

You can view and maintain a functional description of any table or column using the text input on the right side of the screen.

Note that any descriptions entered here will automatically be generated as DDL comments through the Forward Engineer functionality.

Logical names can also be maintained here in a similar manner. Note that logical names are not reflected when generating DDL through Forward Engineering.

Export and Import

You can maintain functional descriptions offline and with team members without a SqlDBM license using the export and upload functionality.

For more information on this feature, please see the related article at the end of this post.

Explorer Search

An expanded version of the search functionality described above can be found in the Database and Diagram Explorer screens.

Click on the "Database Explorer" or "Diagram Explorer" icons from the left pane and find the search window in the same location as in Database Documentation.

Unlike Database Documentation, these screens will display all database objects and allow you to search using the same wildcard match functionality.

The wildcard match of the search term will look for matches in:

º Table names

º Column names

º View Names

º Descriptions

º Schemas

º File Formats

º References

º Virtual References