Discover page and domains

Beta

This feature is in Beta.

The Discover page is a curated browsing experience for your organization to discover data assets and insights in Databricks. Discover provides an intuitive interface that showcases your assets and insights without requiring deep technical knowledge of catalog hierarchies. Use domains in the discovery experience to logically organize data in a way that's best suited for your business.

warning

Domains are built on tags. Tag data is stored as plain text and is replicated globally. Do not use tag names, values, or descriptors that could compromise the security of your resources. For example, do not use tag names, values or descriptors that contain personal or sensitive information.

Custom section data is replicated globally, including titles and descriptions in custom sections on the Discover page and domain pages. Do not use domain IDs, descriptions, subtitles, or other metadata that could compromise the security of your resources. For example, do not use domain IDs, descriptions, or subtitles that contain personal or sensitive information.

Roles

• Curators: Create and manage domains, assign assets to them, customize the Discover page and domain pages, and enable others in your organization to browse data by business purpose in the Discover page. As a curator, you can organize and highlight the most valuable assets for your organization. See Steps for curators.
• Consumers: Use the Discover page to find curated assets organized by domain or asset type, and explore AI-recommended assets that might be useful. See Steps for consumers.

What is Databricks Discover?

Databricks Discover is a centralized discovery page that enables:

• Browse by domains, a business-aligned organization layer where you can organize data assets (for example, tables, dashboards, adn Genie spaces) to meet business needs.
• Custom curation capabilities where curators can customize and highlight specific assets in their organization or domain.
• AI-powered recommendations to surface popular and valuable datasets to enable curation at scale.
• Unified discovery experience across tables, dashboards, queries, notebooks, and more.

What are domains?

Domains are an organization layer that groups data products and assets by governed tags. Domains help users find data that relates to their needs more easily. To add an asset to a domain, add the corresponding governed tag to the asset.

Enable or disable the Discover page and domains

note

Domains are an account-level concept that utilize governed tags. Domains that you configure apply to the whole account, not select workspaces.

To enable the Discover page with domains, an account admin must enable both of the following previews:

• Domains and Discover Page: Enabled per account.
• Discover Page: Enabled per workspace.

See Manage Databricks previews.

Access the Discover page

In the sidebar, click Discover to access the Discover page.

Steps for curators

The Discover page with domains is a powerful tool to shape how other users in your organization can browse and discover key assets. Domains let consumers browse data in a way that's aligned with how they understand your business within your organization. Each domain page also allows curators to create custom collections on that page to further guide and emphasize the best assets in that domain.

important

You must have the MANAGE DISCOVERY permission to customize the Discover page and manage domains. Account admins and workspace admins have this permission by default. Account admins can grant the permission to other users.

Create a domain

Domains are built on governed tags. To create a domain, you can either map it to an existing tag or create a governed tag with the same name. For example, to create a "Marketing" domain, you must create a "Marketing" governed tag.

1. In the top-right corner of the Discover page, click Create domain.

   

2. In the Create domain modal, select an existing governed tag or create a new one, then fill out the following fields:

   • Subtitle: Appears on the domain card.
   • Description: The domain overview.
   • Technical owner (optional): Who is responsible for technical aspects of the domain.
   • Business owner (optional): Who is responsible for business aspects of the domain.

   

3. Click Create to create the domain and add a corresponding draft domain card on the Discover page.

   When you create a domain, it is in the draft state. The draft state is indicated by an icon next to the title. Draft domains are only visible to users with the MANAGE DISCOVERY permission.

4. You can add assets and customize the domain layout by clicking Edit Sections before publishing the domain page.

5. When you publish the domain page, the domain becomes visible for all users visiting the Discover page. It also allows users to use the domain as a filter in the search experience.

Assign assets to a domain

There are multiple ways to add assets to a domain:

• Add them directly from the domain page.
• Apply the corresponding governed tag to the assets.

From the domain page

1. Go to the Discover page and click the domain you want to add assets to.
2. Click Add to Domain on the top right. You must have the permission to add the associated tag to the asset you are attempting to add to the domain.
3. In the Asset Selector modal, select the asset you would like to add to the domain and click Add.
   • The Asset Selector allows you to browse and search for assets across your workspace and catalog.
   • Depending on the type of assets you want to add, you can switch between Workspace (for assets like dashboards and Genie spaces) and Catalog (for assets like tables and metric views).
   • You can add one asset to a domain at a time.
4. If successfully added, the asset is displayed in the Recently Added section.

By tagging assets

To assign an asset (for example, a catalog, schema, table, or dashboard) to a domain, you can also tag it with the governed tag that matches the domain. You can apply tags to tables, dashboards, and Genie spaces. See Apply tags to Unity Catalog securable objects.

Customize the Discover page and domain layouts

warning

Custom section data is replicated globally. Do not use titles, subtitles, or other metadata that could compromise the security of your resources. For example, do not use titles or subtitles that contain personal or sensitive information.

1. Click Edit Sections at the top-right of the Discover page or any domain page. This takes you to a draft state of the page where you can customize the existing sections, create custom sections, delete custom sections, and hide default sections.
2. To create a new section, click the + Section divider.
3. In the Create section modal, add a Title and a Subtitle, then define a set of assets that will be highlighted on the Discover page or the domain page. Users browsing the domain or Discover page must have either the BROWSE or VIEW permission to see the items in this collection.

1. Click Save, then click Publish to update the current Discover page or domain layout for your organization.

Edit a domain

1. Click Manage Domains from the Discover page.
2. For the domain you'd like to edit, click the kebab menu on the right.
3. Click Edit domain.

Delete a domain

1. Go to the Domain Management page.
2. For the domain you'd like to delete, click the kebab menu on the right.
3. Click Remove domain.

Manage discovery permissions

Account admins can grant users the MANAGE DISCOVERY permission so they can customize the Discover page and manage domains.

1. On the Discover page, click Manage Domains.
2. Click the Permissions tab.
3. Click Grant Permissions to grant the permission to the corresponding principal.

Steps for consumers

Browse by domain

Click a card under Browse by domain.

You can now see the assets in the domain.

Browse by asset type

On the Discover page, scroll down to view different sections by asset type, such as Dashboards and Tables.

Click View all under any asset type to browse all assets of that type, including Certified assets and Assets suggested by AI.

Limitations

• For limitations on the number of domains you can create per account, see Resource limits.
• For limitations on the number of tags you can apply, see Resource limits.

Provide feedback

1. In the Databricks workspace, click your user icon, then click Send feedback.
2. Describe your feedback or issue in detail.
3. Submit your feedback directly to the Databricks product team.

Next steps

After discovering datasets using the Discover page:

• Explore detailed table information, lineage, and relationships in Catalog Explorer.
• Learn more about tags and how to use them to organize your data assets.
• Query data using notebooks or the SQL editor.
• Review table insights to understand how data is being used in your workspace.
• Understand Unity Catalog privileges to manage access to datasets.