Best Practices for Designing a Custom Taxonomy

A well-structured taxonomy is essential for effective tagging and policy enforcement in Data 360.

• Define a clear purpose and scope: Start by identifying the specific objective your taxonomy supports, such as tagging customer data, sales information, or operational metrics. A focused scope keeps the structure manageable and relevant.
• Involve key stakeholders: Collaborate with business teams who plan to use or manage the taxonomy. Their input ensures the taxonomy is practical, aligns with business processes, and uses familiar terminology.
• Prioritize clarity over complexity: Favor simple, clear business terms over technical or ambiguous language. Taxonomies must be intuitive and easy for non-technical users to apply correctly.
• Structure using parent and child tags: Organize your taxonomy in a hierarchy that supports both broad classification and detailed categorization:
  • Parent tags: Establish broad, logical groupings relevant to your objective. For example, Customer Data, Product Information, and Operational Metrics.
  • Child tags: Create specific descriptors nested within each parent tag. For example, under Customer Data: Contact Info, Order History, and Support Tickets.
• Maintain consistency:
  • Use standardized naming conventions. For example, always use Customer ID instead of variations like Cust_ID or CustomerID).
  • Keep tag names clear and unambiguous. Consistent naming improves usability and ensures better results when using LLM-powered features such as Suggest Tags.
• Start small and iterate:
  • Begin with a small set of parent tags and a few child tags.
  • Test the taxonomy by tagging a sample set of Data 360 objects.
  • Collect feedback from users and refine the structure before expanding it further.