What you will be able to do
- Search for certified or deprecated assets with the certificationStatus keyword and the Certification status filter
- Choose between the Discover page and Catalog Explorer for a discovery task
- Inspect and query a table with SQL or Catalog Explorer, knowing what BROWSE does and does not allow
- Use coalesce to supply defaults for NULL values when querying a table
- Trace a table's upstream and downstream lineage in Catalog Explorer before trusting it
1.Searching by certification status
A certified badge helps only if people can find the certified asset in the first place. Workspace search lets you filter on the badge directly: in the Search field, you use the certificationStatus keyword, and you can combine it with an object type.
type:table certificationStatus:certifiedSearching for certificationStatus:deprecated on its own returns deprecated assets of every supported type. If you prefer not to type keywords, the search filters include a Certification status menu with Certified and Deprecated options. The Discover page offers another route: under any asset type, View all lists every asset of that type, including Certified assets and Assets suggested by AI.
Search has one more limitation. Dashboards, Genie Agents and Databricks apps can be certified, but you cannot find them by tag in search.
Checkpoint 1 of 6· Check yourself
Which certified asset will NOT be returned when you search by certification status?
Dashboards, Genie Agents and Databricks apps can carry the tag, but search by tag does not support them.
“Search using tags is not supported on dashboards, Genie Agents, or Databricks apps.”Source: docs.databricks.com
Checkpoint 2 of 6· Exam question
A Unity Catalog admin is scripting the certification of newly onboarded Gold-layer tables as part of a nightly job, and wants to avoid the manual UI workflow. Which SQL statement correctly marks a table as certified?
Correct answer: A — `ALTER TABLE gold.sales.orders SET TAGS ('system.certification_status' = 'certified')` applies the certification system tag directly through SQL.
- A. Certification is implemented as the `system.certification_status` governed tag, so setting it to `certified` through `ALTER TABLE ... SET TAGS` is the SQL equivalent of the UI's "Assign certification" action. This is exactly how a scripted nightly job would certify a table without opening Catalog Explorer.
- B. Unity Catalog has no `CERTIFIED` privilege type, and `GRANT` statements only manage access-control permissions like `SELECT` or `MODIFY`. Certification status cannot be changed through a grant.
- C. Table comments are free-text documentation and are not parsed by Catalog Explorer to determine certification status. Writing the word "certified" into a comment has no effect on the check mark icon or search filtering.
- D. Changing table ownership only affects who manages and can grant permissions on the object; it has no bearing on certification, which is tracked independently through the certification tag.
2.Discover page or Catalog Explorer?
Unity Catalog has two places to browse data, and they answer different questions. The Discover page (Public Preview), which you open from Discover in the sidebar, is a curated view. Curators group assets into business domains and subdomains, highlight the most valuable ones, and AI-powered recommendations surface popular datasets. It works well for a consumer who wants the assets the organization recommends.
Catalog Explorer, which you open from Catalog in the sidebar, shows every object, arranged in the catalog → schema → object hierarchy. It also shows details the curated view leaves out: object properties, permissions, sample data and lineage. Use it when you need the complete picture or need to inspect one particular object.
Checkpoint 3 of 6· Match them up
Match each tool to what it gives you
Tap a term, then the definition that fits it.
The Discover page is the curated subset, and Catalog Explorer is the complete, inspectable view. The search keyword and the Lineage tab are the tools for filtering by trust and for tracing data flow.
“Whereas the Discover page presents a curated subset of your data, Catalog Explorer shows everything in your catalogs”Source: docs.databricks.com
3.Inspecting and querying a table
Once you have found a candidate table, you inspect it before you rely on it, and the two tools need different privileges. Catalog Explorer requires at least BROWSE on the object, and you can navigate Unity Catalog objects there without any running compute. SQL requires at least SELECT on the object, plus USE CATALOG on its parent catalog and USE SCHEMA on its parent schema. That is why a user with only BROWSE can see a table's page but cannot DESCRIBE it. One part of the UI does need compute: the Sample Data tab only works when you have access to active compute.
| Task | SQL | Catalog Explorer |
|---|---|---|
| List tables in a schema | SHOW TABLES IN catalog_name.schema_name | Select the schema |
| View columns | SHOW COLUMNS IN table_name | Columns tab |
| View details and properties | DESCRIBE TABLE / SHOW TBLPROPERTIES | Details tab |
| Preview rows | SELECT * FROM table_name LIMIT 1000; | Sample Data tab (needs active compute) |
| Review change history (Delta tables) | DESCRIBE HISTORY table_name | History tab |
Certification tells you whether an asset can be trusted. It does not guarantee that every column is filled, so queries still need to handle NULLs. In Databricks SQL, coalesce returns its first non-null argument. It evaluates the arguments from left to right and stops at the first non-null value, so later arguments are never evaluated. If every argument is NULL, it returns NULL.
> SELECT coalesce(NULL, 1, NULL);
1
-- The following example raises a runtime error because the second argument is evaluated.
> SELECT coalesce(NULL, 5 / 0);
Error: DIVISION_BY_ZERO
-- The following example raises no runtime error because the second argument is not evaluated.
> SELECT coalesce(2, 5 / 0);
2
> SELECT coalesce(NULL, 'hello');
helloCheckpoint 4 of 6· Check yourself
What does SELECT coalesce(NULL, NULL) return?
coalesce falls back to NULL when no argument is non-null. It does not raise an error or substitute a default value.
“If all arguments are NULL, the result is NULL.”Source: docs.databricks.com
4.Tracing lineage before you trust a table
A badge tells you that someone vouched for a table. Lineage shows where its data comes from and what depends on it. Unity Catalog captures lineage automatically for queries run on Databricks and displays it in Catalog Explorer. For a table to appear in lineage, it must be registered in a Unity Catalog metastore. To view a table's lineage, you need at least BROWSE on its parent catalog.
Checkpoint 5 of 6· Put it in order
Put the steps for viewing a table's lineage graph in order
- 1.Select the Lineage tab
- 2.Search or browse for your table
- 3.In your Databricks workspace, click Catalog
- 4.Click See Lineage Graph
The Lineage tab first lists the related tables. The interactive graph opens from that tab and shows one level by default.
“Select the Lineage tab. The lineage panel appears and displays related tables.”Source: docs.databricks.com
The graph starts with one level of connections, and you click a node's icon to expand it further. Clicking an edge opens the Lineage details panel, which lists the source and target tables and lets you filter the associated assets by notebooks, jobs, pipelines and queries. Clicking a column in the graph shows column-level lineage, for example the upstream columns that a revenue column was derived from.
Those views list the jobs and dashboards that consume the table downstream. Their owners are the people the restricted icon is meant to warn, so you know who to contact before the table stops being maintained.
Checkpoint 6 of 6· Exam question
Before dropping a Delta table that several downstream dashboards may depend on, a data engineer wants to confirm exactly which dashboards and jobs consume it so the change doesn't break anything. What should they do in Unity Catalog?
Correct answer: A — Open the table in Catalog Explorer and inspect the Lineage tab, which graphs the notebooks, jobs, queries, and dashboards that read from the table.
- A. The Lineage tab in Catalog Explorer graphs the upstream sources and downstream consumers of a table, including the notebooks, jobs, queries, and dashboards that read from it. This is the intended workflow for impact analysis before changing or dropping an asset.
- B. Unity Catalog does not automatically populate a `downstream_consumers` tag; tags are metadata labels applied manually or through governance policy, not an automatic lineage record.
- C. `DESCRIBE HISTORY` reports the table's own write operations, such as inserts, merges, and schema changes, not which external dashboards or jobs later queried the resulting data. It is not a lineage tool.
- D. Holding a `SELECT` grant only means a principal is authorized to query the table; it says nothing about whether that principal has an active job or dashboard actually reading it, so this cannot confirm real downstream dependencies.
Exam traps
Each one states something that sounds right. Open it to see what is actually true.
1.A table certified a moment ago is missing from certificationStatus:certified results, so the tag must not have been applied.Why is that wrong?
Search updates can lag behind tag changes by a few minutes, so a short delay is expected.
Covered in Searching by certification status
2.If a user can see a table in Catalog Explorer, they can also DESCRIBE it in SQL.Why is that wrong?
BROWSE is enough to see an object in Catalog Explorer, but SQL inspection requires SELECT on the object plus USE CATALOG and USE SCHEMA.
Covered in Inspecting and querying a table
3.The Discover page shows every table in the metastore.Why is that wrong?
The Discover page shows a curated subset organized by domain. To see everything, use Catalog Explorer.
Covered in Discover page or Catalog Explorer?
Practise it for real
Certify a table you own, find it through search, and check its lineage before announcing it
1.In the SQL editor, run SET TAG ON TABLE <catalog>.<schema>.<table>
system.certification_status=certified; on a table you ownWhy: Owning the table covers the object-level tagging privileges. You also need ASSIGN on the governed tag.
You should see: The statement succeeds and the table shows a check mark next to its name
2.In workspace search, enter type:table certificationStatus:certified
Why: This confirms that consumers can find the asset by its trust signal
You should see: Your table appears in the results, possibly after a few minutes
3.Open the table in Catalog Explorer, select the Lineage tab, and click See Lineage Graph
Why: Lineage shows what the certified table depends on and what consumes it
You should see: The graph shows one level of related tables, and clicking an edge opens the Lineage details panel
4.From the table's kebab menu, choose Assign certification, select None, and click Save
Why: You can update or remove the status at any time
You should see: The check mark disappears from the table name
Stuck? Get a nudge
If SET TAG fails with a permission error even though you own the table, check whether you have ASSIGN on system.certification_status.
Sources
Every claim above is drawn from one of these pages, quoted as it was written on the date shown.
- 1.https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/data-governance/unity-catalog/certify-deprecate-dataOfficial docs
“In the Search field, use the certificationStatus keyword to query objects by their certification status.”
↩︎ Searching by certification status“It might take a few minutes for certification or deprecation updates to appear in search results.”
↩︎ Exam trap 1“It might take a few minutes for certification or deprecation updates to appear in search results.”
↩︎ Prediction“Search using tags is not supported on dashboards, Genie Agents, or Databricks apps.”
↩︎ Checkpoint - 2.
“Click View all under any asset type to browse all assets of that type, including Certified assets and Assets suggested by AI.”
↩︎ Searching by certification status“This feature is in Public Preview.”
↩︎ Discover page or Catalog Explorer? - 3.
“including details that the curated view doesn't surface: object properties, permissions, sample data, and lineage.”
↩︎ Discover page or Catalog Explorer?“Unity Catalog captures lineage automatically for queries run on Databricks and displays it in Catalog Explorer.”
↩︎ Tracing lineage before you trust a table“Whereas the Discover page presents a curated subset of your data, Catalog Explorer shows everything in your catalogs”
↩︎ Exam trap 3“Whereas the Discover page presents a curated subset of your data, Catalog Explorer shows everything in your catalogs”
↩︎ Checkpoint - 4.
“To view database objects with Catalog Explorer, you must have at least the BROWSE privilege on the objects.”
↩︎ Inspecting and querying a table“To view database objects with SQL, you must have at least the SELECT privilege on the object”
↩︎ Inspecting and querying a table“You can navigate Unity Catalog-governed database objects in Catalog Explorer without active compute.”
↩︎ Inspecting and querying a table“Users with only the BROWSE privilege on an object cannot view table details using the DESCRIBE TABLE SQL command.”
↩︎ Exam trap 2“Users with only the BROWSE privilege on an object cannot view table details using the DESCRIBE TABLE SQL command.”
↩︎ Prediction - 5.
“coalesce evaluates arguments left to right until a non-null value is found.”
↩︎ Inspecting and querying a table“If all arguments are NULL, the result is NULL.”
↩︎ Checkpoint - 6.
“You must have at least the BROWSE privilege on the parent catalog of the table or view.”
↩︎ Tracing lineage before you trust a table“To view column-level lineage, click a column in the graph to show links to related columns.”
↩︎ Tracing lineage before you trust a table“Tables must be registered in a Unity Catalog metastore.”
↩︎ Tracing lineage before you trust a table“Select the Lineage tab. The lineage panel appears and displays related tables.”
↩︎ Checkpoint