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How to Define Personas

What is a Persona?

In OpenMetadata, a persona represents an organization’s specific role or function, such as a data engineer, data steward, or data scientist. Personas define how the user interacts with the platform by tailoring the interface and functionality to their role. Example:
  • A data engineer might focus on pipelines and data quality.
  • A data steward is more concerned with governance and glossary management.

Steps to Define a Persona:

  1. As an administrator, navigate to Settings > Personas in OpenMetadata.
Settings > Personas
  1. Create a new persona or modify an existing one.
Add Persona form with Name, Display Name, Description, and Users fields Persona detail page with the Customize UI and Users tabs
  1. Associate users with the appropriate persona to customize their experience based on their roles.
Users tab of a persona with the Add User button Add Users form with the Users field and the Cancel and Save buttons

Manage a Persona

Select a persona in Settings > Personas to open its detail page. Only admins see Personas. The page header and tabs offer the following actions. Persona detail page with copy link, rename, Set as Default, and delete in the header, and the Customize UI and Users tabs
  • Copy URL: Click the copy icon next to the title to copy a link to the persona. OpenMetadata confirms with “Link copied to clipboard”.
  • Rename: Click the pencil icon to change the display name. This needs the EditDescription permission.
  • Edit the description: Edit the text under Description, and then save it.
  • Set as Default or Remove Default: Click the button in the header to make this persona the organization default, or to remove that status. This needs the EditAll permission.
  • Delete: Click the delete icon and confirm. This needs the EditAll or Delete permission.
Persona page header showing the Remove Default button for the default persona
Set as Default is a button in the page header in AI mode. In Classic mode, open the ⋮ menu on the persona page and select Set as Default instead. Only one persona can be the default. Setting a new default removes the previous one for all users.

Users Tab

The Users tab lists the users assigned to the persona, with their teams and roles.
  • Click Add User, select the users in the Users field, and click Save.
  • Use the remove action in a row to take a user out of the persona.