Data and Information Inventory and Attributes

About This Inventory

The Data and Information Inventory governs every named, recognized type of data or information that the enterprise produces, consumes, stores, or transmits. Each Noun Instance is a governed type — not a specific record, file, or database row, but the class of content that record or file represents. “Customer Profile,” “Supplier Invoice,” “Contract Document,” and “Regulatory Filing” are Noun Instances in this inventory. Each has a permanent Semantic ID, a governed definition, a designated owner, a sensitivity classification, an authoritative source, and a full set of governance attributes that apply everywhere instances of that type appear — regardless of which system holds them, which format they are in, or which environment they reside in.

Document Organization

This document is organized into attribute categories, each forming its own subsection. Each subsection contains one part with an attribute table. The attribute table has three columns: Attribute Name, Maturity, and Description and Notes. The Attribute Name column uses bold black text in Title Case — multi-value attributes append [Multi-Value] below the name, and hierarchical attributes append [Hierarchical]. The Maturity column contains one of three values: Crawl (minimum viable attributes without which the inventory cannot function as a governance instrument), Walk (attributes that add the rigor needed for assessment, rationalization, and financial analysis), or Run (attributes that enable advanced analytics, AI-assisted portfolio intelligence, and cross-inventory derivation). The Description and Notes column is structured into labeled subsections: Description — what the attribute captures; Benefit(s) — the governance value it produces; Source — whether the value is Manual, Derived from another inventory, or Calculated; Examples — concrete sample values where format or convention aids understanding; and Notes — implementation guidance, valid values, or connections to other inventories, omitted when nothing meaningful to add. No attribute in this document is mandatory.

General Governance Principles

For the general inventory governance principles that apply to this inventory — including semantic identifier conventions, data quality standards, owner accountability, lifecycle management, AI-assisted population, and the connection to the Enterprise Model — refer to the IF4IT Enterprise Inventory Management Best Practices document.

Customization

Every attribute in this document is a recommendation — not a mandate. Enterprises are explicitly encouraged to add attributes specific to their context, rename attributes to match their existing vocabulary, adjust valid value sets to match their organizational standards, collapse or expand attribute categories for their tooling, and sequence Crawl/Walk/Run adoption differently based on their priorities. Three things are discouraged: removing foundational Crawl attributes entirely, since data governance consistently fails without them; ignoring the Source designation for Calculated and Derived attributes, since manually entering system-populated values creates data quality problems that compound over time; and abandoning the Semantic Identifier convention, since it is the connective tissue that makes cross-inventory traversal and AI-assisted analysis possible in the Enterprise Model.

Tooling Guidance

The Crawl/Walk/Run maturity tagging in this document applies not only to which attributes to collect but also to what tooling is appropriate at each stage. At Crawl maturity, a well-structured shared spreadsheet — Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel shared via SharePoint, or equivalent — is a completely acceptable starting point for this inventory. A spreadsheet with the Crawl-tagged attributes populated for every known Data and Information type is more valuable than a sophisticated data governance tool with no data in it. At Walk maturity, a lightweight database, Airtable, Notion, or a data governance platform module provides the query, filter, and reporting capabilities that spreadsheets make difficult at scale. At Run maturity, a dedicated data governance platform — Collibra, Alation, Microsoft Purview, Atlan, or equivalent — integrated with the Enterprise Model supports full API connectivity, automated derivation of calculated attributes, and real-time cross-inventory relationship traversal. Governance discipline and data quality matter far more than tooling sophistication — particularly at Crawl and Walk maturity.

The Enterprise Model

This inventory is a component of the Enterprise Model: every record in it, and every attribute of every record, contributes to the enterprise intelligence platform that connects every IT Management discipline — APM, TPM, Enterprise Architecture, IT Operating Environments, and all others — through the typed relationships of the Enterprise Ontology. The Data and Information Inventory is the data layer of that model — the governed vocabulary through which all data flow relationships in the Enterprise Model are expressed.

Suggested Baseline

The content of this document — including all attribute categories, attribute definitions, maturity designations, governance guidance, and structural recommendations — represents the IF4IT’s current best thinking for building and governing a Data and Information Inventory. Everything presented here is a suggested baseline, not a mandate. No attribute is required. No category is mandatory. No structural pattern is enforced. Enterprises are explicitly encouraged to adapt, extend, and reshape everything in this document to match their specific context, vocabulary, regulatory environment, industry, and organizational maturity. The IF4IT does not guarantee that the attributes and guidance presented here are complete, exhaustive, or applicable to every enterprise in every context. Practitioners are the experts in their own organizations — use this document as a starting point, not a ceiling.