Preparing data

After you create a project, or join one, the next step is to add data to the project and prepare the data for analysis.

Required permissions
You must have the Admin or Editor role in a project to add or prepare data.

Methods for adding data to a project

You can add data assets from your local system or from connections to data sources. See Adding data to a project.

You can add these types of data assets to a project:

  • Data assets from files from your local system, including structured data, unstructured data, and images.
  • Connection assets that contain information for connecting to data sources. You can add connections to IBM or third-party data sources. See Connectors.
  • Connected data assets that specify a table, view, or file that is accessed through a connection to a data source.
  • Connected folder assets that specify a path in IBM Cloud Object Storage.

You can protect your data with data source definitions.

The methods that you can choose from to prepare data with tools depend on which services that are installed on your system.

Methods for preparing data and their services
Method Required service
Protecting data sources Common core services
Refining data with Data Refinery Data Refinery
Managing feature groups (beta) Watson Studio
Curating data IBM Knowledge Catalog
Managing data quality IBM Knowledge Catalog
Transforming data with DataStage DataStage
Virtualizing data with Data Virtualization Data Virtualization
Masking data Data Privacy
Managing master data Match 360
Replicating data Data Replication

Learn more