Metadata - annotations - extended properties

[JuanSombrero23]

Hi,

I was curious about use cases or experiences on where and how to use these fields. I find barely any content on this topic. I know Michael Kovalsky had some smart scripts, but I was wondering how you guys are using it, and maybe nowadays with agentic developent, you use it for additional content, maybe flag things as 'up for review' after an agent touched it,...just curious what it's for and if I'm missing out on some good stuff by not being aware of any real applications...

[mlonsk]

Hi @JuanSombrero23
The Annotation property is basically a collection of "free text" properties that have no bearing on how the semantic model operates. They are purely informational. For example, Tabular Editor 3 uses a TabularEditor_TableGroup annotation to set the table group which is shown in the application.

Extended properties are similar, but can have an impact on how Power BI interprets the model. For example, the way Power BI knows whether a calculated table is a field parameter is through an extended property, which you can see in this C# script for creating a field parameter: https://docs.tabulareditor.com/en/features/CSharpScripts/Beginner/script-create-field-parameter.html

You can use both for any purpose you might have, but I would suggest using Annotations - if you, for example, are using agents, it could be a possibility to use a hook or the like to ensure that whenever they edit an object, an Annotation informing you of this could be set by it.

[JuanSombrero23]

So I have Claude now adding the annotation key-value pair "to be reviewed = true" when it touches something. But I cannot filter on this using the tom explorer search bar. How can I bring up all that "is to be reviewed" so I can review and remove the annotation once done...

[mlonsk]

Hi @JuanSombrero23
You need to use the Find/Replace dialog box to search annotations, not the TOM Explorer search bar - you can access it through Ctrl+F

Set the scope to Model and make sure to choose annotations in the options, as they are not selected by default.