Microsoft Purview · Unified Catalog Governance
Global Catalog Reader
Read published artifacts across all governance domains that don't have Local Catalog Reader restrictions.
Scope: Read access to published content across all governance domains (except those with Local Catalog Reader)
Permissions
- Search and browse published data products across all domains
- View published glossary terms and business concepts
- Search Unified Catalog for data assets with proper Data Map permissions
- Request access to data products
- View data product metadata and descriptions
- Discover business-curated data across organization
Common use cases
- Business analysts discovering data products for analytics
- Data scientists finding training datasets across organization
- Business users searching for data to meet reporting needs
- Executives browsing available data assets for decision-making
- Cross-functional teams discovering data products from other departments
- New employees understanding organizational data landscape
Best practices
- Assign broadly to business users who need data discovery
- This is the "default" reader role for federated governance
- Users can request access through data product workflows
- Combine with Data Reader in Data Map for asset-level access
- Train users on data product search and discovery features
- Encourage use of natural language search with Security Copilot
Security considerations
- Only shows published content - draft concepts remain hidden
- Does not grant access to underlying data assets (needs Data Map permissions)
- Cannot view domains with Local Catalog Reader restrictions
- Read-only role with minimal security concerns
- Can see data product metadata but not sensitive data itself