Enable Hat Switching¶

Applies to releases before 2020.3.x

Note

The Hats feature is no longer available in 2020.3.x and newer releases.

Hats switching is enabled through configuration. To enable hats,

In Build 4.13 and Above¶

Enter the Alation Shell:
```
sudo /etc/init.d/alation shell
```
Check the value of the flag alation.feature_flags.disable_hats in Alation configuration. For Hats to be enabled, this flag should be set to “False”:
```
alation_conf alation.feature_flags.disable_hats
```
To set this flag to False:
```
alation_conf alation.feature_flags.disable_hats -s False
```

3. After changing the flag value, restart Alation Supervisor:

alation_supervisor restart all

After restart, the Hats feature should become available to Alation users.

Note

To disable Hat switching, in alation_conf, set alation.feature_flags.disable_hats to “True” and restart Alation Supervisor.

Forcing One Hat for All Users¶

If necessary, you can choose to force one hat value for all users. In case a specific Hat is forced for all, users will neither need to select a hat for themselves after log-in nor will be able to switch hats in the process of their work in Alation. One specific arrangement of tabs - “Analyst” or “Data Steward” will be enforced for all users.

To force a hat,

Enter the Alation Shell:
sudo /etc/init.d/alation shell
Go to Alation configuration file, disable switching Hats and set a value for the alation.catalog.hats.force_hat parameter. It can be one of the values:
- ‘analyst’ - to enforce the Analyst Hat for all users
- ‘steward’ - to enforce the Data Steward Hat for all users
alation_conf alation.feature_flags.disable_hats -s True alation.catalog.hats.force_hat = 'analyst'
Restart Alation Supervisor:
alation_supervisor restart all

After restart, all users will have one view of the Alation UI that corresponds to the enforced Hat.

In Builds Before 4.13¶

Enter the Alation Shell:
sudo /etc/init.d/alation shell

In the file /opt/alation/django/main/settings_local.py

sudo vi /opt/alation/django/main/settings_local.py

add the following values

ALATION_HIDE_HAT_SWITCHER = False
ALATION_DEFAULT_HAT = None
ALATION_FORCE_HAT = None

Save the file /opt/alation/django/main/settings_local.py
Check the value of the flag alation.feature_flags.disable_hats in the Alation configuration. If it is set to True, set it to False.
```
alation_conf alation.feature_flags.disable_hats
```
```
alation_conf alation.feature_flags.disable_hats -s False
```
Restart Alation Supervisor:
```
alation_supervisor restart all
```
Note

If necessary, you can choose to force a hat value in /opt/alation/django/main/settings_local.py. If one hat is forced for all, users will not be able to switch their hats and will all have the same hat option. Use lowercase letters for the user type value - ‘analyst’ or ‘steward’. Restart Alation Supervisor after making this change.
```
ALATION_FORCE_HAT ='analyst'
```

Populating the Governance Tracking Dashboard¶

If the Hats are enabled, you need to populate the Governance Tracking Dashboard for the users wearing the Data Steward Hat. For details on Governance Tracking Dashboard, see Populating the Governance Tracking Dashboard.