The Public Catalog

The catalog is Mycorr's public collection of datasets. A dataset published to it is readable by anyone, and its tables can be imported into anyone's model.

Catalog datasets

A catalog dataset is not an ordinary dataset with a flag set. It is created as one — New catalog dataset on the Datasets page — and it is owned by a role rather than by a person, so it does not disappear with the account that made it.

Publishing rights are held separately from ordinary dataset management: being able to manage a dataset does not make it publishable.

Releasing is publishing

For a catalog dataset, cutting a release and publishing it are the same act, not two steps. The button says Release & Publish, and it does what it says: each member table is pinned at its current version, and the result goes public.

There is no draft state between the two, and no review queue. Take the checks below as the gate, because once released it is out.

What must be resolved first

The app refuses to publish an incomplete dataset, and lists what is missing under Resolve these before publishing:

BlockerWhat it means
Missing dataset descriptionNobody can tell what the dataset is
Missing table descriptionsEvery published table needs its own description
Missing licenceReaders cannot tell what they may do with the data
Missing attributionThe source is uncredited
Invalid primary keyRemove duplicate or empty key values before publishing

These are not style advice. A public dataset with no licence and no description is not usable by the people it is published for, so the checks are enforced rather than suggested.

What published data costs you

Nothing. Catalog data is unbilled: the bytes in a published catalog dataset are not charged to any organization's storage.

Two consequences worth knowing:

  • Importing a catalog table into your own model does not charge you for its storage either — it stays billed to nobody. What it does charge is egress, because the data leaves Mycorr to reach you.
  • A table with attachments cannot enter the catalog. Its files would stay billed to the source organization while being reachable by everyone, which is not a trade anyone agreed to.

Importing from the catalog

A catalog table is imported like any other shared table — it lands in your model as a read-only view onto the original. See Table Import.

Because a catalog dataset publishes releases, what you import is a pinned version. The catalog moves forward when a new release is cut, not every time someone edits a table.