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Setup & integrations

Data dictionary

The per-Org map from Slate field names to semantic meaning. This is what lets Celia reason about meaning instead of opaque field codes.

Customer-app route
/settings/data-dictionary
Who uses this
Every authenticated team member.

What it is

Your institution's translation layer. Celia ingests Slate field names verbatim, then looks them up in this dictionary to know what each one represents. Without entries, Celia falls back to the field name itself — which is fine for canonical names but useless for custom SS_* fields.

What you can do here

Anatomy of an entry

  • Field name — exact Slate column name (e.g., SS_FAFSA_STATUS).
  • Label — human-friendly version ("FAFSA submission status").
  • Type — text, number, date, boolean, enum.
  • Description — what the value represents semantically.
  • Allowed values — for enum types, the canonical value set.

Common workflows

Stand up a brand new dictionary

  1. Export your Slate field schema as CSV.
  2. Add a Label, Type, and Description column.
  3. Import via /settings/data-dictionary/import.

Fix a single bad description

  1. Search for the field name.
  2. Click into it.
  3. Edit the Description and save. Celia uses the new text on the next analysis.

Common gotchas

Celia keeps using the field name itself

You haven't added a dictionary entry for that field yet, or the field name in the entry doesn't exactly match the Slate column.

Talk-to-Celia says "I don't know that field"

Same root cause — add a dictionary entry and refresh.