---
title: What is Tiering
slug: /how-to-guides/data-insights/tiering
---

# What is Tiering

Tiering is an important concept of data classification in OpenMetadata. Data Producers and Consumers can set business importance of data by setting Tiers. `Tier 1` is the most important data of an organization.

In OpenMetadata, Tiers are System Classification tags and can be accessed from **Govern > Classification > Tier**.

{% image
src="/images/v1.8/how-to-guides/governance/tier1.png"
alt="Classification Tags: Tiers"
caption="Classification Tags: Tiers"
/%}

In case of tiering, it is easiest to start with the most important (Tier 1) and the least important (Tier 5) data. Once the **Tier 1** or most important data is identified, organizations can focus on improving the descriptions and data quality. The Data Insights in OpenMetadata helps identify the unused datasets as **Tier 5**. The Tier 5 datasets can be deleted periodically to declutter. Other tiers can be added as per your organizational needs. **Tags** can be added to further mark the data assets.

| **Tier** | **Impact** | **Used for** | **Type of Impact** | **Usage** |
|--- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Tier 1** | High | External & Internal Decisions | Revenue, Regulatory, & Reputational | Highly used |
| **Tier 2** | Moderate | Some External & Mostly Internal Decisions | Some Regulatory | Highly used |
| **Tier 3** | Low | Internal Decisions | - | Highly used (Top N percentile) |
| **Tier 4** | Low | Internal Team Decisions | - | - |
| **Tier 5** | Individual owned | Unused Datasets | - | - |

## How to Add Tiers

From the **Explore** page, select a data asset and click on the edit icon for **Tier**. Select the appropriate tier. Clicking on the arrow next to the tier will provide a description of the tier.

{% image
src="/images/v1.8/how-to-guides/governance/tier2.png"
alt="Add a Tier to Data Asset"
caption="Add a Tier to Data Asset"
/%}

{%inlineCallout
  color="violet-70"
  bold="Set Up Data Insights Ingestion"
  icon="MdArrowForward"
  href="/how-to-guides/data-insights/ingestion"%}
  Set up the ingestion pipeline right from the UI.
{%/inlineCallout%}