Customizing Labels & Tooltips

Katalogue stores the label text, tooltip descriptions, and optional instructions for every form field in the public.display_name database table. Admins can customize these texts to match organizational terminology or add guidance for users filling in forms.

The display_name Table

Each row in public.display_name corresponds to one field in the GUI. The columns that can be meaningfully customized are:

Column	Purpose
display_name_code	Unique identifier for the field — do not modify
display_name	Label text shown next to the input field
display_name_alternative_name	Alternative label used in certain UI contexts
display_name_description	Tooltip text shown when hovering over the label
display_name_instruction	Additional instructions shown in the tooltip below the description text.

Finding the Code for a Field

display_name_code matches the field name used in the UI. These do also map against column names in the database. For example, the System Name field uses the code system_name, which is the same as the public.system_name table. To list all available codes along with their current labels and descriptions:

SELECT
  display_name_code,
  display_name,
  display_name_description,
  display_name_instruction
FROM public.display_name
ORDER BY display_name_code;

Making Changes

Use a standard SQL UPDATE to change any of the customizable columns.

Danger

Do not modify display_name_code. It is used internally by the application to look up the correct row, and changing it will break the label and tooltip for that field.

Rename a label — for example, rename “System” to “Application”:

UPDATE public.display_name
SET display_name = 'Application'
WHERE display_name_code = 'system_name';

Add or update a tooltip description:

UPDATE public.display_name
SET display_name_description = 'The source system that owns this data asset, e.g. SAP ERP or Salesforce.'
WHERE display_name_code = 'system_name';

Add or update instructions — instructions appear below the description under a bold “Instructions” header in the tooltip:

UPDATE public.display_name
SET display_name_instruction = 'Use the official system name from the enterprise architecture register.'
WHERE display_name_code = 'system_name';

Note

Changes take effect after the user refreshes the page. Display names are loaded once when the application starts, so active sessions will not see the update until they reload.

Reverting Changes

To remove a description or instruction, set the column back to NULL:

UPDATE public.display_name
SET display_name_description = NULL,
    display_name_instruction = NULL
WHERE display_name_code = 'system_name';

To restore a label or description to its original text, refer to the seed data in /services/db/tables/display_name.sql in the Katalogue source repository — this file contains the default values for every row.