Working collaboratively

You can collaborate with colleagues listed under the same Data Sharing Agreement (DSA). For security reasons, you are not able to collaborate with people outside of your DSA.

Use of Repos in Databricks to work collaboratively by using the connection to GitLab is encouraged in the SDE.

See Using GitLab in the NHS England Secure Data Environment guidance for more information.

Users can also use:

• shared folders
• shared databases

Collaboration spaces allow you to share your work with colleagues under the same DSA. In a shared folder, you can add and amend notebooks.

You may want to share a copy of a notebook with your colleagues using a shared folder or by sharing a notebook in your personal folder.

To access shared folders:

1. From the sidebar, click the Workspace icon.

You will be able to see all the folders, but you will only be able to view the folders you have permissions for.

You should only save notebooks to a shared folder if you want all users with permissions to that folder to have access.

Creating a notebook in the collaboration space is the same as working in your own space. Refer to the Creating and using notebooks section for more information.

You can share a notebook within your personal folder with a designated user, or users in the same DSA.

To share a notebook in your personal folder:

1. From the sidebar, click the Workspace icon.

2. Select your personal folder.

3. Select the notebook you want to share.

4. Click Share.

The Permission Settings Dialogue box will be displayed.

5. Select the user you want to share the notebook with from the drop-down menu.  You can select a single user or all users.

6. Select the permission you want to enable for the user, or users, from the drop-down menu.

7. Click + add.

If you want to share the notebook with more than one user, repeat Steps 4 to 7.

8. Click Save.

The data area allows you to browse the databases available which contain the tables you have access to.

There are 2 types of databases:

• controlled database
• a controlled database holds the core assets that are named in each Data Sharing Agreement and maintained using an established process. A controlled database is read-only

Collaboration database

A collaboration (‘collab’) database is automatically created for each Data Sharing Agreement. A collaboration database is a shared, collaboration database where users have write access.

To view a list of available databases and the tables within them:

1. Click Catalog in the sidebar.

The hive_metastore folder displays the list of available databases. All users have access to the dss_corporate and the ods databases by default.

The Tables folder displays the list of tables in the selected database.

2, Select a table to view the metadata.

The data area displays a preview of the data and will show only the first 50 columns by default.

3. To view all the columns in the table select display all columns.