Lähteväärtuste

Lähteväärtuste is a term used in data management to describe values that originate from a primary data source and are present in the source data as provided. The concept is part of data provenance and lineage, distinguishing source values from the values that are derived or calculated later in a data pipeline. In practice, lähteväärtuste refer to raw values taken from a source system such as a database, file, API, or sensor, before transformations, enrichments, or aggregations are applied.

The term is formed from the Finnish word lähde (source) and value, with a grammatical suffix that makes it suitable for plural or genitive contexts in some Finnic languages. In data governance, tracking lähteväärtuste helps ensure data traceability, auditability, and compliance by documenting the exact values originally supplied by the source.

In use, distinguishing lähteväärtuste from derived values supports data quality checks and lineage analysis. For example, a customer record may include a birthdate as a lähteväärtus; the age field that is shown in reports would often be a derived value, computed from the birthdate.

Implementation considerations include metadata schemas that record the source system, extraction timestamp, data type, and any validation rules applied to the source values. Lähteväärtuste are central to provenance dashboards, data quality monitoring, and regulatory reporting.

See also: data provenance, data lineage, ETL, data quality.