# What is Telmai

Telmai is a data quality monitoring platform that runs inside **Microsoft Fabric**. It enables data teams to set up automated checks across their Fabric Lakehouses and Warehouses, detect issues before they impact downstream users, and investigate root causes with AI assistance.

***

## Key Concepts

| Concept        | Description                                                                                           |
| -------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Data Asset** | A Fabric table (Lakehouse or Warehouse) registered in Telmai for monitoring                           |
| **Monitor**    | A data quality check attached to an asset — runs on a schedule and produces a metric                  |
| **Incident**   | A data quality issue created automatically when a monitor's metric crosses a threshold                |
| **MonitorSet** | The Fabric item type you create in a workspace — it houses all monitors and assets for that workspace |
| **Scan Job**   | A batch of monitor checks executed together (on a schedule or triggered on demand)                    |

***

## Monitor Types

Telmai supports five built-in check types:

| Monitor          | What it checks                                                     |
| ---------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Record Count** | Row count over time — detects data loss or unexpected spikes       |
| **Freshness**    | How recently a table was updated — detects stale data              |
| **Completeness** | Percentage of non-null values in key columns                       |
| **Schema**       | Structural changes — column additions, removals, or type changes   |
| **Custom SQL**   | Any business rule expressed as a T-SQL `SELECT` returning a number |

***

## How Monitoring Works

1. You connect a Fabric table as a data asset
2. Telmai deploys monitors (you can use the 4 defaults or configure your own)
3. Monitors run automatically on their configured schedule
4. When a metric crosses a threshold, an **Incident** is created
5. Incidents trigger notifications via your configured alert channels (Slack, Teams, email, etc.)
6. You investigate, acknowledge, and resolve incidents from the Incidents page

***

## Privacy and Data Residency

Your data stays inside your Fabric tenant at all times. Telmai's DQ engine runs within your workspace and only sends computed metric values — row counts, null percentages, timestamps — back to the platform. Raw data is never transmitted outside Fabric.

***

## Access and Roles

Telmai uses your existing Microsoft Fabric workspace roles. No separate user management is required.

| Fabric Role                    | What you can do in Telmai                                                           |
| ------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Workspace Admin                | Full access: configure monitors, manage integrations, use AI Copilot, trigger scans |
| Workspace Member / Contributor | Create and edit monitors, manage incidents, use AI Copilot, trigger scans           |
| Workspace Viewer               | Read-only access to assets, monitors, incidents, and reports                        |


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://fabric-docs.telm.ai/getting-started/overview.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.