# Add Dataflow attributes to flows

Attributes are custom metadata that can be added to flows to better categorize them. 

Attributes can be of any type and are **configurable** depending on Customers' needs:

* **Confidentiality** attribute, with values Secret, Public, and Reserved.
* **Approved by** attribute, with values CEO, CFO, HR, Team Leader.
* **Error management** attribute, with values Managed and To be managed.
* **Tags** attribute, with totally open values dynamically updated by users depending on the flow.

And so on.

Attributes are structured as dictionaries, i.e. lists of values that a specific attribute can have.

In Data One, 2 categories of attributes exist:

* **Dataflow model attributes**: they are set when modeling flows and automatically spread on instances, they can be Open or Closed - see below - with single or multiple values, and they cannot be deleted.
* **Dataflow instance attributes**: they are manually set on instances, they can have single or multiple values selected from a predefined list, and they can be deleted.

Only Administrators can create and define attributes.

**Dataflow model attributes** can be:

* **Closed**: they can only have the values set when the attribute was defined or modified. Choose this option when the range of possible attribute values is known up-front and you want to have strict control on the attribute content.
* **Open**: the values set when the attribute was defined or modified can be extended with new values when the flow is modeled. Choose this option when the range of possible values is not known up-front or its nature is dynamic.

**Dataflow instance attributes** are always Closed.

Moreover, all attributes can have multiple values or just a single value.

If you want users to be as free as possible, set the attribute to **Open** and allow multiple values. An example of using open attributes is TAGS with values dynamically added by users.\
If you want users to select values only from a pre-configured specific list of values, set the attribute to **Closed** and force them to select only from the list of values that you have defined.

The Administrator is in charge of configuring the attributes that the user will select when modeling a flow - in the **Dataflow Modeler** section - or when the instance of a flow needs to be filled in with extra information - in the **Inquiry** section.

Refer to the [Dataflow attributes](/data-watcher-1.21/setup/dataflow-attributes.md) page for details on how to configure attributes. 


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