An Introduction to Palantir Foundry

Name: An Introduction to Palantir Foundry
Rating: 4.6 (44 reviews)

A short explainer on what Palantir Foundry is, what it can do, and the best order to set about learning it

Created byEmma Saunders

Last updated 3/2026

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What you'll learn

Understand what Palantir Foundry does
Understand how to categorise Foundry's many modules into clear categories
Understand the key three modules, out of the 50+ on offer
Understand what Pipeline Builder is for, and why it is key
Understand what the Ontology is for, and why it is key
Understand what Workshop is for, and why it is key

Course content

1 section • 6 lectures • 25m total length

What is Palantir Foundry?1:50
An introduction to both the course, and a recommendation to start by watching the free introductory course for context. A summary of all that we will learn in this course.
My five-pillar framework for understanding Foundry's many modules6:21
In this lecture, I introduce a simple five-pillar framework that makes sense of Foundry’s large app list. We’ll group the platform into stages such as ingesting data, transforming it, adding meaning through the Ontology, and building applications for end users. This framework will help you understand where each tool fits and avoid feeling overwhelmed.
What Pipeline Builder does — and why it’s central to Foundry7:01
Pipeline Builder is one of the most important tools in Foundry. In this lecture, you’ll learn what Pipeline Builder does, how it supports ingest, transformation, and publishing, and why most data workflows in Foundry begin here. Understanding this tool gives you a strong foundation for working with data pipelines and datasets.
What the Ontology Manager is for, and why it matters4:32
The Ontology is what turns datasets into a structured model of your organisation. In this lecture, you’ll learn how Ontology Manager is used to define object types, relationships, and business meaning. We’ll also see how this layer enables applications, analytics, and AI features to work with consistent, trusted data.
What Workshop is for, and why most Foundry users end up here4:15
Workshop is where data becomes useful to the business. In this lecture, you’ll learn what Workshop is, how it’s used to build operational applications, and how it differs from other apps like Contour, Notepad, and Quiver. This is the layer where users interact with data, make decisions, and run processes.
Summary and Next Steps1:29
A summary of what we've learned, a plea for reviews, and suggested Next Steps. It's still worth taking the free introductory course for context, and if you want to learn Foundry end to end, you could try the Pipelines and Ontology courses. More courses on Foundry will come!

Requirements

No pre-requisite. This orientation is aimed at complete beginners, starting their Foundry journey

Description

This free course introduces a map to Foundry - a way of making sense of the 50+ modules that sit within it, so you can chart your way to effective learning. After this, we focus on the three key applications and see what they can do: Pipeline Builder, Ontology Manager and Workshop.

You’ll start by seeing how Foundry fits together at a high level, so you’re not just clicking around a long list of tools and hoping for the best. Instead, you’ll have a simple mental model that shows where each module belongs, what role it plays in the wider platform, and when you actually need to care about it. We’ll then zoom in on the three applications that matter most for new users. Pipeline Builder will give you a feel for how data is brought into Foundry, transformed, and prepared for real analysis. Ontology Manager will show you how that prepared data is turned into a meaningful, business‑friendly model that everyone can understand and reuse. Finally, Workshop will demonstrate how end users can explore data, build dashboards, and answer real questions without having to understand all the plumbing behind the scenes. By the end of the course, you’ll know where you are in the Foundry “map”, which tools to reach for first, and what to learn next to keep making progress with confidence.

Who this course is for:

Professionals whose organisations are adopting or have adopted Palantir Foundry or Maven