Browse assets

List and filter all information assets used in your data processing activities.

Browse Assets

The Browse Assets screen is your organisation's central inventory of all information assets tracked in DPMS — databases, applications, cloud services, devices, and any other resource that carries data protection or security risk. It is the starting point for the entire risk management lifecycle: before you can assign a risk standard, link risk scenarios, implement security controls, or generate a treatment plan, the asset must exist in this list. DPOs, IT administrators, risk managers, and compliance officers all return here regularly — to register new assets, monitor the risk landscape, or verify that every asset is correctly owned and categorised.

How to open it

In the left-hand sidebar, navigate to the Risk Management section and click Assets. The screen opens immediately — no sub-menu or additional tab is required. You need at least read access to assets. Users who have been granted full asset read access can see all assets in the organisation; users with owner-level read access see only the assets they are responsible for. Without either permission, the Assets menu item will not appear in the sidebar, and navigating directly to the address bar will show an access-denied page.

Screenshot

What you see

The screen is divided into two main zones. At the top is a header bar that spans the full width of the page. On the left side of the header the word Assets appears as the page title. On the right side you will find the two primary controls that shape everything you see below: the New Asset button (for users with edit permissions) and the Asset View / Groups View toggle switch.

Directly below the header sits a search and filter bar, also full-width, where you can type free text or build structured filters to narrow the list.

The rest of the screen is occupied by the asset table — rows of data, one per asset (or per asset group when you switch to Groups View). Column headers run across the top of the table; clicking certain headers sorts the list. At the bottom, additional records load as you scroll or page through the list.

When no assets have been created yet, or when your active filters match nothing, the table body shows an empty-state indicator rather than leaving a blank space.

Working with this screen

Registering a new asset for the first time

When a new system, application, or service needs to be tracked — say, a CRM tool your organisation just procured — the first step is to check whether it already exists. Type the tool's name into the search bar and scan the results. If nothing comes back, click the New Asset button in the top-right corner. This opens the asset creation form with blank fields.

Fill in the Name field in your organisation's primary language (names are stored per language so colleagues working in other locales will see the translated version once it is added). Choose the appropriate Type — for example, "Software" — and enter the Location (such as "AWS eu-west-1"). Assign yourself or the relevant colleague as the Responsible Person, and designate the privacy or risk lead as the Risk Owner. Once you save, DPMS registers the asset, updates every asset dropdown across the system (so other screens that let users link assets will immediately show this new record), and takes you directly to the asset's detail screen. From there, you can assign the asset to a group and link it to a risk standard — two steps that are essential before any risk score can be calculated.

Heads up: Creating the asset record is only the first step. Until the asset belongs to a group (or has asset-specific risk management enabled on its detail screen) and is linked to a risk standard, the risk columns in this list will remain empty. The asset will be visible here, but it will not appear in any risk workflow.

Switching between individual assets and asset groups

The Asset View / Groups View toggle in the top-right of the header controls what the table shows. In the default Asset View, each row is one individual asset. Clicking the toggle to Groups View reorganises the table so that each row represents an asset group — a logical collection of related assets such as "Cloud Infrastructure" or "HR Systems."

Groups View is particularly useful for risk managers who want a high-level picture before a board report: instead of scrolling through dozens of individual assets, you see the aggregated risk scores for each group side by side. Clicking any group row opens the asset group detail screen, where you can drill into the individual assets and their associated risk scenarios.

Your view preference is saved automatically in your browser. The next time you open the Assets screen — even after logging out and back in — DPMS will remember whether you last used Asset View or Groups View.

Tip: The toggle is saved per browser, not per account. If a colleague opens the same URL on their machine, they will see their own saved preference. If someone reports that they "can't see individual assets," ask them to check whether the Groups View toggle is active.

Filtering the list to find specific assets

The search and filter bar lets you narrow the table in two ways. You can type a name directly to do a free-text search, or you can build a structured filter by selecting a field (such as Groups or Type), an operator, and a value.

A common compliance scenario: a compliance officer needs to verify that every asset in the "HR Systems" group has an assigned responsible person. They click the filter bar, select Groups, choose "equals," and type "HR Systems." The table instantly narrows to show only assets in that group. The officer then scans the Asset Owner column; any row with an empty owner field identifies an asset that needs attention. Clicking that row opens the detail screen where an owner can be assigned.

You can also arrive at a pre-filtered view automatically. When you navigate back from an asset group's detail screen by clicking the group name in the breadcrumb, DPMS pre-populates the group filter for you. To see all assets again, simply clear the filter in the search bar.

Reviewing assets one by one using next / previous navigation

After applying a filter — for example, narrowing the list to all assets of type "Database" — you can step through matching assets without returning to the list between each one. Click the first asset row to open its detail screen. In the breadcrumb area at the top of the detail screen, you will see left and right arrow icons. Clicking the right arrow moves you to the next asset in your filtered set; the left arrow returns to the previous one. This is especially useful for DPOs who need to review the general information of every asset in a particular category before an audit.

When you have finished, click the Assets breadcrumb link to return to the list with your filter still in place.

Deleting or acting on an asset without opening it

Each row in the asset table has a three-dot menu (⋯) that appears when you hover over the row. Clicking this icon opens a small dropdown with contextual actions such as Delete or Duplicate. This allows an IT administrator to decommission an asset quickly without navigating into the full detail screen first. Destructive actions such as Delete are only available if you have write permission on assets; read-only users will not see these options.

Field reference

The columns visible in the asset table reflect the most important attributes of each asset record. Here is what each column contains and what to look out for:

Name — The asset's display name in your current language. If a name has not been entered in your language, DPMS falls back to another available language. A dash (—) means no name has been entered in any language; this should be corrected on the detail screen.
Type — One or more type tags assigned to the asset (for example, "Software", "Hardware", "Process"). Multiple types are shown comma-separated. An empty field means no type has been assigned — a gap that is worth flagging for consistency.
Locations — The physical or logical location where the asset resides. This field is clickable and may allow in-context navigation. An empty value means no location was entered during creation.
Groups — The asset group or groups this asset belongs to. Multiple groups are shown comma-separated. An empty Groups column is a meaningful signal: assets without a group cannot inherit group-level risk standards unless they have asset-specific risk management enabled separately. Unassigned assets will show no risk score.
Asset Owner (Responsible Persons) — The individual(s) accountable for the day-to-day management of the asset. DPMS supports multiple responsible persons per asset. An empty field is a common audit finding — every asset should have at least one owner.
Risk Owner — The individual accountable for the risk associated with this asset. This person may be different from the day-to-day responsible person and is the one who accepts, mitigates, or escalates risk decisions. An empty field means no risk owner has been designated.

How this connects to the rest of DPMS

The Browse Assets screen is the first step in DPMS's risk management cycle, and almost everything else in the system flows from it.

What feeds into this screen: The sidebar links here from everywhere in DPMS. Asset detail screens show a clickable "Assets" breadcrumb that returns you here, sometimes with a pre-applied group filter. Assessment review portals and ROPA detail screens also link back here when a user needs to inspect or select a linked asset.

What flows out of this screen: Clicking any row takes you to the Asset Detail screen, which hosts all the sub-tabs — General information, Risk (standards, thresholds, scenarios, treatment options, and treatment plans), Assessments, External Recipients (vendors), Data Deletion Tasks, Manage Access, and Workflow. Clicking New Asset opens the Asset Creation form. Switching to Groups View and clicking a row opens the Asset Group Detail screen.

Cross-cutting effect: Every time you create or update an asset, DPMS refreshes the asset dropdown lists used throughout the platform — in ROPA activities, data collection points, assessments, and more. If no assets exist in this list, those dropdown fields will appear empty on other screens, blocking users from linking assets to processing activities or assessments.

What to do after this screen: Once you have created an asset, navigate to its detail screen and complete at least two more steps: (1) assign it to an asset group or enable asset-specific risk management, and (2) link it to a risk standard. Without these two steps, the asset will not generate a risk score or appear in treatment plan workflows.

Tips & common pitfalls

Heads up: The Asset View / Groups View toggle is saved in each user's browser, not centrally. Two people looking at /asset at the same time may see completely different views. If someone says "I don't see any assets," check the toggle first — they may be in Groups View on a browser where no groups are visible.

Tip: After applying filters and navigating into an asset's detail screen, always use the Assets breadcrumb or the back arrow on the detail screen to return to the list. Using the browser's own back button may not preserve your filter state correctly.

Assets with no group and no risk standard will always show an empty risk score. Registering an asset here is the prerequisite, but the risk workflow only activates once the asset is properly linked. Make it a habit to complete the group and standard assignment immediately after creation.
The "Asset Owner" column can show multiple people. Assets created before the multi-person ownership feature was introduced may appear to have a single owner — this is expected and displays correctly.
The next / previous arrows on the detail screen respect your active filter. If you apply a filter, navigate into a detail, and then clear the filter in another browser tab, the arrows will continue to navigate through the original filtered set until you reload the detail page. Reloading forces a fresh calculation.
Asset groups can be created inline. On the Groups & Standards tab of the asset edit form, you can type a new group name that does not yet exist and DPMS will create it automatically. This is convenient for speed, but can lead to duplicate or misspelled group names if multiple people create groups this way. Agree on naming conventions with your team before going live.
Unowned assets are a common audit finding. During compliance audits, regulators and internal auditors frequently flag assets with no responsible person assigned. Regularly filter the list to check for empty Asset Owner values and assign owners promptly.