Browse audiences

Browse Audiences

The Audience Management screen is your central place to view, search, and manage all the named user groups — called audiences — that control group-level access to compliance records across your entire DPMS. If you are a DPO, compliance manager, or IT administrator responsible for deciding who can see or edit ROPAs, DPIAs, documents, vendor records, or any other compliance object, this is the screen you will visit to set up those groups before assigning them to individual records. Without at least one audience configured here, the "Manage Access" workflow on every record type in DPMS can only grant access one user at a time — audiences make that process scalable and reusable.

How to open it

• In the left-hand navigation, click Settings.
• The sub-menu expands and shows General Settings.
• Scroll down to and click Audience Management.

The audience list loads in the main content area on the right.

Permission note: You need at least read access to Audience Management to see this screen. If your account does not have that permission, the menu item will not appear, and trying to open the URL directly will show a "403 Forbidden" page. Creating new audiences requires an additional create permission, and editing existing audiences requires a separate edit permission — both must be granted explicitly in user management.

What you see

The screen is divided into two areas. On the left, a fixed sidebar shows the General Settings navigation menu with Audience Management highlighted as the active section. The menu also lists other settings areas — Applicable Laws, Attributes, Departments, Organizational Units, and so on — so you can move between settings sections without losing your place.

The right-hand content area is filled with the audience list. At the very top, a heading reads Audience Management in a slightly larger weight than the body text. Directly below that is a tab strip showing a single tab labelled All (already selected) and, to the right of it, a Create button. The bulk of the screen is taken up by a scrollable table that lists every audience defined in your system, with a single Name column. A search bar sits above the table, letting you filter down by name. As you scroll toward the bottom of the list, additional audiences load automatically — there are no "Next page" buttons to click.

Working with this screen

Finding a specific audience

When your organisation has many audiences, scrolling through the full list is inefficient. Click into the search bar above the table and start typing part of the audience's name — for example, "Finance" or "HR". The list filters in real time as you type, showing only audiences whose names contain your search text. The search is not case-sensitive, so "finance", "Finance", and "FINANCE" all return the same results.

Once you spot the audience you are looking for, click its row to open the detail and edit form. From there you can review and change the audience's name, description, the companies it is linked to, the users it contains, and the per-module read/write permissions that define what members of that audience are allowed to do. When you are done, use the back arrow or breadcrumb to return to this list.

Heads up: If clicking a row does nothing, your account has read permission for this screen but not edit permission. There is no separate read-only view for an audience — the only way to drill into the details is through the edit form. Contact your system administrator if you need edit access.

Creating a new audience from scratch

When you need a new group — say, a project team that needs read access to a specific set of DPIAs, or an external audit partner who should see certain documents — start here.

• Click the Create button in the upper-right area of the content zone. A small drop-down appears.
• Click Create Audience in the drop-down. The browser navigates to the audience creation form, opening on the General tab.
• On the General tab, type a name for the audience (for example, "IT Security Review Team"), add an optional description, and select one or more responsible persons. Click Save before moving on.
• The form now unlocks the remaining tabs. Go to Add Companies to link the audience to the relevant company or companies. Click Save on that tab.
• Move to Add Users and add the individual users who belong to this group. Click Save.
• Finally, open Add Permissions to specify which modules (ROPAs, DPIAs, documents, assets, and so on) the audience members may read or write. Click Save.

Once all four tabs are saved, the new audience appears in the list on this screen. From this point on, anyone with "Manage Access" rights on any individual record can assign this audience to that record in just a few clicks.

Tip: Each tab has its own Save button. If you navigate away from a tab before saving, your changes on that tab are lost. Complete and save each tab before moving to the next.

Tip: The Add Companies tab must be saved before you can configure permissions. The permissions screen shows a company drop-down that is populated from the companies you saved on the previous tab — if that list is empty, the permissions drop-down will be empty too.

Heads up: The Create Audience option only appears if your account has the create permission for audiences. If the drop-down is empty or the Create button is missing, ask your administrator to grant you the appropriate permission.

Reviewing an audience before assigning it to a record

A common scenario: a DPO asks you to verify that the "IT Security Team" audience is correctly configured before they attach it to a sensitive ROPA entry.

• Type "IT Security" in the search bar to locate the audience quickly.
• Click the row to open the edit form.
• Check the Add Companies tab to confirm the audience is linked to the correct company.
• Check the Add Permissions tab to confirm the read/write settings for each module match the intended access level.
• If everything looks correct, click the back arrow or the Audience Management breadcrumb to return to this list.
• Let the DPO know the audience is ready to use.

No changes are needed — you are just reading the configuration. The edit form is the only place this detail is visible.

Exploring the full list of existing audiences

If you are new to the organisation, or have just taken on a DPO or compliance role, it helps to understand what audience groups already exist before you start creating records or assigning access.

Open the Audiences screen without entering anything in the search bar. Scroll through the All tab — this shows every audience in the system, regardless of status. Click individual rows to understand each group's membership, company scope, and permissions. This orientation step prevents duplication and helps you decide whether a new audience is truly needed, or whether an existing one could be reused or slightly adjusted instead.

Field reference

The table on this screen has one visible column:

• Name — The audience's display name. Names are stored as multi-language objects; the list shows the name in your current DPMS interface language, falling back to the default language if your language has not been translated. If a name appears blank, it means the audience record was created without a name (unusual but possible via bulk import). To correct this, click the row and fill in the name on the General tab of the edit form.

How this connects to the rest of DPMS

Audiences are one of the most broadly used configuration objects in DPMS. Here is what depends on them:

• Manage Access on every record type. When any staff member opens the "Manage Access" option on a ROPA entry, a DPIA, a TOM, an asset, a document, a vendor record, a project, an incident, a data subject request, or any other record, the audience drop-down they see is populated directly from the list configured here. Only audiences that are linked to the current company and have the relevant read or write permission for that module will appear. If no audiences have been set up here, the drop-down is empty and access can only be granted user by user.
• Company scoping. Each audience can be linked to one or more companies on its Add Companies tab. This means an audience that exists in your system but is not linked to a particular company will never appear in the Manage Access drop-down for records in that company.
• Notification routing. The Notifications tab on the audience edit form controls whether audience members receive email or in-app notifications for compliance events. What you configure here flows directly into the platform's notification system.
• Live updates. Whenever an audience is saved, DPMS refreshes the selectable audience list across the application. This means changes you make here take effect immediately for all other users — no restart or manual sync is required.

After setting up an audience here, the typical next step is to open a compliance record (for example, a ROPA entry), click its "Manage Access" option, and assign the new audience so the right people gain access.

Tips & common pitfalls

Tip: Build your audiences before you start creating compliance records. It is much easier to assign group access during record creation than to go back and add it later to dozens of existing records.

Heads up: Clicking a row does nothing if your account only has read permission and not edit permission. There is no read-only detail view — the only drill-down is the edit form. If you need to inspect an audience's configuration and cannot open it, ask your administrator to temporarily grant edit access or ask a colleague who has it to share the details.

• Save each tab before moving to the next. The audience form has four separate tabs — General, Add Companies, Add Users, and Add Permissions — each with its own Save button. Unsaved changes on a tab are silently discarded when you switch tabs.
• Add Companies before configuring Permissions. The Add Permissions tab uses a company selector that is populated from the companies already saved on the Add Companies tab. If you skip the Companies step, the Permissions tab will have no companies to choose from and you will not be able to assign module-level access.
• Multi-language names. If your DPMS is configured for multiple languages, audience names are stored per language. If a name appears in an unexpected language or looks blank, check that the name was entered and saved for your active interface language on the General tab.
• Changes are immediately live. As soon as you save an audience, the updated audience list is refreshed across the entire platform for all active users. If you are restructuring access groups, coordinate with your team to avoid confusion during the changeover.
• The Create button disappears without the right permission. Read permission allows you to browse the list; edit permission lets you open audience records; create permission is needed to make new ones. These are three separate permissions that your administrator must grant individually.