Browse policies and documents

Browse Policies and Documents

The Policies and Documents screen is your organisation's central library for every formal document that lives in DPMS — from data protection policies and internal procedures to technical guidelines and externally mandated documents. Compliance officers, DPOs, IT security managers, risk managers, and auditors come here to upload new documents, track the lifecycle status of existing ones, and make sure the right policies are attached to the right parts of the business before an audit or review cycle. Nothing else in DPMS — linking a policy to a processing activity, attaching it to an assessment, or triggering a review workflow — can happen until the document record exists in this list.

How to open it

In the main left-hand sidebar, click Policies and Documents. The index page loads immediately — there are no additional tabs or sub-menus to navigate. The screen is available to users who have been granted at least a read permission for the Policies and Documents module. Users with full read access see every record in the company; users with a more restricted "own and assigned" read permission see only the records where they are listed as the responsible person or have been explicitly granted access.

What you see

The page opens to a full-width list view. At the very top of the content area you will see a horizontal tab bar — All is always the first tab, followed by any status labels your organisation has configured (such as Active, Draft, or Under Review). Clicking a tab instantly narrows the table to documents in that lifecycle stage.

Below the tab bar sits the document table, with four columns: Name, Organizational Unit, Classification, and Updated At. Each row represents one policy or document and clicking anywhere on a row opens its full detail view.

In the top-right corner of the content area, above the table, you will find a compact cluster of controls: a search bar, sort and filter buttons, a Multiple Upload button, and the primary Create button. If you activate Multiple Upload, a large drag-and-drop zone appears below that cluster and fills the width of the page.

Working with this screen

Finding a specific document quickly

When you know roughly what you are looking for, use the search bar in the top-right cluster. Type any part of the document's name — DPMS searches across all language versions of the name field, so searching "retention" will match a record named "Data Retention Policy" regardless of which language it was originally entered in.

If you want to narrow the list by status at the same time, first click the relevant status tab (for example, Active), then type your search term. The two filters stack — you will see only active records whose name matches your term. If you suspect a record exists but cannot find it, click All to clear the status filter before concluding that the document is missing.

To sort or filter by other criteria — such as showing only documents belonging to a specific organisational unit — click the sort and filter icon buttons next to the search bar. Any sort you apply will persist while you navigate within the current session.

Creating a new policy or document record

When you have a new document ready to register in DPMS, click the Create button in the top-right corner. A small dropdown menu appears with two options.

To create a record manually, choose the first option in the menu. DPMS navigates you to the creation form, opening on the General tab. Here you will enter the document name, assign it to one or more organisational units, select a document type (Classification), and set a status. Pay particular attention to the Classification field — if you leave it blank, the Classification column in the list will appear empty, making the record invisible to anyone filtering by document type. Once you save, the new record appears at the top of the list on this screen.

To import a record from another Priverion instance, choose Import from the dropdown. A file picker opens; select the .json file that was exported from the other system. DPMS processes the import and navigates you back to this screen, where the imported record will appear at the top. Import only works with files that were exported from a Priverion instance using the per-row export action — hand-crafted JSON files or exports from third-party tools will not be accepted.

Heads up: The Import option is only functional if your account has been granted import permission for this module. If clicking Import does nothing, contact your DPMS administrator.

Uploading a batch of document files at once

If the legal team has sent you a folder of ten or more documents to register, you do not need to click Create ten times. Click the Multiple Upload button — it sits just to the left of Create and shows a small upload icon. The button turns dark when active, and a wide drag-and-drop zone appears below the toolbar.

Drag all your files onto this zone (or click inside it to browse for them). DPMS starts processing each file immediately. A small progress indicator appears next to the Multiple Upload button, showing you a count like "3 out of 10" as each file completes. Each successfully uploaded file becomes a separate Policy/Document record, with the filename used as the initial record name.

When all files have finished, the drag-and-drop zone closes automatically and the table refreshes with the new records sorted to the top (newest first). If you had a custom sort order applied before the upload, you will need to re-apply it — the upload resets the sort to newest-first so you can immediately see what was just added.

Tip: Wait for the progress counter to reach the total (e.g. "10 out of 10") before navigating away. The files continue processing in the background, but the counter resets if you leave the page, so you lose visibility into whether any individual file failed.

Reviewing and acting on individual records

Click any row to open the full detail view for that document. From there you can review all tabs: General, Upload, Linked Elements, Linked Controls, Tasks, Assessments, and Workflows.

If you only need to perform a quick single-record operation without opening the full detail view, look for the trailing action buttons that appear at the right edge of each row. These give you instant access to:

• Export to XLSX — downloads the record's data as a spreadsheet, useful for including in audit packages or offline reviews.
• Export to JSON — downloads the record in a format that can be imported into another Priverion instance.
• Delete — permanently removes the record after confirmation. Delete requires edit-level permission on the module.

For records that have been shared with or from a partner organisation in the Priverion network, you will also see a small indicator showing the name of the consulting organisation. This helps you distinguish locally owned policies from ones governed by a parent or partner entity.

Sharing a document with an audience group

To make a document accessible to a specific group of users (for example, the HR department), locate the record in the table, click the options icon on the row, and choose Sharing. DPMS opens the Group Sharing tab for that record, where you can assign audiences or individual users with read or write access. This option is only visible when your organisation has the Sharing feature enabled and your account has the necessary publishing permission.

Field reference

The four columns visible in the list are worth understanding before your first upload or audit:

• Name — The document's title in the current interface language. For multilingual records, DPMS resolves the name to whichever language you have selected. A blank name cell can appear briefly on a newly created record before the General tab has been saved; published records should always have a name.
• Organizational Unit — Shows which department(s) or business divisions the document applies to, as a comma-separated list. A blank cell means no organisational unit has been assigned yet. Assigning at least one unit is strongly recommended so the record appears in department-level filtered views.
• Classification — The document type tags assigned to this record (for example, Policy, Procedure, or Guideline). If no classification tag was selected during creation, this cell is blank and the record becomes very difficult to find via type-based filtering. Always assign at least one classification tag.
• Updated At — The date and time of the most recent change to the record. This is the default sort column. After a bulk upload, this column determines the "newest first" order.

How this connects to the rest of DPMS

This screen is the mandatory starting point for every document-related workflow in DPMS. A document record must exist here before it can be used anywhere else in the system. Here is what depends on what you do on this screen:

• ROPA (Record of Processing Activities): When a ROPA record needs to reference a supporting policy, the selection dialog pulls from this list. A policy that has not been created here cannot be linked to any processing activity.
• Assessments: Assessments can be linked to documents and vice versa. The linking only works once the document record exists in this screen.
• Workflows and review cycles: The workflow engine — including review and approval flows — can only act on records that appear in this list. The Workflows tab on each document's detail view depends on the record being properly registered here first.
• Linked Controls (International Standards): The Linked Controls tab on a document's detail view connects the document to controls from international standards (such as ISO 27001). Those links attach to the document record that lives here.
• Tasks: Tasks can be linked to any document record. The Tasks tab on the detail view is only reachable after the record exists in this list.
• Manage Access / Audiences: Audience assignments are configured per record from within the detail view, but the record must first be created here.

After finishing this screen — whether you have created new records, uploaded a batch, or tidied up statuses — the typical next steps are to open each new record's detail view to complete the General tab fields, upload the actual document file on the Upload tab, and then link the document to the relevant processing activities, assessments, or controls.

Tips & common pitfalls

Tip: The status tab filter and the search bar work together. If you search for a term and get zero results, check which status tab is active — the document you are looking for may exist but be in a different lifecycle stage. Click All to remove the status filter and try again.

Heads up: After a bulk upload, the table sort resets to newest-first. If you had sorted by name or organisational unit before starting the upload, you will need to re-apply your preferred sort manually once the upload completes.

• Always fill in the Classification field when creating a new record. A blank Classification column makes the document invisible to anyone filtering by document type, and it signals incomplete setup to auditors. Open the General tab immediately after creation and assign at least one document type tag.
• The Multiple Upload zone does not appear until you click the Multiple Upload button. It is not visible by default. New users sometimes look for a drag-and-drop area and cannot find it — it only appears after explicitly toggling the button on.
• Import accepts only files exported from a Priverion instance. Files must be in the exact JSON format that DPMS generates when you use the per-row export action. A hand-crafted JSON file or an export from a third-party tool will fail silently on import — DPMS validates the schema on the backend and simply does nothing if the format does not match.
• Users with a restricted "own and assigned" read permission will not see every document in the company. If a colleague reports that "some policies are missing," check their permission level. They may only be able to see records where they are listed as the responsible person. To widen their view, a DPO or administrator needs to either assign them to additional records or grant them broader read access to the module.
• The Sharing option in the row options menu only appears when your organisation has the Sharing feature enabled. If you cannot find it, check with your IT administrator that the Sharing feature is active in IT Settings and that your account has the publishing permission for this module.