Set up your workspace

The first hour

A new workspace holds no records. Work in the order below, because each step supplies the answers the next one asks for. Nothing has to be finished in one sitting: a record may be left in draft and picked up later.

1. 01Record your organisationCreate the entity that is the controller, with its legal name, its country of establishment and its contact details. Add the business units you want to report by.
2. 02Record the peopleAdd the people who will own, write, approve and advise on records, and appoint the Data Protection Officer where the organisation has one.
3. 03Describe your data subject setsCreate one set for each group of people whose data you hold. Where you have several sites, geographies or departments, keep a set for each, so the record of processing can be read by location.
4. 04Set the contextChoose the controller, the business unit and the data subject sets in the band across the top. Everything you create from here inherits that context.
5. 05Record your first processing activitiesStart with the processing everyone recognises: payroll, recruitment, customer accounts, closed-circuit television. One record for each purpose.
6. 06Read the gapsThe overview lists what the regulation still asks for. Work down that list rather than guessing what is missing.

How to read this documentation

The guides explain how a record behaves, and are worth reading once. The walkthroughs are work instructions: each one is a task, with numbered steps in the order you perform them and the screen you will be looking at. The reference states what every register holds and what the regulation asks of it.