Record Categories
Categories define a kind of record, along with the template, cadence, owner and linked items its records inherit.
Overview
A record category defines a kind of document — Meeting Minutes, Access Requests, Whistleblower Reports, Pentest Results, Incident Responses. Every record belongs to exactly one.
Categories carry more weight than a simple tag. They supply the template new records start from, the recurring cadence that drives deadlines, the role accountable for the area, and the linked items every record in the category inherits.
Core Functionality
Each category has a name, a unique slug, an optional description and color, plus the settings that shape its records. Records are created inside a category and cannot exist without one.
Fields Explained
| Field | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
Name | Display name of the category (required) | Meeting Minutes |
Slug | Unique identifier used in URLs (required) | meeting-minutes |
Description | What kind of records this category holds | Minutes of board meetings |
Owner | Role accountable for the category | Audit Coordinator |
Default template | Content new records in this category start from | Meeting Minutes |
Frequency | Recurring cadence, for obligations that repeat | Every six months |
Allow portal submission | Lets employees submit records into this category from the user portal | Enabled |
Cadence
Setting a frequency marks the category as a recurring obligation — a six-monthly ISMS management review, an annual penetration test. The next due date is not stored; it is calculated from the last finalized record in the category plus the frequency, and surfaces in Deadlines.
Anchoring on the finalized date rather than the previous due date means a review completed late still spaces the next one a full period out, instead of immediately reporting as overdue.
Leave the frequency empty for categories that are genuinely ad hoc: an incident happens when it happens.
Linked Items
A category can be linked to controls, risks, assets, vendors and evidence. Every record in the category inherits those links, and they are shown read-only on each record.
These links are plain associations for discoverability and traceability. They never change control coverage.
Deleting and Archiving
A category holding records cannot be deleted — move or delete its records first. To retire a category without destroying its history, archive it instead: archived categories disappear from lists and pickers, and their records remain intact. Archiving is reversible.
Best Practices
- Name a category after the kind of document, not after one instance of it.
- Set a frequency only where the obligation genuinely recurs; a stray cadence produces deadlines nobody owns.
- Give each category an owner so accountability for the area is explicit, separate from the assignee on an individual record.
- Manage links at the category level rather than expecting per-record overrides — records inherit, and that is deliberate.
How is this guide?
Records
Records are the documents your organization produces, from meeting minutes to incident responses, grouped into categories and versioned when finalized.
Record Templates
Templates are reusable starting content. Creating a record copies the template once, so editing a template later never changes existing records.