Who this guide is for
Datum shows each person only the screens and fields their role allows, so this guide is organised by job rather than by menu. Find the description below that is closest to yours and start there.
Find your section
| If you are… | You mostly… | Start here |
|---|---|---|
| A partner, associate or other fee earner | Look up clients, matters and people; check what the firm holds; ask for a correction | Fee earners and partners |
| A fee earner behind an ethical wall | The same as above — but some records will not be there for you | What you cannot see |
| A data steward | Work the queues, decide duplicates, edit records, run imports, keep the registers right | Data stewards |
| A data architect or legal operations lead | Shape the model, the workflows, the matching and survivorship rules, and read the dashboards | Data architects and legal operations |
| A platform administrator (IT, risk and compliance) | Manage roles, walls, connections to source systems and firm settings | Platform administrators |
| A downstream system (reporting, publication) | Read mastered data through the API under its own narrow entitlement | Roles and access |
Open your account panel (your initials, bottom-left) and look at Roles and Endpoint access. They say exactly what you hold. Palette, notifications and your account explains the panel.
A roles map
The names of roles are your firm's choice; the demonstration firm uses these, which are also a good guide to what to expect.
| Role | Reads records | Edits directly | Approves changes | Administers the platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fee earner | Yes | No — proposes | No | No |
| Data steward | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Platform administrator | No | No | — | Yes |
| Integration service | Yes (narrow) | No | No | No |
Look at the third row again. A platform administrator does not automatically read the firm's records. That is deliberate, and it is the answer to the question "what can the people who run the system see?". Roles and access covers it in full.
These are jobs, not built-in roles. In practice the screens they use — the model, workflows, survivorship and match thresholds — are open to read for anybody who may read records, and the controls on them are gated to stewards and administrators. Data architects and legal operations says which control needs what.
How to read each page
Every page follows the same pattern, so you can skim.
- Role pills at the top say who the page is for.
- A short introduction says what the screen is for.
- Numbered steps walk through a task. Buttons and screen names are in bold.
- Callouts mark what matters:
A tip is a quicker or safer way to do the thing.
A note is context you will want later.
Information explains why Datum behaves as it does.
A warning marks something that is easy to get wrong, or has consequences.
A danger callout marks something that cannot be undone, or that crosses a boundary such as access or the conflicts line.
- Screenshots show the demonstration firm. Click one to open it full size.
- Common questions or If something looks wrong close the page where they help.
If you read only three pages
- A tour of the workspace — the layout, once.
- Key concepts — golden records, provenance, two timelines, walls.
- The first page of your own section.