Getting started with ArQiver
Where Meaning, Law, and Interaction Converge
A Clear and Safe Path to Digital Collaboration
Getting started with ArQiver is designed to help organisations collaborate digitally in a way that is structured, transparent, and trustworthy. Rather than letting data flow immediately, ArQiver first helps you define meaning, responsibility, and governance. This ensures that when work begins, everyone knows what they are doing, why they are doing it, and under which authority.
One of the most important ideas in ArQiver is that the platform separates a design layer from a runtime layer. First you define structure, meaning, roles, and rules. Only after that does real operational work and real data begin to flow.
Step 1: Create Your Enterprise Data Space
Every journey in ArQiver starts with an Enterprise Data Space. This is your organisation’s digital environment. A Data Space Admin creates the account, chooses the name of the data space, and sets up payment. This role exists only to establish the foundation—no data, domains, or products are created at this stage.
Once the data space exists, up to two Data Space Owners are assigned. They are responsible for shaping how the organisation is structured within ArQiver.
Step 2: Organise Your Enterprise
Data Space Owners create domains that reflect how the organisation works, such as departments, services, or business areas. Each domain has one or two Domain Owners who are responsible for meaning and governance within that domain. Domain Owners can invite members and assign Product Owners and a Product Manager.
This step ensures that roles and responsibilities are clear before any content is added. ArQiver deliberately separates structure from execution so that daily work can later happen with more clarity and less ambiguity.
Step 3: Define Meaning and Rules Before Action
Before any data is processed or shared, ArQiver asks you to define what is allowed to exist. This is done by creating:
- data definitions, describing what data may be used,
- metadata, explaining what that data means,
- retention rules, defining how long data must be kept,
- and record management actions, describing what happens to data over time.
These elements are combined into stream templates. Stream templates describe, in a governed way, how information will be handled. They are reviewed and approved by roles responsible for privacy, archiving, and maintenance. At this stage, nothing runs and no data flows—this is design time.
Step 4: Activate Streams and Build Products
Once a stream template is approved, it becomes available as a stream. Streams can be activated and assigned to operators, but they are still not usable until they are added to a product.
Products represent the actual services or internal processes your organisation delivers. A product can only go live after explicit approval from all responsible roles: Product Owner, Product Manager, Domain Owner, and Data Space Owner. This shared approval ensures that no single person can activate a product alone.
Step 5: Start Working with Confidence
When a product goes live, operators are notified and see the product appear in their domain-driven dashboard. This clear signal marks the transition from design to execution. From this point on, work can begin with confidence.
ArQiver’s structured approach asks organisations to define meaning, rules, and responsibility upfront. In return, teams can collaborate more smoothly, safely, and transparently once real work begins.