title: Getting Started with Policy Center description: Learn how to get started with Policy Center in Tidal Control and discover all available options for policy management sidebar_position: 1

Getting Started with Policy Center

What is the Policy Center?

The Policy Center in Tidal Control is your central hub for managing all organizational policies. Whether you want to create new policies, upload existing documents, or link externally managed policies - the Policy Center offers flexible solutions that fit your workflow.

With the Policy Center you can:

Create and edit policy documents with our built-in editor
Upload and manage existing Word and PDF documents
Link external policy documents via URLs
Use automatic version control and approval workflows
Monitor policy compliance

Policy Center overview and filters

When you open the Policy Center, you'll see an overview of all policies applicable to your organization. These policies initially have "Not Started" status and are ready to be set up:

Info

If you have a license with Tidal Policy templates, you'll see these policies as "Draft". You don't need to write these yourself anymore!

Note

Do you see an empty screen or are policies missing? Do you see them in the 'Archived' tab?

Then these policies are not yet linked to controls in your environment. In this case you must first:

Create controls (if not already done)
Link policies to controls via policy-tests

For detailed instructions on this, consult the Controls documentation where it's explained how to link policy-tests to controls.

For each policy you see:

Policy fields

Title and Tidal ID
Type (paperclip for uploaded files)
Policy owners (if already assigned)
Status (Not Started, Draft, Approved, To Review)
Last approval (if applicable)
Actions (Start button to begin)

Status meanings

Not Started: No document linked yet
Draft: Document available but not yet approved
Approved: Approved document within the last 12 months
To Review: No recent approval (older than 12 months)

Search and filter

Search bar - Type policy names or Tidal IDs to find specific policies
Status filter - Filter on Not Started, Draft, Approved, or To Review
Type filter - Distinguish between internally managed and uploaded documents (paperclip icon)

Tip

Use the status filter to work efficiently: filter on "Draft" to find policies ready for approval, or on "To Review" to catch up on overdue reviews.

Starting your first policy

Choice menu

When you click the "Start" button of a policy, a choice menu appears with three options:

1. Use Policy Editor

Create policies from scratch with our built-in editor
Full word processing capabilities
Automatic version control
Integrated approval and review flow

Tip

We recommend new users start with the Policy Editor. This offers the most functionality and is easiest to get started with. You can always switch to another method later.

2. Upload existing document

Upload PDF or Word documents
Maintain your current documents and workflows
Easy version replacement (each 'upload' is a new version)
Integrated approval and review flow

3. Link external location

Link policies that are managed externally
Use URLs to your existing documentation management system
Maintain overview without duplicating documents
Integrated approval and review flow

Understanding policy types

The choice you make affects how you proceed with this policy. Below is a brief explanation of the main functionalities per policy type:

Internally managed policies

Created and edited in the Policy Center
Full functionality available
Automatic PDF generation with metadata

Uploaded documents

Recognizable by paperclip icon
Download/Upload capability
Editing outside Tidal
Each 'upload' is a new version

Externally managed policies

URL-based
Editing and version management outside Tidal
Approvals and reviews possible in Tidal

Warning

With externally managed policies, you are responsible for version management yourself. Make sure your external system provides sufficient audit trails.

You can still use the approval and review flows within Tidal to demonstrate compliance.