Working with Statements

Creating a Statement

Navigate to Statements in the sidebar and click New Statement.

Required Fields

• Title — A concise name for the statement (e.g., "Password Minimum Length")
• Body — The full text of the governance requirement
• Domain — Select the governance domain this statement belongs to
• Maturity Level — Choose Foundational, Intermediate, or Advanced

Writing Effective Statements

A good governance statement is:

1. Specific — Says exactly what must (or must not) happen
2. Measurable — Can be verified as compliant or non-compliant
3. Atomic — Contains a single requirement, not multiple combined
4. Unambiguous — Has only one reasonable interpretation

Good: "All privileged accounts must use multi-factor authentication."

Bad: "The organization should implement appropriate security controls to protect systems and ensure compliance with relevant regulations."

The bad example is vague ("appropriate"), combines multiple requirements, and can't be measured.

Statement Modality

The modality determines the obligation level:

Versioning

Every edit to a statement creates a new version. Dictiva tracks:

• Who made the change
• When the change was made
• What exactly changed (diff view)

Previous versions are preserved indefinitely. You can view the history of any statement to see how it evolved.

Adopting from the Library

Instead of writing statements from scratch, you can adopt statements from Dictiva's curated library:

1. Navigate to Library in the sidebar
2. Browse or search for relevant statements
3. Click Adopt to add a statement to your workspace
4. Optionally customize the adopted statement for your organization

Adopted statements are independent copies — editing your version doesn't affect the library original.

Organizing Statements

By Domain

Statements are automatically organized by their domain. Use the domain filter on the Statements page to view statements in a specific area.

By Tag

Add custom tags to statements for additional categorization. Tags are flexible — use them for projects, teams, compliance frameworks, or any grouping that makes sense for your organization.

Search

The search bar searches across statement titles and body text. For large libraries, use the domain and maturity level filters to narrow results.

Deleting Statements

Statements in Dictiva are soft-deleted — they're hidden from normal views but preserved in the database for audit purposes. If a statement is included in a published assembly, the published version retains the statement text even after deletion.

To delete a statement:

1. Open the statement detail page
2. Click the overflow menu (three dots)
3. Select Delete
4. Confirm the deletion

Deleted statements can be restored by an administrator if needed.