Data room governance lets System Admins centralize data room creation. When it's switched on, only System Admins can create data rooms. Matter Admins can still request one from inside a matter, and the System Admin is notified to create it.

Governance is off by default, so nothing changes for your organization until a System Admin switches it on.

Prerequisite: you need to be a System Admin to change this setting.

Note: Turning governance on doesn't affect data rooms that already exist. Rooms created before governance was switched on keep their existing admins.

For System Admins: a new Add data room action appears in the three-dot menu on each row of the Matters tab in Admin System. Selecting it creates a data room immediately, named "Data room" (or "Data room (2)", "Data room (3)" and so on if the matter already has one). The matter's current Matter Admins are automatically set as the new room's admins, and this stays in sync afterwards: Matter Admins added to or removed from the matter are reflected on the data room automatically.

Adding a data room this way doesn't open any further setup. Everything else, including permissions and folder structure, is configured by the Matter Admin inside the matter afterwards.

For Matter Admins: the Create > Data Room option inside a matter no longer creates a room directly. Instead, it sends a request to your organization's System Admins.

Once sent, the Data Room option in the Create dropdown is greyed out for every Matter Admin on that matter until the request is resolved. Only one request can be pending per matter at a time.

You'll get an in-app notification and email once your System Admin creates the room, or if the request is declined. Either way, the Data Room option becomes available again once the request is resolved, so you can send a new one if needed.

When a Matter Admin sends a request, every System Admin in your organization gets an in-app notification and email.

Approving creates the room straight away and notifies the requesting Matter Admin that it's ready. Declining notifies the requesting Matter Admin and makes the Data Room option available again for anyone on that matter.

Matter Admins can create data rooms directly from inside a matter again. Any requests that were still pending are automatically dismissed.

When governance is on, any data rooms in the template aren't copied into the new matter, and no data room requests are created for them. A Matter Admin can request a data room in the new matter in the same way as outlined above.