Soveryne company logoSoveryne
Policies

Policies

Part ofBuild and run your compliance programme

Command writes your organisation's policy documents for you, from your own organisation profile, your controls and the frameworks you have enrolled. This page explains how to generate policies, review them with the AI co-pilot, approve them, publish them to your staff in Counsel and download them.

Who uses it

RoleWhat they do here
Admin and Policy editorGenerate, edit, approve, publish, download and delete policy documents
Security managerUses the AI co-pilot in the policy editor
AuditorReads policy documents, and can ask the co-pilot questions about them

Before you begin

Complete your organisation profile. A policy has to state your organisation's own facts, so Command will not generate a document until the facts it needs are filled in. Three are needed for every document: what the organisation does, the systems and services in scope, and the applicable laws and regulations. See Organisation profile.
Set up your controls and departments. A document covers the controls it is built from, and reaches the departments those controls apply to. See Controls and Departments.
To publish: your workspace must be linked to Counsel, the Customer email domain must be filled in on the Organisation page, and your staff need Counsel accounts at that domain. See Counsel.

The Policies tab

Click Documents in the top navigation and then the Policies tab. You can also choose Governance in the profile menu.

The card Policy documents lists every document, alphabetically. Filter it with the chips All, Being written, Draft, In review, Approved and Needs attention, or type in Search documents to find a title.

Each row shows:

the title; click anywhere on the row to open the document in the policy editor;
how many controls the document covers, and its departments, or whole organisation when it has none;
a warning sign when Command found something to check in the document; point at it to read the findings;
the languages the document holds, for example NL · EN;
the status: Draft, Writing, In review or Approved;
a send button: Approve + publish to Counsel before approval, Publish to Counsel again after;
a menu (⋮) with Download pack (DOCX/PDF/XLSX) on approved documents, and Delete.
The Policies tab with policy documents in several states

A document marked Needs attention has findings to resolve before it can be approved. A document marked Being written is still being drafted by Command; you can read it, but you cannot edit or approve it yet.

When something in the catalogue cannot be generated because organisation facts are missing, a banner Still to supply before everything can be generated lists them. Click Complete the organisation details to open the Organisation page.

Generate policies from the catalogue

Command has a catalogue of 33 policy documents, from an Access Control Policy to a Supplier & Supply Chain Security Policy. You choose which to draft.

Who can do thisAdmin and Policy editor.
1
Click Generate policy at the top of the Documents page. The Generate policy window opens.
2
The catalogue is grouped in three:
Ready to generate: can be drafted now.
Already drafted: already in your documents. It will not be overwritten. Click Open → to open it.
Not ready yet: needs more organisation data first.
3
Tick the documents you want, or click Select all. Use Search the catalogue… to find one.
4
Click Generate followed by the number. The window closes and Command shows Generating {n} documents in the background.

A progress panel above the list shows each document as waiting, writing, drafted or not drafted, with the reason when one could not be drafted. You can leave the page; the panel is shown again when you come back, and your colleagues see it too. When the run has finished:

click Review the drafts to filter the list to the new drafts;
click Try {n} again to retry the documents that could not be drafted;
click the close button to dismiss the panel.

Only one generation runs at a time. If one is already running, the window says A generation is already running. Wait for it to finish before starting another.

Documents generated from a template pack or the set-up wizard are also written in the background. You get a notification {n} policy documents generated when they are ready.

What Command writes from

Each document is drafted from your organisation profile, the controls it covers, the clauses of the frameworks you have enrolled, the shared compliance library and your own uploads. Every document holds an English and a Dutch version; the version in your own language comes first.

When a section does not come back properly, Command writes it again automatically, up to three attempts. If the document is still incomplete after that, it becomes a Draft marked Needs attention.

Compose a document from selected controls

Instead of a catalogue document, you can build one from the controls you choose.

Who can do thisAdmin and Policy editor.
1
Click Generate policy, and in the window click Start from scratch.
2
Under Choose the security controls, tick the controls the document should cover. The document reaches the departments those controls apply to.
3
Check the template line. With Automatic, Command uses a matching catalogue template when your controls fit one well, and otherwise writes a new template first. You can also choose Existing template or Author a new template.
4
Click Generate policy set. When it is done, Command shows Drafts generated and the document appears in the list.

If generation takes longer, Command says Generation is still running in the background — the document will appear in the list on its own.

Important
Compose each set of controls once. To change a composed document later, edit it in the policy editor.

If facts are missing, Command shows This document cannot be generated yet with the list of what to fill in, and a button Complete the organisation details.

Review and edit a document

Click a document in the list to open the policy editor. The document is on the right, the AI co-pilot on the left. Drag the divider to change their widths; double-click it to reset.

The top bar holds ← Documents to go back, the title and status, the language switch NL / EN for bilingual documents, Save when you have unsaved changes, and Approve + publish.

A policy document open in the policy editor, with the AI co-pilot on the left
Who can editAdmin and Policy editor.

Edit the text

The document is the editor: click in the text and type. There is no separate edit mode.

Use the Paragraph bar to turn the current paragraph into Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, Body text, a Bullet or a Checklist item.
Drag across paragraphs, or Shift-click, to select several paragraphs to discuss with the co-pilot. You cannot type over a selection across paragraphs.
Click the keyboard icon for Keyboard shortcuts.
ShortcutAction
Ctrl+Z (⌘+Z on a Mac)Undo
Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y (⌘+Shift+Z)Redo
Ctrl+S (⌘+S)Save
EnterNew paragraph
Backspace at the start of a paragraphMerge with the previous paragraph
Tab / Shift+TabBullet on or off
Ctrl+Alt+1, 2 or 3 (⌘+Alt)Heading 1, 2 or 3
Ctrl+Alt+0 (⌘+Alt+0)Body text
EscDrop the selection

Tables and figures from the template are not shown in the editor, but they are in the files Command produces.

Save

Click Save, or press Ctrl+S. A Draft becomes In review when you first save it. Command then updates the other language of the paragraphs you changed, and shows Updating the other language… and then Saved in both languages. If that fails, it shows Could not update the other language — your edit was saved.

Switch the language with NL / EN to read or edit the other version. Save your changes first; the switch is disabled while you have unsaved changes.

Findings

When Command found problems in a document, a banner lists them:

Resolve this before the document is finalized: a problem that blocks approval, such as an unwritten section or a placeholder that was never filled in.
Points to check in this document: something to review that does not block approval.

While the AI is still writing

When some sections are being written again, the editor shows The AI is still completing this document and Attempt {n} of {max}. Editing is paused until the document is complete, so the rewrite cannot overwrite your changes. The page updates by itself; when it is done, it says The AI finished this document.

Work with the AI co-pilot

The AI co-pilot panel helps you review a document. It reads the document, looks up what your frameworks require and cites its sources, and can search the web. It keeps one conversation per document for you, even after a reload.

Who can do thisAdmin, Policy editor and Security manager. An Auditor can ask questions in the panel, but gets no proposed changes.
1
Optionally, select a sentence or paragraphs in the document, or click ✦ Ask AI in the paragraph bar. The selection appears above the message box.
2
Type your question or request in Ask for a change…, for example "make this stricter about multi-factor authentication", and press Enter.
3
While it works, the co-pilot shows what it is doing, for example Reading the document… or Searching the frameworks…. You can steer it while it works: type in Steer the co-pilot… and press Enter.

Tick Plan the work for a larger task. The co-pilot then states its goal and ticks off its steps.

Proposed changes

When the co-pilot suggests new wording, it shows a tracked change in the document: the old text struck through and the new text highlighted, with ✓ Accept and ✕ Reject on each change. A bar at the bottom shows Proposed change with the co-pilot's reasoning, and Reject and Accept all.

Nothing changes until you accept. Accepting saves the change straight away, sets a Draft to In review, and updates the other language.
You cannot undo an accepted change with Ctrl+Z.
If you edited a paragraph after the change was proposed, Command skips that change and says These changes were skipped: the text has changed since they were proposed.

Actions that need your permission

For some requests the co-pilot acts on the document itself, for example rewriting one paragraph directly. It always asks first: May the co-pilot run followed by the action. Click Allow to let it go ahead, or Don't to refuse.

Approve and publish a document

Approving a document produces the final files and sends them to your staff in Counsel, in one step.

Who can do thisAdmin and Policy editor.
1
Open the document and click Approve + publish, or click the send button Approve + publish to Counsel on its row in the list.
2
Command checks the document. If it still has a problem that blocks approval, it refuses and the document goes back to Draft, with the reason shown in the findings.
3
Command produces the final files: for each language a Word (DOCX) and a PDF document with your partner's branding, plus a control register spreadsheet (XLSX). The document becomes Approved.
4
Command publishes the Word and PDF files to Counsel. In the editor it shows Approved and published to Counsel.; from the list, Approved, finalised and published to {n} recipients.
Who receives itevery Counsel account at your customer email domain. When the document has departments, only the members of those departments receive it. Each recipient gets their own copy, which they can also use in Counsel chat. People who get a Counsel account at your domain later receive it too. The control register spreadsheet is never published.

A published document stays Approved; there is no separate published status.

Publish again

To send an approved document again, click Publish to Counsel again on its row. Command sends the files from the last approval and replaces each recipient's earlier copy, and shows Published to {n} recipients.

If you edited the document after it was approved, approve it again from the editor so the files include your changes.

Download a policy pack

On an approved document, open the row menu (⋮) and choose Download pack (DOCX/PDF/XLSX). Command downloads that document's own pack: a zip file with, for each language, the Word and PDF document and the control register spreadsheet. The control register lists all controls in your workspace with their ID, title, family, status, owner and frameworks.

Who can do thisAdmin and Policy editor.

The files say "Prepared by" your partner "for" your organisation on the cover. Your partner manages the branding in their partner portal.

Delete a document

Open the row menu (⋮) and choose Delete. Command asks Delete this policy document? with the title. Confirm to delete it. You cannot undo this.

Who can do thisAdmin and Policy editor.

How Command protects you

Command will not generate a document until your organisation's own facts are present, and it names exactly which are missing.
Generating from the catalogue never overwrites a document that already exists.
A document that is still being written cannot be edited or approved.
A document with blocking problems cannot be approved; a refused approval returns it to Draft with the reason. Publishing checks the document again before anything is sent.
Publishing reaches only your own customer email domain and, when set, the document's departments. Publishing into another partner's Counsel is refused.
The co-pilot changes nothing until you accept a proposal or allow an action.
Deleting a document asks for confirmation.

Troubleshooting

What you seeWhat it meansWhat to do
This document cannot be generated yetOrganisation facts the document needs are missingClick Complete the organisation details, fill in the listed fields, save, and try again
No usable template was found for this document.No template fits the controls you pickedChoose Author a new template, or pick different controls
Something went wrong internally while generating. Try again; if it keeps happening, report it.Generation failedTry again. If it keeps happening, contact your partner or Soveryne.
Could not read the catalogueThe readiness check did not answer, often because a generation is still runningWait a moment and click Try again
This document cannot be finalized yetThe document has problems that block approvalResolve the listed findings in the editor and approve again
Could not finalise this document.Approval could not be completedOpen the document, check the findings and try again
Approved and finalised, but not published: followed by a reasonThe document is approved, but it could not be sentSee the reasons below, fix the cause, and click Publish to Counsel again
No Counsel accounts at the customer's email domain.None of your staff has a Counsel account at your domain yetAsk your staff to sign in to Counsel once, then publish again
The document's departments have no members.The document's departments are emptyAdd members under Departments, then publish again
No Counsel workspace or customer domain is configured.The Customer email domain is empty, or no Counsel is linkedFill in Customer email domain on the Organisation page. Ask your partner to link Counsel.
This document still has unresolved problems in its text and was not sent to the customer.Command found problems when it checked again before sendingResolve the findings and approve again
That Counsel workspace belongs to a different partner.The linked Counsel is not your partner'sContact your partner or Soveryne
Publishing did not complete.Something else went wrongTry Publish to Counsel again. If it keeps failing, contact your partner.
These proposed changes point at text that is not hereThe co-pilot proposed a change to text that no longer existsAsk again
The language changed since this proposal — switch back to accept it.You switched NL / EN after the proposalSwitch back to the other language to accept it
← PreviousControlsNext →Evidence