DORA Register of Information Import and Build Workflow
A practical workflow for turning source-system records into a DORA that preserves the links between entities, contracts, ICT providers, ICT services, functions, subcontractors, and assessment evidence.
It is relevant when procurement, outsourcing, vendor-risk, legal, ICT risk, service ownership, and group reporting teams need one governed build process before competent-authority request or annual reporting.
DORA requires each financial entity in scope to maintain and update a for all contractual arrangements involving ICT services provided by ICT third-party service providers. The register is broader than an outsourcing inventory but excludes arrangements that contain no DORA ICT service. This workflow explains how to import source-system data, map it to the official register templates, validate the relationships, and retain evidence that supports the exported register.
1
Section 1
Start with the source-system intake
Maintain the as a controlled data product throughout the reporting cycle. Pull from systems that already own the facts: procurement and contract repositories for arrangements, vendor master data for provider identity, service catalogues for ICT service types, enterprise architecture or CMDB records for systems and dependencies, business-service inventories for functions, and third-party risk tools for due diligence, audit, exit, and concentration assessments.
Each imported record should carry a source owner, source-system reference, extraction date, and reconciliation status. A contract record without a signed arrangement, a provider without a reliable identifier, or an ICT service without an accountable business function should remain in a remediation queue instead of being silently exported.
Run an intake scope test before importing. Confirm that the arrangement supplies a digital or data service through ICT systems on an ongoing basis, rather than only non-ICT goods or traditional analogue telephone service. Then identify every entity using the service; a group contract signed centrally does not remove the entity-level, sub-consolidated, and consolidated register relationships.
Procurement intake: contract reference, arrangement type, signing entity, direct ICT third-party service provider, renewal or termination terms, and whether the arrangement includes ICT services.
Vendor master intake: legal name, LEI or EUID where applicable, country, parent undertaking, intra-group status, and whether the provider is direct, intra-group, subcontractor, or parent.
Service intake: ICT service description, official service type identifier, service owner, supported entity, supported function, data processed or stored, processing and service locations, and SLA or service-level evidence.
Function intake: financial entity LEI, licensed activity, function name, function identifier, critical or important function assessment, and impact of discontinuing the function.
Risk intake: due diligence result, information-security assurance, concentration assessment, audit date, substitutability, exit plan, reintegration possibility, and alternative provider status.
The ITS explains that the register templates use linked open tables and predefined columns for contractual arrangements, entities, providers, services, functions, and assessments.
standard templates for the register of information
2
Section 2
Map imported records to the official register relationships
The build should preserve the relational structure in the ITS. Do not flatten contracts, providers, services, and functions into one undifferentiated row: the same contract can contain multiple ICT services, a service can support multiple functions, and a provider chain can include direct providers, intra-group providers, and subcontractors.
Use the official linking keys as the backbone of the import: contractual arrangement reference number, financial entity and provider identifiers, function identifier, and ICT service type. These keys should be generated or confirmed before enrichment fields are added.
Create the maintaining-entity and in-scope entity records before importing arrangements, so every downstream record can link back to the right entity, sub-consolidated, or consolidated scope.
Assign one unique contractual arrangement reference number for each direct ICT third-party arrangement, then reuse that reference across the arrangement, signer, provider, service, supply-chain, and assessment templates.
Split general contract facts from service-specific facts: general arrangement data belongs with the contract, while the ICT services, supported functions, notice periods, data sensitivity, and service-specific details belong with the service layer.
Build provider records once, then reference them wherever they appear as direct providers, intra-group providers, subcontractors, or ultimate parent undertakings.
Generate function identifiers from the financial entity, licensed activity, and function combination, and use the same identifier when mapping ICT services to critical or important functions.
For each critical or important function, create assessment records for the relevant ICT service and provider relationship, including substitutability, last audit, exit plan, reintegration, discontinuity impact, and alternative provider status.
The ITS identifies the four linking keys used across templates: contractual arrangement reference number, entity and provider identifiers, function identifier, and ICT service type.
Article 28 frames ICT third-party risk management around the nature, scale, complexity, importance, and criticality of ICT dependencies.
criticality or importance of the respective service
3
Section 3
Validate contracts, providers, services, functions, and subcontractors before export
Validation should catch relationship errors before they become supervisory data quality issues. Run validation after every import and again before export. Trace every complete register row from the financial entity to the contract, ICT provider, ICT service, supported function, supply chain, and assessment evidence.
Use blocking errors for missing mandatory identifiers, broken cross-template keys, impossible provider ranks, missing critical-function assessments, and subcontractor chains that cannot be reconciled to a direct provider and service. Validate each data element as a single value; when more than one value is valid, create the additional row required by the ITS instead of placing a list in one cell.
Identifier checks: LEI or EUID is present where the ITS requires it, provider records are active and unique, country codes and service type identifiers use the expected controlled values, and no provider has conflicting legal names across sources.
Contract checks: every service-specific record links to an existing contractual arrangement reference number; each arrangement has a signing entity, direct ICT third-party provider, arrangement type, and written-contract evidence.
Function checks: every ICT service that supports a critical or important function links to a valid function identifier and the corresponding assessment record.
Supply-chain checks: the direct provider is rank 1, subcontractors have ranks greater than 1, providers in the same chain share the contractual arrangement reference and ICT service type, and intra-group-to-external chains are reconciled.
Risk checks: critical or important function services have evidence for substitutability, exit planning, last audit or the ITS no-audit sentinel 9999-12-31, reintegration possibility, discontinuity impact, alternative provider assessment, and concentration-risk review. Treat the sentinel as a missing-audit state, not as an audit date.
Change checks: material contract changes, new ICT services, changed supported functions, new subcontractors, changed processing locations, or changed criticality status reopen the build record for approval.
The RTS requires policies to cover planning, risk assessment, due diligence, approval, monitoring, documentation, record-keeping, exit, and termination for critical or important function arrangements.
main phases of the lifecycle
4
Section 4
Handle subcontracting data as a separate governed workstream
Subcontracting should not be imported only from free-text contract clauses. The register build needs a provider-confirmed subcontracting inventory for ICT services supporting critical or important functions or material parts of those functions, plus governance evidence showing how the financial entity assessed and approved the chain. Also include at least the first extra-group subcontractor after an ICT intra-group provider, even for services that do not support critical or important functions.
For each subcontracted service, reconcile the supplier disclosure to the contract conditions, risk assessment, service location, data location, concentration assessment, access and inspection rights, and exit or transferability analysis.
Capture whether subcontracting is permitted for the ICT service supporting a critical or important function and the conditions that apply.
Record subcontractors that effectively underpin the service, including those whose disruption would impair service security or continuity.
Assess the length and complexity of the subcontractor chain, the nature of data shared, service and data locations, group relationship, supervisory or oversight status, concentration to one or a few subcontractors, transferability impact, and continuity impact.
Require evidence that the ICT third-party service provider can identify subcontractors, notify the financial entity, provide assessment information, and maintain contractual rights that let the financial entity and authorities access and inspect where required.
Keep approval records for new subcontracting arrangements and material subcontracting changes before they are promoted into the export-ready register.
Article 29 requires financial entities to assess subcontracting chains and their impact on monitoring and supervisory access.
potentially long or complex chains of subcontracting
5
Section 5
Govern the build and keep export evidence
Before export, route exceptions to accountable owners instead of editing them away. Legal owns contract interpretation, procurement owns arrangement completeness, vendor-risk owns provider and due diligence evidence, business owners own function criticality, ICT risk owns service and resilience assessments, and group reporting owns consolidated consistency.
The export pack should make the register explainable without internal project memory. Keep the exported file, validation report, source-to-template mapping, exception log, owner approvals, provider attestations or disclosures, contract evidence, function-criticality rationale, subcontracting assessment, and change log together.
Approval gate: resolve mandatory-field and structural validation failures before export. Record unresolved issues, accountable owners, remediation dates, and any competent-authority instructions; internal risk acceptance does not waive required register data.
Evidence gate: each material field has a traceable source, such as signed contract, addendum, provider disclosure, service catalogue record, function assessment, audit report, exit plan, or risk assessment.
Governance gate: management-body and senior-management reporting receives the unresolved critical or important function gaps, concentration-risk concerns, subcontracting concerns, and exit-plan gaps.
Export gate: the final dataset uses the official template structure, controlled service taxonomy, stable identifiers, and source-system reconciliation status.
Rebuild triggers: new or changed ICT arrangements, provider identity changes, new ICT services, criticality changes, subcontractor changes, audit findings, exit-plan changes, and competent-authority requests.
Article 28 requires the register to be made available to competent authorities on request and requires planned critical or important function arrangements to be notified in a timely manner.
The RTS requires governance responsibilities, monitoring, documentation, record-keeping, audit access, and exit planning for ICT services supporting critical or important functions.
The ITS defines the official register template families and the data relationships that an export-ready register must preserve.
Contractual arrangements – general information
Recommended next step
Turn source-system records into an export-ready DORA register
Sorena can help convert contract, provider, service, function, subcontractor, and risk-assessment records into a governed register build with source mapping, validation checks, and evidence records.
Official ITS source for the register template structure, linking keys, provider identifiers, supply-chain ranks, function identifiers, service types, and assessment fields.
The ITS explains that the register templates use linked open tables and predefined columns for contractual arrangements, entities, providers, services, functions, and assessments.
The ITS identifies the four linking keys used across templates: contractual arrangement reference number, entity and provider identifiers, function identifier, and ICT service type.
Show 2 more
The ITS requires direct providers to be rank 1 and subcontractors to have ranks higher than 1 in the ICT service supply chain.
The ITS defines the official register template families and the data relationships that an export-ready register must preserve.
"standard templates for the register of information"
More quoted passages
"use four keys"
"rank of the direct ICT third-party service provider"
Core DORA source for Article 28 register duties, ICT third-party risk management, contract assessments, concentration-risk assessment, and key contractual provisions.
Article 28 requires the register to cover contractual arrangements for ICT services and distinguishes critical or important functions.
Article 28 frames ICT third-party risk management around the nature, scale, complexity, importance, and criticality of ICT dependencies.
Show 2 more
Article 29 requires financial entities to assess subcontracting chains and their impact on monitoring and supervisory access.
Article 28 requires the register to be made available to competent authorities on request and requires planned critical or important function arrangements to be notified in a timely manner.
"register of information"
More quoted passages
"maintain and update at entity level"
"criticality or importance of the respective service"
"potentially long or complex chains of subcontracting"
RTS source for governance, due diligence, contractual clauses, monitoring, documentation, record-keeping, audit access, and exit planning for ICT services supporting critical or important functions.
The RTS requires policies to cover planning, risk assessment, due diligence, approval, monitoring, documentation, record-keeping, exit, and termination for critical or important function arrangements.
The RTS requires governance responsibilities, monitoring, documentation, record-keeping, audit access, and exit planning for ICT services supporting critical or important functions.
"contractual arrangements on the use of ICT services"
More quoted passages
"main phases of the lifecycle"
"approval, management, control, and documentation"