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Creating Your Fonds Structure

The end-to-end walkthrough for building out an archival hierarchy. Available on Professional plans and above.

Plan first, click second​

Before clicking Create Fond, sketch out:

  1. Who created the records you hold? Each distinct creator becomes a fond.
  2. Are there major organisational divisions? Create sub-fonds for departments or major units.
  3. Are there topic areas or administrative groupings above series? Create sections (e.g. civil vs. ecclesiastical records in parish collections).
  4. What kinds of records did they create? Each record series becomes a series within the relevant parent.
  5. Do any series need fine-grained sub-division? Use sub-series or sub-sub-series as needed.

Five minutes on paper saves hours of rearranging later. Remember: you don't have to use every level.

The Fonds page​

Fonds in the sidebar opens the Fonds management screen.

Fonds empty

When empty, you see total counts (Fonds, Total Items, Date Span, Accessions assigned) plus a Get Started CTA. Click it to create your first fond.

The page defaults to tree view — a hierarchical browser showing your collection structure with child levels indented. This is the reference-bearing navigation archivists use to locate material.

At the top of the page, you'll see:

  • New fonds (primary button) — create a new top-level fond
  • View toggle — switch between tree (default), cards, or table view
  • Display menu (⚙ icon) — options including:
    • Lead with — choose whether to display reference codes or titles first
    • Hide empty levels — fold any levels with no accessions or items filed to them
  • Select — multi-select mode for bulk operations (cards/table view only)
  • Manage — the structure editor (drag-drop arrangement)

In tree view, there's also a Collapse all button to fold the entire hierarchy at once.

Creating a fond​

  1. Click New fonds in the top right (or Get Started if the Fonds page is empty).
  2. Fill in:
    • Title (required) — the name of the creating person, family, or organisation
    • Reference code (optional) — your institutional identifier
    • Date span (optional) — the dates of creation
    • Scope and content — narrative description
    • Biographical / administrative history — about the creator
  3. Save. The fond appears in the list.

Archivers.ai applies ISAD(G) and DACS defaults to the fond schema — you can adjust them in Settings → Data Model under the Collection category.

Adding sub-levels​

Open any fond. The detail page shows:

  • Left side — Structure tree showing this level and its children
  • Right side — Content panels showing accessions assigned here, plus catalogue items (individual records) filed directly at this level
  • Action buttons — options to add children, manage, edit metadata

Click + Add child under any level to add a sub-level. The platform allows these nesting rules:

  • Fond → Sub-fond, Section, Series
  • Sub-fond → Section, Series
  • Section → Sub-section, Series
  • Sub-section → Series
  • Series → Sub-series
  • Sub-series → Sub-sub-series (optional, repeatable)

So you can skip levels you don't need. For example: Fond → Series → Sub-series is valid, as is Fond → Section → Series.

Each level has its own description fields, inherited defaults from the parent, and a date span computed from its children.

Editing ISAD(G) fields​

You can edit a node's metadata in two ways:

From the cards view: Click a fond or series card, and the Metadata editor modal opens. From here you can:

  • Edit all ISAD(G) collection-level fields (Scope and content, Biographical/administrative history, Physical description, etc.)
  • Generate an AI draft of field values from the node's accessions and items (see AI Analyse ISAD)
  • See the fields already inherited from parent levels (read-only)

From the structure tree: Click Manage (top right), then right-click a node. A menu appears with:

  • Edit description — opens a lightweight editor for the main description fields
  • Edit collection — opens a modal to edit the collection's title and reference code (if you need to change the reference after creation)

You can also change a collection's reference code via the Edit collection modal even after it's created, which is useful when you receive updated institutional identifiers or retroactively apply a numbering scheme.

Rearranging​

The Manage mode (top right of the Fonds page) puts the structure into drag-and-drop. You can:

  • Drag a node to a new parent — moves the entire sub-tree
  • Alt-drag — copy (creates a new node with the same title in the new location, descendants are not duplicated)
  • Right-click → Rename, Edit description, Delete

Deletion of a node with children is allowed; children move up to the deleted node's parent (no cascade delete).

Best practices​

  • Mirror the creator, not the topic. Thornton Family Papers is a fond; World War One materials is a dossier.
  • Keep the hierarchy shallow. Three levels is usually enough. Five-level hierarchies become hard to navigate.
  • Reference codes are your friend. Set them once at fond level; sub-fonds and series inherit a prefix automatically.
  • Use the description field generously at the top. Researchers read fond-level descriptions first; that's where to put context.

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