Heratio Help Center article. Category: User Guide.

ahgFunctionManagePlugin — Functions (ISDF)

The ahgFunctionManagePlugin manages function records — the activities, business processes, mandates, or programmes that produce archival material. They are described per ISDF (International Standard for Describing Functions).

Functions sit alongside actors and information objects in the archival description trinity:

Actor (who)  →  Function (what they did)  →  Information object (the record they left)

Documenting functions matters because the same body restructures over time, the same activity passes between bodies, and the records make sense only if the activity that produced them is described separately and persistently.

What it does

ISDF field set

The edit form mirrors the four ISDF areas:

• 5.1 Identity area — type (function / activity / process / transaction), authorized form of name, parallel forms, other forms, classification
• 5.2 Context area — dates of the function, description, history, legislation
• 5.3 Relationships area — related functions (broader / narrower / temporal predecessor / successor), related actors (executes), related records (output of)
• 5.4 Control area — function description identifier, institution responsible, rules, status (draft / published), level of detail, dates of description, language, sources, maintenance notes

Multilingual: every text field has per-culture rows in function_i18n.

Function types

The classification picklist (taxonomy id 92) ships with four ISDF-standard types:

Functions form a tree: a Function contains Activities; an Activity contains Processes; a Process leaves a trail of Transactions.

Common workflows

Document a new function

1. /function/add.
2. Pick Type = Function, fill Authorized form of name, Dates (when the function existed — e.g. "1923-1994" for a programme that's since ended).
3. History — narrative of what the function was, the legal basis, how it changed over time.
4. Legislation — link to the act / policy / mandate that authorised the function.
5. Save. The function gets a slug like national-vaccination-programme.

Link an actor to a function (who executes the function)

1. Open the actor show page (/actor/<slug>).
2. Functions sidebar → Add link.
3. Pick the function, pick the relationship type (executes, responsible-for, participated-in).
4. Save. The link is stored in the relation table; the inverse appears on the function's show page automatically.

Link records to a function (what the function produced)

1. Open the IO edit page.
2. Context area → Function field → autocomplete to the function record.
3. Save. The IO's metadata now carries creating_function_id. The function's show page lists the record under "Records produced".

Merge duplicates

Same as actors and terms — /admin/function/merge, pick survivor + doomed, review every link, confirm.

Settings

The plugin shares the authority-record settings page (/admin/settings/ahg/authority) — completeness scoring, NER pipeline, merge auto-pre-select threshold all apply to functions too.

Function-specific:

• Auto-create from NER — when on, the NER pipeline (in ahgAIPlugin) extracts function names from IO scope-and-content fields and offers to link them to existing function records or create new ones.
• Show in GLAM browse facets — surface "Function" as a sidebar facet on /glam/browse. Default off (functions are usually a researcher-tool view, not a casual-browse axis).

Permissions

Why bother with functions?

Two motivating examples:

1. Records survive, bodies change. The records of "South African Department of Education" predate the department itself. The records were produced by various legacy bodies (Cape Education Department, Transvaal Education Department, etc.) — each of which executed the same function (basic-education provision) under different actors. Indexing on function lets researchers find all "basic education provision" records regardless of which body owned them at the time.

2. Bodies execute many functions. A single state archive holds records of finance, health, defence, justice, and education. The same actor (the state) executes many functions. Function records let researchers slice the catalogue by activity, not just by depositor.

Without function records, the only way to express "this is about education" is to drop the term into a subject keyword — which loses the ISDF-standard structure (dates, mandates, hierarchy).

Common gotchas

• Functions vs subjects. A subject term ("Education") is what the record is about. A function ("Provision of basic education") is what produced the record. Same word, different model. Don't tag both unless you mean both.
• MPTT integrity — like terms and information objects, function tree uses lft/rgt. Don't DELETE directly; use the controller or php artisan ahg:nested-set-rebuild --table=function.
• Dates of existence — these are the dates the function existed, not the records. A 1990-1994 programme can have records dated 1995 (a final report) and that's fine.
• Slug stability — renaming the authorized form of name does not rename the URL slug. Use /function/<slug>/rename (admin only) explicitly.
• Deleting a function with records attached is refused at the controller. Reassign or merge first.

Related

• ahgActorManagePlugin — actors execute functions
• ahgInformationObjectManagePlugin — records are the output of functions
• ahgRicExplorerPlugin — RiC graph: actor ↔ function ↔ record edges
• ahgTermTaxonomyPlugin — the function-classification picklist is a taxonomy
• Help articles: Records in Contexts (RiC) Overview, AHG Authority Records — User Guide