System Data Sets
CheckFlow ships with a set of System Data Sets — common reference lists that are ready to use without you having to build or maintain them.
They behave exactly like your own Data Sets when you link a control to them, with two differences:
- They are read-only. Nobody, including Administrators, can add, edit or delete their fields, records or Views.
- They do not appear in the Library. They are only offered where they are used: in the Link to Data Set dialog in the Template Designer, under a System group.
Available System Data Sets
| Data Set | Fields | Contents |
|---|---|---|
| Countries | Name, ISO2 Code, ISO3 Code, Dial Code | The ISO 3166-1 country list |
| Currencies | Name, Code, Symbol | The ISO 4217 currency list |
| Timezones | Name, UTC Offset, Region | Common IANA timezones |
| Language Codes | Name, ISO 639-1 Code | The ISO 639-1 language list |
| US States | Name, Abbreviation | The 50 United States |
| Months of Year | Name, Short Name, Number | January – December |
| Quarters of Year | Name, Short Name, Number | Q1 – Q4 |
| Days of Week | Name, Short Name, Number | Monday – Sunday (1 = Monday) |
| Priority Levels | Label, Value | Critical, High, Medium, Low |
| Yes / No / N/A | Label, Value | Yes, No, N/A |
Every System Data Set has an All Records View. Currencies has an additional Major Currencies View, filtered to the twenty most commonly used currency codes.
Using a System Data Set
Link a control to a System Data Set exactly as you would your own — see Linking to Controls. Choose the Display Field to control what the user sees:
- Link a Dropdown to Countries with Name as the Display Field to offer a country picker.
- Bind another control to the ISO2 Code field so the two-letter code is captured automatically alongside the country name. See Data Set Dynamic Values.
Permissions
System Data Sets are visible to anyone who can open the Template Designer — they contain no team data, so they are not subject to Library folder permissions.
They cannot be moved, tagged, archived or deleted, and they do not count towards your team's limit of 100 Data Sets.
If You Need to Change One
Because System Data Sets are read-only, the way to customise one is to make your own copy:
- Create a new Data Set in the Library.
- Add the fields you need and enter (or import) the records.
- Link your controls to your own Data Set instead.
The most common reason is to restrict a list — for example, only the fifteen countries you actually operate in. Since you cannot add a filtered View to a System Data Set, the way to do that is a small Data Set of your own containing exactly the rows you want. Export CSV is not available on System Data Sets, so build the copy from your own source data.
note
System Data Sets are supplied by CheckFlow and may gain records over time as the underlying standards change. Because answers are stored as snapshots, existing checklist answers are never rewritten when that happens.
System Data Sets and the API
System Data Sets are returned by the Data Sets API with "source": "system", alongside your own Data Sets which are returned as "source": "organisation".
They also have a stable slug — for example system-countries — which can be used in place of the ID in any API path:
Any write operation against a System Data Set returns 403 Forbidden.
Related Pages
- Data Sets Overview — how they differ from your own.
- Linking a Data Set to a Control — using one in a template.