System of record (SOR)
The application designated as the authoritative store for a particular type of data, whose values other systems treat as definitive.
In more detail
A system of record is the application that officially owns a given type of data. The CRM is typically the system of record for customer and deal data, the HRIS for employee data, the ERP for financial data. Its authority is the point: when systems disagree, the system of record wins, and others are expected to defer to it.
Designating clear systems of record is how an organization avoids fragmenting its truth. Each data domain should have one authoritative home, with the surrounding tools reading from and writing to it rather than maintaining rival copies. Tools that quietly become de facto second sources of record are a common cause of data chaos.
Where this shows up at Ceven
Ceven is deliberately not a system of record for any data domain. It orchestrates around the customer's existing systems of record, the CRM, the HRIS, the ERP, reading from them and writing back to them so they stay authoritative. This is a core design choice: Ceven runs the workflows on top while the systems of record keep the truth, with every write it makes recorded in the audit trail.