This workshop, which will include a mix of theoretical and hands-on practical sessions, will equip its participants with the fundamentals of constructing a heritage database from conceptualisation to implementation. The workshop includes three sub-modules as follows: 1. a deep dive into how data can be structured through an interactive play on CIDOC-CRM ontology – the global standard used as a theoretical and practical tool for information integration in the field of cultural heritage (https://cidoc-crm.org/); 2. familiarisation with the creation and use of controlled vocabularies for heritage management interoperability in a global and regional perspective (ie Getty vocabularies, Fish vocabularies, PeriodO), and 3. an overview of heritage database creation, using the example of the Arches platform. Arches is an open-source data management platform that is freely available for organisations worldwide to install, configure and extend in accordance with individual needs and without restrictions on its use; it has been adapted to support the documentation of archaeological landscapes, heritage data and ancillary reference information. The project, Mapping Africa’s Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments (MAEASaM) will also demonstrate their implementation of Arches for managing data on archaeological heritage across eleven African countries as an example of the advantages and limitations of Arches in handling diverse datasets.