April 2010 - Posts

• Let's play 20 (RFP) Questions

  In our 10 years of business I've seen a number of technology RFPs.  Maybe - maybe - 10% of them were good.  The other 90% were... lets just say "not very good".  How do you know if you have a good RFP?  Here are a few clues: If your RFP is 300 questions long, or 200 questions long, or even anywhere near 100 questions long, it is not. If you use the "our auditors make us to do this for SOX" excuse as to what questions are in your RFP, it is not. If you ask any of these types of questions - "Do you use antivirus software?", "Do you have strong passwords on your servers?", "Do you run background checks on employees?" - it is not. (Why not?  These questions will be answered yes regardless of whether they are actually done or not - and even garage-stage tech companies will do them.  Instead you can ask just a few questions, that are not yes/no questions, to get an idea of the "stage" of your vendor and assess these types of risks.)  An RFP is just a waste of everybody's time if you don't' ask the right questions.  Approach your RFP as the tool to gather the most important, primarily not feature-related pieces of information that you'll need to help make a product selection (more on that later).  Don't approach it with the idea of asking every question you can think of.  With an RFP, more is not better!    Here are the 20 questions you need to ask when your department or company is buying any web-based software application.     How stable are you the vendor? How long have you been in business? Are you public? What do your financials look like? How many new sales have you had in the last 6 months? How many customers and how many employees do you have? What is the pricing model, and what will our all-in cost be? What are all of the possible additional costs, now and in the future, that we might incur? How long or short are your available contract terms? How does implementation work - what happens? How long does it take? Are there any additional fees? Which party is responsible for what? How does training work? Is it instructor-led (how often) or recorded? How many hours are recommended for each type of user? Do you offer trial versions? Are they fully functional? Will the speed be reflective of what we would expect in our production version? How do we get our content into the system? Are there import or conversion utilities? Do you charge separate fees for conversions or importing? How exactly do we get our data out of the system if we cancel? Is there a fee? What format is it in? Can I see an example? How does customer support work? Are there different levels for different fees? How do we contact support - by phone? Email? What is the typical turnaround time to receive a reply? (Note: You should pick up the phone during your due diligence and call to see if the support line answers). How do upgrades work? Does everyone get upgraded at once? How many upgrades have you done in the last 24 months, and how many are expected in the next 24? How much work is required by us for an upgrade? Have you ever charged a separate fee for any upgrade or any new or additional module or feature? What versions of what browsers on what operating systems are supported? Are any unusual browser settings needed? Is there a requirement to download any application or plug-in to our desktops, for core or optional functionality? How is our data hosted - is the hosting "multi-tenant", where a single database houses data from many customers, or does each customer have their own unique database? What hosting provider do you use? Have you ever had any type of unauthorized system access or security breach, to any of your servers or any of your client data? When was the last time that any customer was unable to access their site due to an issue with the system or the hosting infrastructure? How long was the system inaccessible for? How many instances of downtime have happened in the last 24 months? What is the backup procedure - how often are backups taken? What backups are stored offsite, and in what medium - tape or electronic? What is your general disaster recovery model? Do you have another location setup as a hotsite, or is client data mirrored to another site for redundancy? If a catastrophic accident happens to the datacenter, where would you restore our data and how would the restore process work? What features are coming with the next release, and when is it expected? What 3 features are most asked for by current customers that are not in the current version or planned for the next version? (Note: You may not get valuable information here, but you should still ask). In your experience what are the most important factors for our ultimate success with your product? Can we have 2 references from companies that (1) are currently using the version we are considering, for the same intended use as ours, and (2) have been customers for at least a year? (Note: Don't worry about customers in the same industry unless the product/need is truly industry-specific.) Most of these questions don't have a "right" or "wrong" answer.   If your company is buying an ERP system, you probably aren't going to buy from a company started last month with 3 people.  On the other hand, if you're exploring new innovative products that aren't mission critical (like a project management or collaboration tool), that new company might not just be okay, but even preferred in some cases.  The information you gather needs to be evaluated in the context of your need. You would of course add some functional-specific questions based on the type of system you are evaluating, but fight the urge and limit yourself to as few functional questions as possible.  Functional requirements are what a demonstration is for.  Vendor salespeople can figure out some way to justify a "yes" answer to almost any functional question you could ask.   All those "yes" answers from all those vendors means you don't have any real data to compare vendors against. Did I miss any questions?  Let me know in the comments.       Posted Apr 30 2010, 11:58 AM by roccotarasi with no comments Filed under: tips, best practices, RFP

• Perform policyIQ User Maintenance to manage access and costs

  There are a number of items we recommend policyIQ Site Administrators keep an eye on from time to time, in order to stay on top of your policyIQ site. Performing periodic user maintenance is one of these recommended steps.   The benefits of a periodic review When was the last time you had an overview of the users in your site? Consider these questions: Do you have any users in your site who have left your company? Do you have users who have moved into different roles in your organization and no longer work in your policyIQ site? Do you have users who have moved to a different location or team, but their policyIQ profile hasn't been updated to reflect those changes? Do you have too many Site Administrators or users with Roles that give them more access than necessary? Checking in on the overall status of your users is a good idea for both security purposes and costs. You want to be sure that your users are in the right Groups and have access to all of the necessary information.  If there are users who are no longer with the company, you want to be sure that they can no longer access your policyIQ site.  And of course, you can save your organization money by removing those user accounts!   Use Reports to get a full picture of your users A good starting point for getting an overview of your users is to create a report that will give you that information. In the Reports module, simply create a new user report. You don't have to add any filters for this report, but you may want to make some column selections. Columns: By default, your new report will include column selections for First Name, Last Name and Email Address. Consider adding Groups, Account Type and Role as result columns - these are both located under the Security category. Under the Changed category, go ahead and add Last Log On.  When you run this report, you're going to get some really useful information regarding the users in your site. Sort by Last Log On and see if you have users who have not been in the site for years. Maybe they're good candidates for removal? As a Site Administrator, you have the ability to remove users. You'll even be able to delete the user right there from the results table! It's also a good idea to review the Groups your Users belong to. Do you have someone in an Approval group, but they no longer have those responsibilities? Move them out of the group. Don't worry - this won't delete them from your site!  Has the user moved to a new department or a new location?  You're able to make updates to their Groups directly from your report. Consider whether your users have the appropriate Role. Do you have too many users in Site Administrator roles? Site Administrators have access to all content and all configuration items. Maybe some of these users should only be given local rights to administer specific Groups, Folders, Templates or content. Your account manager is available to discuss other user maintenance tips with you. Give them a call, or send an email to support@policyIQ.com and ask for more info! Posted Apr 26 2010, 08:36 AM by scottpalermo with no comments Filed under: tips, reports, best practices, maintenance

• Allow us to introduce you to one of our outstanding supporting cast members!

  Allow me to introduce you to MarDee Haring-Layton.  Like many of you, MarDee Haring-Layton has a background in public accounting and audit.  In her own words, she's "done everything from Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable / Collections to auditing a Big 4 firm".  Ms. Layton has been responsible for creating audit programs, readying an organization for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, and working as a Corporate Audit Manager.  She's a woman who loves a challenge. Since 2007, MarDee has been taking on those challenges and solving problems for organizations as a consultant with Resources Global Professionals.  policyIQ, as a product of Resources Global, has an amazing supporting cast of consultants around the world that help organizations solve business problems.  From the inside out. From the inside out? At Resources, it's not our business model to create a huge project team that will come into your organization, complete a set of deliverables, collect a huge consulting project fee and then walk out.  It's just not what we do.  Instead, our consultants are highly experienced - like MarDee Haring-Layton -  and with an average of 20+ years of professional experience.  They will partner with your team to meet a specific need or fill a gap in knowledge, experience or time.  Perhaps you're a newly public organization needing to build out an internal audit department? A consultant like MarDee will bring experience to your team, teach your group along the way, but take guidance from your management team on the direction and goals of the work. Want to implement an Enterprise Risk Management program, but you just don't know where to start? We have consultants with experience, tools and knowledge that they are ready to share and help you implement those programs. Just don't have enough hands on deck to complete the testing work for your IT audits at the end of the year? We have highly skilled consultants who would be happy to dig in to the details and complete the testing - for rates much lower than traditional consulting firms might charge for new college graduates. But let's get back to MarDee As a client of Resources in 2005 while she was an Accounting Manager implementing the first year of SOX at a publicly traded retail organization, MarDee was drawn to the energy of the Resources Consultants working alongside her.  "I  was impressed with the fact that everyone was so knowledgeable AND loved what they were doing."  Wanting to be a part of that energy, MarDee joined Resources as a consultant in 2007.  Since that time, she has consulted for eight different clients, completing multiple projects for many of those clients.  Her roles have been in areas of accounting and SEC expertise, to Internal Audit, Sarbanes-Oxley and policyIQ implementations.  In fact, MarDee has implemented policyIQ four times - as a client of Resources and as a consultant - and has been involved in two more "re-implementations" for clients who needed a fresh start. Sage advice from a seasoned expert As a seasoned policyIQ implementation specialist, we asked MarDee to share some lessons learned with our policyIQ community. 1. Identify an owner "I think the key is having an employee who is technically savvy and commits the time to regularly maintain the documentation in policyIQ. Problems occur when no one in the organization takes ownership of it." 2. Strike a balance "Find a balance between the information you want to report on and the time required to maintain those fields in policyIQ. Some clients over-do it and create more work for themselves in the maintenance." Final words We asked MarDee if there was one career highlight that stood out for her - one accomplishment that she was really proud of.  Rather than identifying a successful project or a promotion, MarDee is most proud of the professional relationships and network that she's built.  Want to improve on your own professional network?  Join the discussion here on our blog - or join us for our regularly monthly training sessions.  Let us know how we can help you to reach out to others within the policyIQ community. Want to learn more about Resources and our professional services? If your organization could use some assistance, contact us and we'll get you in touch with your local office of Resources Global Professionals.  There are over 3000 consultants like MarDee across the world who can help you with your organizational initiatives or bring experience and expertise to your teams! Posted Apr 22 2010, 09:15 AM by chrisburd with no comments Filed under: tips, community, administration, maintenance, internal audit, sarbanes-oxley, project management, customer success, professional services

• Boston Private’s policyIQ Administrator spills the secrets to their success

  As the policyIQ team, we have the opportunity to work with a wide variety of clients on a slew of different types of implementations. We enjoy helping each of you achieve success with policyIQ at your organization. We also enjoy the relationships we build with our clients. One of our long time clients, Boston Private Wealth Management Group has been utilizing policyIQ since 2004 and recently converted to Version 6. Boston Private utilizes policyIQ for their SOX, Risk Management, and Internal Audit needs and has almost 200 users accessing over 11,000 pages. Boston Private has many affiliates that access the system from over a dozen different US locations. Eric Maroyan is the SOX Manager and policyIQ lead at Boston Private and recently shared the secrets to his policyIQ success. Eric has his MBA and is a CPA. Eric’s background includes leading two implementations and is familiar with the potential pains of software conversions. Here are some tips from Eric: As the policyIQ lead, make yourself available and visible Boston Private has posted emails and phone numbers of policyIQ contact persons at the company on the policyIQ logon screen encouraging everyone that has a question to call these designated Officers for assistance. This was still true, even with the new version. Eric thinks it calmed down everyone throughout the process of learning a new version, knowing they could contact the policyIQ lead Officers at the company anytime with a question. Eric made a point of creating a training plan that was based on type of user and department to ease the users in the learning curve of the new system. He also attended every training session, even though they were conducted by a member of the policyIQ team. This reminded everyone that Eric is a policyIQ contact and can be reached out for assistance for work related to policyIQ. Hit the policyIQ wall? Call Support right away As Eric learned the new version of policyIQ he occasionally "hit the wall" and each time he would phone technical support for assistance in the moment that he was struggling. "I really appreciate the support from both John and Brian." They would walk him thorough the system until Eric understood how to answer his question. "You have to get into the system and try things until you hit that wall. Then get technical support to help you to figure out how to get where you want to get." Don’t hesitate to call the support line (866-877-1231), that’s what it is there for! Designate a policyIQ person at each location Another recommendation from Eric is to have a designated policyIQ contact at each location. Eric is certainly the main contact throughout Boston Private, but if he has a question about a certain location, he has someone to go to. This gives him eyes and ears at every location to check in and see how people are responding to policyIQ. Conversion recommendations "Make sure that when you convert - any system - that you have the full support of Management." Don’t let them ignore the system just because it looks complicated. Management back-up ensures that everyone takes the time to attend training and give the new system the attention it deserves. Also, remember to regularly perform database maintenance. Ensure that your conversion is more than "junk in, junk out". The more time you spend before conversion the smoother the whole conversion will go. Finally, don’t panic and follow the plan. The Boston Private training schedule was developed and communicated long before conversion to ensure that everyone had ample opportunities to be trained. Also the training was planned for soon after the upgrade so that people were learning the new system soon after it was available. Contact Eric directly If you’d like to contact Eric directly, feel free to email him at emaroyan@bostonprivate.com. He’s always open to answering policyIQ questions. Posted Apr 20 2010, 01:47 PM by carolinevillella with no comments

• Effectively reporting on changes

  If you've done any reporting in policyIQ, you know just how powerful our reporting tool is. Using filter selections, you can report on pretty much anything that is going on in your policyIQ site. And with our customizable column selections, you can display exactly the amount of detail that you need in your report results. Change reports are not quite as well-known as our more standard report types, but they offer an extremely valuable insight! These reports give you a look at what changes have - or have not - occurred in your policyIQ site over a selected period of time. And when you look at the long list of change filters we provide, you'll find that there are a ton of different changes you can report on. First, let's take a look at where you'll find the change filters, so you can start building your very own change report.   Selecting Change filters Create a new Page report, and then select Changes from the Add Filters dropdown list.  The Changes window will open, with a list of different change types you can select, as shown in the image to the right. With all of these change options available, you may be wondering which of these would be most useful to you. As you can see, we've given you the ability to report on some very specific types of changes. When was an Administrator Group added or removed? When was an attachment or a linked item added or removed? When was the Page removed from a Folder? But there are some change filters here that most users would find helpful, once they realize what they can do with them. For example, the Item Field Changed filter can let you see when a specific custom field on a Page has changed. You likely know how to create a report that lists all of your Key Controls within a selected process. The Item Field Changed filter takes your reporting a step further and lets you see when the Significance field on your Control Pages was changed from Key to another value (e.g., Secondary or Non-Key), or vice versa. Tell me everything! Sometimes, you may just want a comprehensive list of all the changes that have occurred on a particular Page. In that case, you'll find the Any Change filter to be extremely valuable. Of course, a report like that is likely to bring back quite a few results, so don't be alarmed if the report takes a bit longer than usual to run.   Pick Columns to determine what detail you want to see in results Once you've made your change filter selections, you'll want to make sure you're also choosing columns that will display the most important information related to the report results. There are a number of column selection options that go hand-in-hand with change filters. Building on our example of changes to the Significance field, you'll probably want to include a column selection of Change Details. In most cases, this will show you what the previous value in the field was. So within that column in our report results, we'll see if a particular Page's Significance changed from Key to Non-key, or from Secondary to Key, and so on. When applicable, this column will also display any notes that a user entered at the time they made a change.   Let us help! Would you like some help creating a particular change report? Don't forget that the policyIQ support team is here to assist. Send us an email any time at support@policyIQ.com, and we'll be happy to help you out! Posted Apr 15 2010, 07:29 AM by scottpalermo with no comments Filed under: tips, reports, features, administration, maintenance

• Best Practices in Supply Chain Management in this Compliance Week Podcast

  We will periodically be sharing with you some great research, articles and interviews with our colleagues on the professional services side of Resources Global Professionals.  With over 3000 consultants worldwide, Resources has internal experts in variety of fields and industries.  We want to share their expertise with you! Bob Engel, Senior Practice Leader, Supply Chain for Resources Global Professionals,  recently spoke with Matt Kelly, Editor-in-Chief for Compliance Week regarding  best practices in supply chain management.  Regulators are increasingly holding companies responsible for the behavior of the third parties in their supply chain.  Companies are also increasingly focused on strategies for better managing the suppliers themselves.  In this podcast, they specifically address risk analysis of supply chain, control systems, and evaluating  overseas suppliers.  Check out the podcast on our company's website.  If you want to learn more about how Resources can help your organization with supply chain projects or initiatives, contact us and we'll put you in touch with your local office of Resources Global Professionals! Posted Apr 14 2010, 02:09 PM by chrisburd with no comments Filed under: contract management, supply chain management, industry news

• Advanced Search: Value for users at all levels in all organizations

  Advanced Search is a scaled down version of the Reports module that is available in every module of policyIQ.  In version 6.6, we made improvements that allow any Standard or Advanced User to save Advanced Searches in their left navigation for easy access in the future. Wait...don't stop reading.  I know you might not use Reports right now - but let me tell you a little bit about why Advanced Search is different.  When you create an Advanced Search, not only do you decide how you want to filter the list of pages (such as "Policies Published in the last 30 Days") - but you decide what columns you want to see in the results.  Have you ever wished that your Checked Out To Me table displayed a column for Viewers?  Create an Advanced Search of pages with the stage of "Checked Out to Me" and include the Viewers in your result set.  Want to know what Policies have been updated in the last 30 days?  You can create the list in your Home module and check that first every time you log into policyIQ! Still not convinced that this feature is helpful for you?  Here are some more ideas: SOX, Audit or Compliance Tester For a compliance or audit Tester, your policyIQ world often boils down to the Test pages that are assigned to you.  Sure, those are likely to be "Checked Out to Me" - but is the information in that table ideal for seeing - at a quick glance - what you need to be working on?  Some of you have told us that it's not, so we have some suggestions for you: Test Pages Assigned to Me Filter for pages from the Test Template that are checked out to you. Rather than relying on our standard columns, add columns for the Folders (to tell you what Location or Process you might be testing), the Testing Status (you might even filter for just those that are In Progress or Not Yet Started), the Sample Size and the Test Steps. Testing Completed So Far Is it just me or do you also like to be able to see what you have accomplished so far? Create a list of Test pages for which you are the Editor (or Administrator, depending on your process) with a status of "Complete" for this quarter. If they require approval, you can stay on top of the approval status - or just review your work so far to make sure that everything is on track. Open Action Plans Are you responsible for following up on Action Plans in certain processes? Retesting based on the status of such a plan? Create an Advanced Search of Action Plans in business processes for which you are responsible, and add columns for Status and Next Milestone Date (or Due Date). Remediation Testing Required You might have testing for the current quarter and remediation testing due at the same time. Create separate lists for each - and add columns that help you to stay on top of your remediation testing and the due dates. Policy Manager Some organizations have a specific point person to keep policies and procedures updated and available.  This individual needs to stay on top of all policies - and make sure updates are made, approved and correctly documented for all employees. All Unpublished Policies Know what isn't currently published to stay on top of updates. Add columns for Editor, Administrator and Last Edit Date to make sure that the updating process continues to move forward. Policies Expiring in the Next 30 Days Policies stay current when they are reviewed and updated frequently. Remind users who haven't looked at policies in awhile that the expiration date is approaching - and they should review the content to be sure it remains valid. Policies Published in the Last 30 Days What has been updated recently? Add columns for the Publish Reason to make sure that users are correctly noting the reason for updates in a short description. Add columns for each Policy Template Field to confirm that all fields are correctly filled out, or export to a Narrative Report to make sure that the formatting is standard. Human Resources Director The HR Director needs to stay on top of the corporate HR policies - and have easy access to review and send off copies to employees in the event of possible violations or questions. All Code of Conduct Policies Some policies are essential for new hires or must be reviewed when disputes arise. Keep those policies handy in a list - complete with the last published date, who updated the policy most recently, and who signed off on the most recent update. Policies Published in the Last 30 Days Know immediately what has changed in the last 30 days at a glance - and like the previous list, add columns to know exactly who made those changes and who approved them. You can even add columns to know exactly what fields changed - was it an attachment? Or perhaps just a non-critical spelling or grammar error corrected? HR Policies currently unpublished If a policy is unpublished, it is not currently available to employees. Keep track of what is unpublished and being updated - and remind those editors to make their changes in a timely manner and have the changes approved. Contract Owner If you are using policyIQ to track contracts or other agreements, you need to have an easy way to keep track of agreements still in progress or those whose next milestones dates are approaching. Contracts in draft Make a list of those contracts that you currently have in draft - probably the same list as you would see in Checked Out to Me. Add columns for critical information such as the current status of the contract, the contact value and any milestone dates you might be tracking. Contracts waiting approval Once a contract has been sent on to approval, you need to make sure it keeps moving through the process. Create an Advanced Search of those contracts waiting for approval - and keep an eye on the status. All Contracts I Own For those contracts that you are responsible for, your job doesn't end when the contract is executed. Make a list of all contracts you own and keep columns in your list for the milestone dates, key contacts, values and expiration dates. Director of IT An IT director needs to stay on top of policies, procedures and any open action plans or audit deficiencies.  That might be a lot of information to keep track of, but with a few well created Advanced Searches, it's all available at his/her fingertips. Open Action Plans If there are Action Plans open for the IT processes, the IT Director can create a list, with fields to keep track of the responsible individuals, next steps, due dates, and pertinent details. During status meetings, this list becomes an easy agenda item to confirm that things continue to move forward. Deficiencies Noted in Last Quarter Testing If deficiencies are noted in any area of the IT processes, these areas should be managed more closely and remediation may be required. Know exactly where the weak spots are with a simple search of all deficiencies, and show details of the deficiencies identified. Procedures Updated in the Last 30 Days Procedures change - and in the best circumstances, the IT staff is keeping that information updated as changes are made. Review the changes regularly, and know exactly what has changed and who authorized the changes. STILL not convinced?  Contact our support team or speak with your policyIQ account partner and we'll help you brainstorm ways to make Advanced Searches a powerful part of your policyIQ application! Posted Apr 12 2010, 09:35 AM by chrisburd with 1 comment(s) Filed under: SOX, tips, reports, features, best practices, internal audit, sarbanes-oxley, project management

• Common Fields: A commonly overlooked improvement to your policyIQ Forms and Reporting!

  policyIQ Forms are still something of a mystery to many of you.  We know how much value there is to be gained by effectively using Forms- so we'll be bringing you some blog posts to highlight Forms features that you might not know about yet! The following is a conversation that took place entirely inside the mind of this blogger.  Sometimes she hears voices.  Often they ask policyIQ-related questions.  She probably needs a vacation. What are Common fields?  And more importantly, why do I care? A "Common" field is a very specific type of field that can be used on Form Templates where the answer selections are already created for you - and those answers are then "common" across all Form Templates that use those fields - but you can set your own prompt. Oh, okay...Huh? I guess that was clear as mud.  Let's talk about an example. Let's pretend that you have a few questionnaires that go out to a number of different groups in your company - and all of the questions can be answered with "Agree" or "Disagree" responses.  You could set up drop down List fields for each question and add your own choices of "Agree" or "Disagree" to the list values.  Or you could just use an "Agree / Disagree" Common field type, and type your question in the Prompt.  The "Agree" and "Disagree" possible responses will already be set up for you. I get it!  So it saves me from having to type out a few answers in my fields.  I type 72 WPM.  You just saved me about 2.7 seconds.  Thanks. Well, you're welcome.  But saving you a little bit of typing wasn't our intention.  Common fields are so named because the responses to the fields are "common" across all Forms on which they might appear.  The real value comes later when you want to create a report.  Rather than reporting separately on every field to find all "Disagree" responses, you can create a report that looks for any "Disagree" response across Forms on any Form Template. If we go back to your questionnaire with all of those different "Agree / Disagree" questions, it's likely that you'll be asked to provide a report of anyone who has responded with a "Disagree."  The intention is to give you "common" responses across a bunch of different fields - so that you can more easily create reports to find all Forms where any one of those fields might show a "Disagree" answer. What fields are considered "Common"? There are five different Common Fields available for use on your Form Templates. Yes / No Agree / Disagree True / False Numeric Rating (0 - 9) Rich Text (HTML) Wait...you said Rich Text (HTML) was a "Common" field?  How do Rich Text fields have "common" responses? It's true that the responses given for Rich Text fields can be extremely diverse -- in fact, the very opposite of "common."  For Rich Text fields, the common factor in the responses is simply whether or not a response exists.  You can report across all Forms that have a Rich Text field and look for only the Forms where the Rich Text fields have values. Let's go back to those questionnaires.  Along with "Agree" and "Disagree" questions, you probably need to have a Rich Text field on each Form Template for comments or notes.  You may need to review all Forms where the respondent included comments.  Filtering across all Rich Text fields for a "common" response of "Is Not Blank" would provide you with a report of all Forms on which the respondent added comments. Conversely, you may need to confirm that all of your "Disagree" responses came back with comments included.  You can easily report on any "Disagree" response where the Rich Text field "Is Blank" - and send those Forms back to the respondent for further explanation. So what you are saying is that Common Fields allow you to report on Common answers across any number of Form Templates? Yes!  That's exactly what I'm saying. Could have saved us some time if you had just started with that. Posted Apr 06 2010, 01:24 PM by chrisburd with 1 comment(s) Filed under: SOX, reports, features, best practices, configuration, 302, forms, sarbanes-oxley

• Resources Global Professionals explores how Healthcare Reform might impact financial reporting

  Are you curious about how the Healthcare Reform Act passed last week in Congress might impact your business?  Colleen Cunningham, Global Managing Director of Finance and Accounting at Resources Global Professionals, has done the research and wants to share those findings with you.  Ms. Cunningham sums up how parts of the new provisions will impact your business - including an immediate impact on financial reporting in the first quarter of 2010. Check out her two part blog post for more information: Part 1 Part 2 Resources has experienced professionals available to help your organization adjust to new legislation and changes to your financial reporting, human resources processes or tax reporting.  Don’t hesitate to contact us and we’ll put you in touch with your local Resources Global Professionals office. Posted Apr 05 2010, 11:12 AM by chrisburd with no comments Filed under: legislation, financial reporting

• Standard Reports - Take the easy way out with reports already created for you!

  Did you know that you can use policyIQ's reporting tool to easily track and manage your content? If you've used the Reports module, you know what a powerful tool you have at your disposal. What you may not realize is that, for some of the more common things you may want to report on, we've already put together a selection of reports. Want to see who's logged into your site in the last 30 days? Want to quickly review a list of all Open Forms that have passed their Due Date? Would you like to review all of the user accounts that have been added to your site in the past month? No need to build your own reports for these tasks - just use ours! To check out these reports, just open the Reports module and click on Standard Reports. Here's a full list of the Standard Reports we've made available for you, with some ideas of how you might use them!   What?   Forms Due in the next 30 days What?   Overdue Open Forms What?   Users with Open Forms Why?  You may have a lot of tasks being completed in policyIQ Forms - and these reports are a great way to keep track of what is outstanding or what is coming up.  For example, use the report "Users with Open Forms" to extract a list of user email addresses, so that you can easily remind users to go into policyIQ and review any Forms Assigned and In Progress.   What?   Draft Pages due in the next 30 days What?   Draft Pages that are overdue Why?  For site administrators, these reports offer a great way to stay on top of the process and keep your content updates on schedule.  Pages sitting in "Draft" are not available to users in the Home module, so making updates on a timely basis is a critical part of the process.   What?   Expired and Expiring Pages Why? Page Expiration Dates are meant to provide a guideline for when content should be reviewed for accuracy.  By staying on top of the expiring content, you're making sure your content stays relevant and fresh.    What?   Pages not indexed to any Folder What?   Pages with no administrators What?   Pages with no editors What?   Pages with no viewers Why? By using Folders, Administrators, Editors and Viewers, you make sure your content is available to the right people, and can be updated by the responsible parties.  By verifying that all pages are assigned and indexed properly, you can rest assured that the right people have access to view and make changes to keep the information up to date.   What?   Pages that are syndicated Why? If you are using syndication to provide RSS feeds of policyIQ content, you can get a quick view of which pages are currently included in those RSS feeds.  Remember that this content might be visible to external individuals, so you should verify that this information is appropriate for RSS sharing.   What?   Pages that have been changed in the last 30 days Why? What has been updated recently?  This is often a critical question when it comes to auditing the information in policyIQ.  This report is an easy way to see what has been updated in the last 30 days.   What?   User Log-ins in the Last 30 Days Why? There are a number of reasons why you might need to know who is logging into your policyIQ site. You may want to target training at your most frequent users - or target those users who DON'T log in very often. If you are reviewing your licensed users and wondering if an individual really needs to have an Advanced User license, you can check this report to see if he/she is logging in regularly.   What?   Users added in the last 30 days What?   Users deleted in the last 30 days What?   User Profiles that have been changed in the last 30 days Why? You might be reviewing a recently received invoice from policyIQ, and you need to verify what users have been added, deleted or upgraded to a higher license in the last 30 days.  This report is a great place to start when you need to confirm any new licenses for your site.   What? Deleted Users Why? When a user is deleted, his/her name is never deleted from any history or audit trail. The information is retained so that you can see exactly who made changes and when. Sometimes a user name might be unfamiliar, so checking the history of deleted users can tell you how long ago that user may have left the organization and who added or deleted his/her profile.  If you can think of other reports you might find useful as a Standard Report, please share your thoughts with us! And remember - if you'd ever like help with any reporting you'd like to do in your site, don't hesitate to contact our Support team. We'd be very happy to work with you and make sure you're getting the full value out of our Reporting tool. Posted Apr 05 2010, 08:17 AM by scottpalermo with no comments Filed under: tips, reports, features, best practices, administration, maintenance