After a holiday hiatus, the policyIQ team was back with our monthly training session last Thursday. With the new year firmly upon us, we chose to take a look at all of the activities that may make up your Roll-Forward plan in policyIQ from year to the next.
We focused on three main areas:
1.) Resetting Compliance Testing Data
2.) Pushing out Sign-Offs, Questionnaires or Certifications via Forms
3.) Regular Maintenance of your policyIQ site
Resetting Compliance Testing Data
When it comes to the compliance programs, resetting your testing data at the beginning of the year should be simple - and with policyIQ, it is. We take a three step approach:
1.) Copy - Make a copy of the Folders and Pages.
2.) Clean Out - Delete any pages that shouldn't exist yet, such as Deficiencies or Issues.
3.) Clean Up - Remove last year's responses and reset it back to default or blank values, particularly in your Test or Assessment pages.
As we went through this section, our attendees had a number of great questions - and we want to be sure to address those here in writing, in case anyone might have had to drop off the call before we were able to answer them live.
Q: Do you have any suggestions for archiving prior year documentation so that it isn't accidentally modified?
A: Great question! Our recommended roll-forward process is to copy the entire Folder of last year's content and start fresh for the new year. But how can you prevent users from accidentally going backwards? Our recommendation here is to remove all users from the "Administrators" security property on last year's pages. If a user cannot Administer the item, he/she will not be able to make any changes.
To do this, simply run a report or Advanced Search of all of the content in last year's folder, select all items, and go to Edit > Change Administrators. From here, you will have an option to Remove All Administrators.
(Quick note: You probably have a few Site Administrator level users in your site who can administer all content. These users cannot be completely prevented from making changes to content, due to their security role. Another good reason to limit the use of this role as much as possible!)
Q: Any suggestions/precautions that should be taken in instances where you would like to start the 2011 update before the 2010 process is finalized?
A: If changes are still happening in your Test pages or in the documentation around Deficiencies or Issues, it shouldn't make a difference if you copy over the folder before this is completed. After all, you'll be deleting the Deficiencies and resetting the Test pages anyway for the new year.
If there are still changes happening in the Control Descriptions or Risk documentation from last year's program, however, you may choose to wait until this is complete before you copy forward for a new year. Otherwise, you may end up having to update documentation in two places.
Q: It seems like copying entire folders would greatly increase the size of your file. Can you archive content then reinstate it to PIQ later?
A: While it may seem counterintuitive, copying a Folder year over year will actually give you overall greater control over the size of your database and the amount of content you choose to keep in your production site. Your content changes as you move forward - not just your Testing, which is distinct with every new year - but Controls, Risks, Objectives and Narratives. If you continue to update a single policyIQ page, policyIQ stores prior versions in the "Version History". The Version History is great - because you always know exactly what the page looked like at prior points in time and it is never removed, but over time that history can become lengthy and "heavy" within the database.
By copying a Page, you are not only able to know exactly what it looked like at a point in time, but you can also now report on that information year over year, unlike information in your version history. AND you can decide how many years to keep.
Pushing out Sign-Offs, Questionnaires or Certifications via Forms
Again we talked about three easy steps for pushing out sign-offs or questionnaires on a regular basis. (This might be monthly, quarterly or annually.)
1.) Copy - Make a copy of your Form List
2.) Adjust - Reassign or edit forms within the list as necessary
3.) Run - Push out the form list with an updated name and due date
If you aren't yet familiar with Forms and Form Lists, check out our training session on this topic within our Training Center.
Regular Maintenance of your policyIQ Site
The final topic on the agenda was the regular maintenance of your policyIQ site. We addressed four specific areas of maintenance.
1.) Request a snapshot.
2.) Remove older data that is not needed in policyIQ any longer.
3.) Run a Report of Expired Pages and evaluate course of action.
4.) Run a Report of all Users & last log-in date.
We weren't able to cover the last two topics on this list - so look out for blog posts coming later this week to cover these important topics!
Want to catch up?
If you missed the training session and you'd like to catch up, you can listen to the recorded version of the training session available here. Don't hesitate to reach out to our policyIQ support team if you have any questions about the materials - or if you need some assistance with your roll-forward activities!