What are iTech Preconfigured Solutions (iPS)?

Why were iTech Preconfigured Solutions (iPS) developed?

Issue management can be daunting for organizations. This is why issue management solutions like OpenPages are popular among many organizations.  While the OpenPages standard solutions can definitely make issue management easier, implementation time is less than ideal. As the old saying goes time is money and the longer it takes to implement solutions the more money it costs your business. It is for these reasons that iTech US created IPS, the goal was to improve your issue management process via OpenPages.

What are iPS?

iPS is a set of solutions developed by iTech US to support OpenPages GRC and Watson. It provides pre-defined configurations to speed up design decisions and reduce the implementation time. iPS Issue Management is an enhancement to the Standard OpenPages Solution. It fills in gaps and integrates necessary features into an end solution that reduces implementation time and costs.

iPS solution overview

An overview of the key features and functionality included in the iPS Issues Management solution can be found below. 

Model of an Object

The iPS Issues Management solution was configured using the out-of-box object model.

Life Cycle

Issues are created by the affected business department. Action Items are then used to resolve an issue. An Action Item, or a group of related Action Items, can be used to create what is called an Action Plan. Each Action Item is assigned an Action Assignee to resolve the issue and track progress. Once all Action Items have been closed for an issue the Issue is closed. Action items are closed when the assignee sets them to 100%.

The Key Features

The key features included in the solution are described in the sections below.

Dashboard

This dashboard lets users track, identify and manage their issues. The dashboard has two panels that are specific to the user logged in (My Issues & My Actions). These lists My open issues and actions, My overdue issues and actions, and Issues due within 7 days. The dashboard allows users to create new issues or search for existing issues.

Workflow

The workflow begins automatically when an issue is created. The workflow moves to the Draft stage if the user who created the issue can identify and assign the Issue owner. This is where the Issue Owner fills in the key fields and creates the action items. If the issue capturer cannot assign the Issue owner, the workflow moves to the Draft stage. Triage User Group members can assign the Issue owner.

When ready, the issue owner moves the issue to the Issue Remediation stage and the Original Due Date is set to Due Date and locked.

The Issue Owner can extend the issue due date by submitting a request for approval to the Issue Approver. This will include the Requested Due date and the reason for the extension. The Due Date will be replaced by the requested due date if the request is approved. The system tracks how many times the due dates have been extended, which can be used as a limit on the number of extensions that are allowed.

The issue owner can request closure by submitting the issue to the Issue Approver for review. The workflow performs the following validations:

• All action items under the issue must be closed.
• Issue Owner is the same as the Issue Approver.
• All mandatory fields are populated.

When an Action Item is created the workflow starts automatically and the workflow is moved to the In Progress stage. The workflow validates that the action due date is before the issue due date. The original due date is set to the due date and locked.

The action item due date can be extended by the Action Assignee by submitting a request to the Issue Owner for approval and providing the Requested Due Date and a reason for extending the due date. If approved, the Due Date is replaced with the requested due date. The system keeps track of how many times the due date is extended which can be used to limit the number of extension requests allowed.

By setting the percentage complete field at 100%, Action Items can be closed and submitted for review to the Issue Manager. These validations are performed by the workflow:

• All mandatory fields are populated.
• Percentage complete is 100%.
• Issue Owner is not the same as Action Assignee.

Both workflows include the ability to restart the workflow when changes are made and to have the issue or action begin from where its previous starting place. A workflow restart sends the object back at the beginning. This is the standard capability of the system.

Calculations

The table below list the calculations included in the solution:

Views

The table below list the views included in the solution:

Security

Users are granted access to the solution by being assigned role templates. You can easily extend the security schema and configure the solution to include additional objects or integrate with existing solutions.

Templates for Roles

The iPS Issue Management package includes role templates for Issue management users who have access to all functions and those users who have the read-only capability.  

User groups

The solution includes a list of user groups:

Tackle Issue Management with iPS

Your team will always have risks and problems associated with big projects. Thus, it is crucial to identify and resolve risks before any project starts. iTech will help you keep your project on track.  Contact us to learn more about how to ease your GRC implementation and for details on iPS for Issue Management.