Active Risk Manager ARM 8 - New Features and Benefits July 2015
ARM 8 New Features and Benefits This document is designed for customers who are planning to upgrade to ARM 8. This document lists all the new functionality that will become available in ARM 8 to help customers upgrade planning. For information on the contents of any previous releases, please see the appropriate release documentation on the customer support portal: support.activerisk.com. Information is also provided on the Upgrade Services offered by Active Risk. This collateral is available to download from the Customer Support Portal together with the full set of other ARM release documentation which will be available on GA ARM 8 Release. ARM Risk Express Embracing business users, who typically own risks in the Risk Process has been a challenge in our customers organisations for some time. Often organisations are collecting risk data from the business in a variety of ways, normally using Excel or a collection of manual techniques, via an Administrator in the Risk group, a nominated Risk Champion or Secretary. Often significant data manipulation has to take place to get the data in to ARM, the process is time bound (eg the end of each month) and is highly inefficient with risk owners losing sight of the real reason they are doing risk management. This can be very time consuming and ultimately much less accurate than a Risk Owner making an update to their risk data themselves. ARM Risk Express is a new, separately licenced product that is designed specifically for non-risk experts who need to provide updated risk information on a fairly infrequent basis. ARM Risk Express presents the business user with their risk information in an intuitive grid for quick and easy entry and update. Simple dials and filters help the Risk owner complete their updates in minutes, without assistance from the Risk group, meetings, emails or any further data manipulation. It replaces the Excel spreadsheets that they may currently be using, and is aimed at a new ARM user who is not interacting with the risk process directly today. Please see ARM Risk Express documentation for further details. Inherent Risk - an additional score As organisations want to better understand the value of their internal controls, there is a resulting need to manage the level of inherent risk in the business. In understanding this need, ARM 8 includes an additional score that can be used alongside Current and Target to manage inherent risk levels. For example, being able to express the potential impact of risks, before any existing controls are taken into account, and comparing that with the current risk score being achieved, allows organisations to understand the value of different control measures in place today. Specifically the following functionality is available for the additional assessment type: Fully configurable in terms of visibility and terminology Available for viewing and sorting on the desktop grid configuration. May be used in conjunction with a new configurable date field available on the impact tab May be populated using an historic assessment or the current assessment May be exported to CSV format from the ARM desktop if chosen as a configured column Included on the single risk PID chart Can be included in the data copied in to a new record Is available for RPM reports Visible in ARM Apps as a read only score
RISK EXPRESS INHERENT RISK ADDITIONAL RISK AND AUDIT FIELDS Bulk Update Operations In order to make it easier for the administration of risk information this enhancement allows users to select multiple records from the ARM desktop and perform a bulk update to a number of fields. This is particularly useful in scenarios such as closing all open actions on a project, or assigning ownership of a set of risks to a particular manager or owner. The ability to use this feature is controlled by a new Bulk update role right. Bulk update is available on Risks, Issues, Opportunities and Risk Responses Additional Incident Fields A range of different field types have been added to the Incident Management module to further support Incident Management processes. 3 * large text fields on the Incident record (10k characters) 6 * single drop down fields on the Incident tab 3 * new multi-select tree fields on the Investigation tab 1 * new single select drop down on the Incident Response tab All are available for reporting through RPM, visible on the ARM desktop if configured and available through ARM Apps if configured. Additional Risk and Audit Fields A range of different field types have been added across the ARM application, Risk, Impact and Audit tabs all have additional fields which may be re-purposed and configured to further support Risk and Audit processes. The additional fields provided are specifically: 4 * 2048 Text fields on the Risk record 4 * configurable drop down lists on the Risk record (one of which is multi-select) 4 * Resource fields on the risk record 4 * date fields on the risk record 2 * 2048 Text fields on the Impact Record 2 * Single value drop down fields on Impact record 1 * Resource field on the Audit Actions record 1 * 2048 Text field on the Audit Actions record All are available for reporting through RPM, visible on the ARM desktop if configured and available through ARM Apps if configured and available through ARM Apps and ARM Unplugged if configured. The Risk and Impact fields will also be available for MS Excel Import and Export. Additional Alert Digest Additional alert configuration is available to specify an alert digest of end of month.
Additional Audit Alert Parameters The following alert parameters have been added to Audit alert event types to help Audit users find and access the Audit information referenced in alerts. For Audit Events: Audit ID, Audit Type; Planned start date; Hyperlink Audit Detail (takes the user to Audit detail tab); Recipient: UDF Resource 1-5; For finding events: Audit ID; Audit Title; Audit Manager; Audit Planned Start Date; Finding ID; Hyperlink Audit Finding Detail (takes the user to Finding tab); For Audit action events: Audit ID; Audit Title; Audit Manager; Audit Planned Start Date; Finding ID; Finding Title; Audit Action ID; Hyperlink Audit Action Detail (takes the user to Audit Action tab) Trigger and Expiry Date in RPM In ARM 8 the Impact trigger and expiry dates are no longer able to be used to limit the information available in the history models. Enhanced Alert Configuration report Resource and Folder information has been added to the alert configuration report to help ARM Administrators identify who has created and amended alerts. ARM 8 Upgrade Considerations This document is designed for customers who are planning to upgrade to ARM 8 from ARM 7. To help customers prepare for the upgrade to ARM 8, the following is a summary of the aspects of ARM which have been changed in this release: In particular please note the following areas: Licence and User Management New controls in place in ARM 8 mean that the numbers of each ARM licence type in use will be checked against the ARM licence installed. Therefore in cases where the licenced limit has been reached, some users may not be able to log into the system after upgrade. Please contact your Active Risk account director if you have any concerns around user numbers and licencing and we can review your licence allocations before your upgrade. Internal training and documentation Customers may need to perform a refresh of their user training and training documentation to include the new functionality in ARM 8. ARM Application Server The installation process will upgrade files on the core ARM application server. ARM Database The ARM database has been extended and updated to support the new functionality included in ARM 8. Therefore some underlying database tables have changed and it is recommended that all customer reports are re-tested prior to go-live. ARM Microsoft Reporting Services Suite There are enhancements to existing reports, an upgrade will therefore be required to upgrade the MSRS standard report set installed on the MSRS reporting server. ARM Custom Reporting After every upgrade of ARM it is recommended that all custom reports are re-tested by customers in a test environment to ensure compatibility prior to go-live. ARM Technology platform As detailed above, the release contains enhancements for the support for the latest releases of third party software integrations and technical platforms. Please check the Platform Support Matrix and the relevant interface guides for specific details. Please note that support for Primavera 7.x has been replaced with support for Primavera 8.x. therefore projects from these versions will no longer be able to have response linkages set up and will also no longer be listed as updatable.
BULK UPDATES INTERFACE CONTROL ADDITIONAL ALERTS AND DIGEST User Management Enhancements Interface Control In order to ensure that users can only access ARM through the desired user interface, for example interfaces they have received training for, ARM 8 includes a feature that allows the ARM Administrator to control which user interfaces a user can access. For example a user who just updates information through ARM Apps, can be restricted to use ARM Apps only. This feature includes a bulk update screen, to allow the ARM administrator to assign interfaces to multiple user accounts in one operation. This feature also includes an updated Licence Usage report that includes totals on user sessions in each interface. Role Rights In order to assist the ARM Administrator with user and role management, the available role rights in ARM are now clearly marked with the licence type they consume. This is important in ARM 8 as the number of Administrators, Enterprise, Associate and Read only users in use in the ARM system will be checked against the ARM licence installed. A new administration report showing licence usage details gives information on the numbers of each ARM role in use in the system. A user will not be able to log in to ARM if all of the licences for their role type are already in use. How to Get in Touch with Active Risk Technical Support Telephone: +44 (0)1628 582550 (EU) +1 (703) 673 9582 (US) +61 (3) 9988 6964 (AU) Email: support@sword-activerisk.com Support Portal:
Release Documentation Catalogue This document is part of a series of documents relating to ARM 8. The following additional documentation will be available with the general release of ARM 8 ARM Public Service API Charts & Reports Catalogue Events Publishing Developer Guide Excel Interface Guide Installation Guide Maintenance and Support Dates MS Project Interface guide MSRS Standard Reports Detailed Catalogue Platform Support Matrix Primavera Interface Guide Quick Reference Guide Reports Views System Pre-requisites ARM App Reference Guide ARM Apps Installation Guides (SharePoint or Native versions) ARM Unplugged Pre-requisites and Installation Guide ARM Unplugged Hints and Tips ARM Unplugged Release contents Report Builder Models Installation Guide Report Builder Models User Guide ARM Risk Express Guide EMEA Headquarters Sword Active Risk 1 Grenfell Road Maidenhead Berks SL6 1HN UNITED KINGDOM Tel: +44 (0)1628 582500 US Headquarters Sword Active Risk, Inc. 13221 Woodland Park Road Suite 440 Herndon, VA 20171 UNITED STATES Tel: +1 (703) 673 9580 Australia Sword Active Risk Pty Ltd 40/140 William Street Melbourne VIC 3000 AUSTRALIA Tel: +61 3 9229 3850 www.sword-activerisk.com info@sword-activerisk.com Twitter @SwordActiveRisk SAR v3.3 01.07.15