How to work with controls

Overview #

Controls become available either by activating a standard or by adding custom controls yourself. A control is usually a subject for which policies or procedures can be defined which implement the control.

If controls are not relevant for your ISO standards, you may disable the menu option altogether in settings – modules.

For instructions on how to manage the list of controls, including on how to search, filter and report, see list actions.

Properties #

For each control, you have the following properties:

• Code
• Owner
• Group
• Applicability
• PDCA status
• Monitoring
• Implemented
• Tags
• Control
• Implementation

Applicability and implemented on the Statement of Applicability #

Two properties specific to controls are Applicability and Implemented.

Applicability is a field that allows you to define why a control is applicable – and if not, why not. If a standard or framework defines a set of controls then you may be required to provide this information for each of them.

Implemented is a field which is automatically set to ‘Yes’ if the control has the PDCA status of ‘Do’ and also has a monitoring task scheduled for it.

The Control field is prefilled and read-only if it comes from an activated standard. For a custom control, it is editable. When more than one standard is activated with an overlap in controls, you’ll get tabs showing the controls from different standards.

The Implementation field is editable, this is where you describe how you have implemented the control. You may refer to a document which is linked to the controls in the ‘Library’ tab of the Related information panel and also pinned as a tab with content preview.

View #

The ‘View’ button allows you to change the view on your control.

• Tabs per standards element (default).

Shows the controls from all related standards in tabs, with the implementation field below it.

• Among each other.

Shows the controls from all related standards as a list, with the implementation field below it.

• Full screen.

As ‘among each other’ but with other user interface elements like the menu hidden for more screen real estate.

Related standards #

The ‘Related standards’ button allows you to modify the relationship between your control and ISO- and custom standards.

If you have created a custom standard, then creating new controls and linking them to your custom standards with this button is the way to fill your custom standard with controls.

Monitoring tab #

Each control has a ‘Monitoring’ tab. This tab shows you all tasks related to the control but also all tasks related to sub-controls, for a certain time period.

For each of these tasks, the following information is shown:

• Name
• Start date
• Recurrence pattern
• Total score
• Score per instance

The score is calculated with a proprietary algorithm that takes into account whether all checklist items were marked as done successfully and whether the task was completed on time.

The score per instance is a graph that is shown if it is a recurring task, with the score for each time the task was completed.

Related information #

The pane which can be opened on the left contains more information related to control. For example, in the ‘Library’ tab you can link documents to the control. That may include a document that describes your control. If the linked document lives in SharePoint, then you can include the document content in a tab in ISOPlanner with the control.

Also, in the ‘Context’ tab, you can link requirements and other controls to this control. Read more about related information.

Tasks #

When a control is opened, by default it shows a ‘Details’ tab. There is also a ‘Tasks’ tab where you can create new tasks in the context of this control.

Analytics #

The overview of controls has a tab called ‘Analytics’. This will show you graphs with the number of controls per group, and standard controls per owner.