Duplicate Records in Assessment Batches

As you initiate an assessment batch, you can create duplicate assessment records for any given process, risk, or control, one for each perspective value assigned to that object. For each duplicate, you can then select a distinct set of assessors, reviewers, approvers, and viewers. Each set would then assess the object from the point of view of whatever interest its perspective value represents.

You can assign any number of perspective values to an assessment batch. These can belong to any number of perspective hierarchies, although for performance reasons, the recommended limit is four hierarchies. The batch would then contain assessments only of objects assigned matching perspective values.

Here's how the matching works: Perspective values within a hierarchy have an OR relationship, but perspective hierarchies have an AND relationship. This means that to be included in a batch, an object must be associated with at least one of the values you select from each hierarchy you select for the batch. For example:

• As you initiate a batch of risk assessments, you assign it Value01 and Value02 from HierarchyAA. Because these values come from a single hierarchy, they have an OR relationship, so your batch would include risks associated with Value01 only, Value02 only, and both values.

• As you initiate a batch of control assessments, you assign it Value03 from HierarchyBB, and Value04 and Value05 from HierarchyCC.

  The batch would include controls assigned values 03 and 04, 03 and 05, and all three of these values. That's because these controls meet the requirement of being assigned at least one value from each perspective hierarchy. (All combinations of values selected from HierarchyCC are included because values within any one hierarchy have an OR relationship.)

  However, the batch wouldn't include controls assigned values 04 and 05, which lack a value from HierarchyBB. The batch would also exclude controls assigned a single perspective value, which lack a value from one hierarchy or the other. These assignments violate the AND requirement that applies at the hierarchy level.

Having selected perspective values for a batch, you'd then either select or clear an option to create duplicate records. If you select it, then for each object, you create one assessment record for each of its perspective values. In the example:

• Each risk assigned only Value01 or Value02 would have one assessment record. But a risk assigned both values would have two assessment records, one for each perspective value.

• Each control assigned two values would have two assessment records, one for each value. But a control assigned all three values would have three assessment records, one for each value.

If you clear the option to create duplicate records, however, every object included in a batch would have only one assessment record, no matter how many perspective values it's assigned.

Your first opportunity to select perspective values, and to determine whether to generate duplicate assessment records, comes as you create assessment plans. An assessment batch inherits these settings from the plan on which it's based. A second opportunity comes as you initiate an assessment batch. You can modify the perspective selection, and the duplicate-record setting, that the batch inherits from the plan it's based on.