Primary Record FAQ

There are several benefits to setting the primary record of an assessment.

• Pre-population of Data

  • Setting the primary record will automatically pull in and pre-populate related inventory and personal data (depending on the associated template configuration).

• Reporting

  • Setting the primary record will make for easy reporting when identifying the assessments conducted for a specific inventory record.

    Note:

    Users can search, sort, and filter based on Primary Record Name and Primary Record ID from both the Assessment List and Assessment Reports.

• Reassessment:

  • Primary record allows you to easily reassess your inventory records and copy over prior responses, evidence, and notes from prior assessments. Approvers can then reference any updates using simple change tracking inside of the assessments.

• Inventory Automation Rules:

  Important:

  These Rules are Dependent on a Primary Record.

  • Users can set up rules to automatically reassess their inventory records on a scheduled cadence.

  • This allows users to set up automated reassessment of their inventory records based on a variety of conditions: Risk Level, Last Assessment Completion Date, Last Updated Date, Contract Expiration, etc.

• Users will need to set up their templates to support primary record in the Template Builder. For more information, see Enabling Primary Record. .

• Add an Inventory Question to a section to support primary record in a template.

• When using an engagement as the primary record, an engagement question must be added and then set to be the primary-record question.

• Only Inventory Questions enabled with the "Primary Record" setting will accept a Primary Record. Users can configure one primary record inventory question per inventory type on a template.

  Note:

  For example: Users can have up to four Primary Record questions on a single template (One of each - Vendor, Asset, Entity, and Processing Activity).

• For Admin-Driven, to configure an inventory question as a Primary Record question, simply edit an inventory question, and turn the Primary Record setting to ON in the question builder. For Respondent-Driven, the respondent selects the Primary Record when responding to the assessment.

  Note:

  The Primary Record setting can be changed on an inventory or engagement question when editing both a draft and published version of the template.

  
  
  

• When Admin-Driven, the Primary Record must be added by the creator while launching the assessment. When Respondent-Driven, it is added by the respondent.

For Admin-Driven, the primary record is set on the assessment and the Primary Record question is disabled so that the respondents cannot change it, allowing the admin user to maintain ultimate control. Attributes, related inventories, and related personal data will be prepopulated on the assessment. The primary record metadata fields will be set to the selected record and made available for reporting.

When the template has been configured using the Respondent-Driven option, users are not required to set the Primary Record when creating or launching the assessment, as the Primary Record will be populated according to the response provided by the respondent.

Relationships and personal data will not be prepopulated on the assessment if the template is respondent-driven and the primary record is chosen after launch.

Take into consideration the intent of the assessment, as well as which question is defining the purpose of the assessment. If you're building a template for evaluating a vendor and your template contains a question For Example: ("What vendor are you assessing?"), this should be the primary record question.

When an assessment is approved, the primary record drives updates like risk inheritance. If the primary record is updated later, risk inheritance is not retro-actively updated and activity tracking will be missed.

When there is no linked inventory and no primary record, the risk type remains on the assessment and does not inherit onto any inventory.

• While the primary record should be set upon launching the assessment, it can be changed in the Details Pane by an Admin before the assessment is not completed.

• If the assessment was launched without a primary record, but contains a primary record-enabled question, the primary record can be added retroactively.

• The primary record can only be completely removed from an assessment by removing the assessment link directly from the inventory record.

These steps should help you resolve the issue:

1. Create a new version of the template.

2. Click the Edit icon on the inventory question you wish to enable for primary record.

3. Enable the Primary Record setting.

4. Save the updates and publish the new template version. This will automatically enable the primary record fields when users launch new assessments with this template.

   Note:

   For any open assessments, an admin will need to go back and retroactively add the primary record to those assessments via the Assessment Details.

5. Enable the Apply changes to all open assessments setting and select the confirmation checkmarks to push updates to open assessments.

6. Click the Confirm button.

1. Ensure that the assessment is using a template version that has the primary record setting enabled on the inventory question.

2. Open the assessment of the primary record you wish to add or edit.

3. Open the Assessment Details pane by clicking the Information icon on the assessment header. This will open the Details pane in read-only mode.

   
   
   

4. With the Details Pane in read-only mode, hover over the primary record field and click the Edit icon that appears. This will open a modal allowing you to retroactively add or edit the primary record of your assessment.

   Note:

   The warning that appears on the modal lets you know what will be updated when you add/edit the primary record.

   
   
   

   This field cannot be edited with the rest of the assessment details, as there is a lot of logic that is driven by the primary record and therefore it needs a protected save.

   Primary record cannot be edited on an assessment that is using a template version that does not have an inventory question without the Primary Record setting enabled.

Yes, as long as the template has a primary record-enabled inventory question of the desired type.

Yes, just turn off the Allow User to Launch Without Setting a Primary Record setting on the template's details or use Respondent-Driven setting.

Yes, but only if the primary record question has the Allow Other option enabled in the template. The user can enter a new record on the Primary Record field on the Enter Assessment Details screen when launching an assessment.

Assessments that have been manually linked to an inventory record will not absorb the Primary Record. Primary Records can be set retroactively to assessments on the assessment details pane if there is an existing primary record inventory question on the template.

No. While some attributes exist for multiple inventory types, they cannot be used to populate each other. For example, an asset attribute cannot be used to populate a Processing Activity attribute of the same name. They are two separate attribute lists.

• If you want to require the user to set primary record from SSP, turn off the template setting Allow User to Launch w/o Setting Primary Record on the template's details or use the Respondent-Driven setting to allow respondents to select their own Primary Record.

When using the Admin-Driven setting, the checkbox can be configured to show or hide at the template level. The Allow Users to Launch Assessment Without Setting a Primary Record under the Settings section of the Template Details screen is where the setting can be turned Off. Creators will be required to set a primary record when launching an assessment with that template.

No, an assessment can have only one primary record. It can also be linked to additional inventory or engagement records.

Primary Contact refers to the IT Owner (Asset), Business Process Owner (PA), and Primary Vendor Contact (Vendor). It matches the attribute with whatever the primary record is for that assessment.

If the primary record of the original assessment is an Asset and it has a send assessment rule using Primary Contact, the follow-up assessment will be sent to the IT Owner of the asset which was designated as the primary record in the original assessment.

In this scenario, the follow-up assessment will be assigned to the first assessment's approver. If there is no approver on the first assessment, the follow-up will be assigned to the original assessment's respondent.

Primary records can only be edited on assessments that contain a primary record-enabled question and are not in a completed state.