There are more than 270 tables and views in BPC RiskManager v6.x.  Not all of these tales and views are visible by default in the BPC RiskManager report builder.  Further you can expand the system by adding your own tables and views to the database. 

There are three main reporting systems in RM – the inbuilt reports (these can not be expanded), the end-user reports (BPC RM ReportBuilder), and mail-merge/office template  style reporting.  Of these, the primary reporting tool for end user reporting is the BPC RiskManager ReportBuilder reporting engine.   

So how do you make these tables and views available to the BPC Risk Manager  end user report development tool (report builder) so that you can report on them in your own reports?  Fortunately BPC RiskManager allows you to add these things directly in the BPC RiskManager client to the reporting engine so you can include them in your reports.

By way of an example, we will add the  actions progress table to the end user reporting layer and hook it in to the magic-query maker, so that when you use the table in your reports it automatically hooks it to the appropriate master table or view (in this case “search_risk_actions”).  We are adding a raw table, rather than a view, so we will add the word “raw” to the name so that we distinguish it from the views.  The difference between the tables and the views is that the views populate the table’s look-up fields with the description field of the look up table.

In the RM client, on the Administration tab:

1. Go to Administration/Report Builder/Table Names
2. Select “New”
3. Enter in the fields:

• Table_name: RISK_ACTION_PROGRESS
• Table alias: Action Progress Raw

(Note the spaces in the above)

1. Select save.
2. Got to Administration/Report Builder/Field Names
3. Select “Add Fields”
4. In the pop-up box enter: RISK_ACTION_PROGRESS
5. Select “Ok” – this will add the field names.
6. Got to Administration/Report Builder/Table Joins
7. Select “New”
8. Enter in the fields:

• Table_name1: SEARCH_RISK_ACTIONS
• Table_name2: RISK_ACTION_PROGRESS
• Join_Type: dajtLeftOuter
• Field_names1: Action ID
• Operators: =
• Field_name2: ACTION_ID

NOTE the space in the Field_names1 “Action ID”

1. Select “Save”
2. Close the administration window.

The risk_action_progress table and its fields will now be available to Report Builder.

We have been busy with updates to the riskwiki (and the BPC SurveyManager library and BPC SurveyManager Maintenance WebClient).  The riskwiki has had various improvements and updates to the survey manager documentation including a long list of examples and explanations of the input controls and the first of our tutorials on creating particular survey layouts.

The tutorials are at:

BPC SurveyManager Tutorials

 We will be adding more as time permits.

The illustrated list of input controls is at http://riskwiki.bishopphillips.com/index.php?title=BPC_SurveyManager_-_Questions_and_Input_Controls

Among the new features recently added to the BPC SurveyManager libraries is a new password protected portal mode, so you can  now selectively surface surveys in each organisation to a simple portal without writing a portal survey of your own.   We have added more capabilities to the auto publish functions so that you can have anonymous responders for any survey by setting a flag, and impose login requirements per survey without adding user login questions at the start.

The portal mode will be particularly useful to teachers running classed based surveys, because you can now use the portal on a class wide basis in a school based computer for all students to concurrently access a class based survey without you having to publish to them first or send invitations.

There is lots more coming to survey manager over the next few weeks so keep tuned.   Among the changes coming to the SM library is a significant expansion of Survey Manager’s ability to directly interrogate and update risk, insurance claims and incident tables for those using BPC SurveyManager as part of their BPC RiskManager application suite.

The BPC SurveyManager Maintenance WebClient is getting some new features to expand the range of surveys that can be built with it.  We have kept it artificially simplified now for a number of years as it was always intended to be an entry point solution, but the increasingly complex surveys some of the heavier survey manager clients wish to create mean that we really must make more of the survey engines huge range of capabilities available in the web client.   We have recently completed an analysis of the types of clients using our survey technologies heavilly, and those of you making the heaviest and best use of the tech are also those attempting the most complex of surveys.  

The current web client just does not do the underlying survey engine justice and we feel it is time to really let it stretch its legs.   We will try and keep the over-all feeling of simplicity the same, and in fact some things will seem to get simpler because the current release tries makes some things just too mindless by doing a whole lot for you in the background.

Even so, we are told, our web client is still way more powerful than most similar survey clients, but if you like the current one, just wait for the enhancements coming.

Oh, and don’t forget, that we host surveys on our servers, so you can contract us to manage your survey needs on your behalf.  The service includes your own database, the survey engine, emailing invitations, the portal, at least daily backups, 24 hour monitoring, responder assistance, maintenance of the data and content and even assistance with creation of surveys.  All clients are encouraged to try out this extremely economical service as an alternative to doing it yourself.  The distributed nature of BPC SurveyManager means you can exchange surveys and data with our servers to feed back into your risk systems, for example (or just point your survey manager or risk manager clients at our servers in addition to using the web client).

BPC RiskManager V6.2.5.18 – BETA8 has been released to the download site for free download for clients with CURRENT maintenance agreements.  Connect to the web site using your BPC Client Web Site login credentials (email me if you have forgotten your login details). 

In this release:

RM Server

• Active Directory Authentication with Groups is now supported.  You can group all your RM users into a common group and authenticate against AD and that group membership. The AD solution avoids ldap so you do not need a dedicated bind account.
• Business Group/Business Unit reassignment.  You can now move a business unit with risks to a new business group, and all business unit level access rights will move with the business unit to the new business group.

RM Client

• Document and Sections can be created by copying and pasting between XL and the RM Client App.
• Risks / Topics / Compliance items can be created using copy / paste from XL (or other tab delimited column source)
• Risk Causes can be copied from one risk and pasted into another, or copied and pasted to and from XL
• New DB repair component with automated repair actions available to administrators from the client.
• Revised MS Word automation options and behaviour when the MS SpellCheck is used to eliminate a bug that allowed the RM Client to terminate MS Word instances created after RM has started without save when RM is shut down.  The new handling is NOT engaged by default, but is available from the My Settings panel.
• Fixed a bug that prevented documents from being added if there was not at least one document already in the RM database.
• Fixed a bug that defaulted the first document in the document centre list to section insert mode if there were no sections in the document

The release off V6.2.5 was delayed a couple of months because under the covers we were putting in a huge range of changes to the database to enable addition or improvement of a very large range of features. Some of these capabilities existed in earlier versions of RiskManager, but were dropped with the release of the completely re-written and redesigned V6 solution. Others were phased out even earlier (like probability based risk models – in Version 2, Bayesian decision trees – in Version 1 – 1996! ) .

Version 6 was design around the A/NZ Risk Management standard and a poll of what clients were actually using, and with the objective of vastly expanding the depth and versatility of the facilities in use, rather than breadth of features. So with V6 what is there is really useful and complete, rather than almost useful. Not all of the feature retirement decisions were correct, and for a large number the intention was not feature termination, but feature resting.

Curiously, because BPC RiskManager Express is actually based on the RiskMan V5 code base, a number of these features – like Compliance, Risk Milestones, and MS Word Reporting are in BPC RiskManager Express, which is the ‘Entry Level’ system, yet were missing from the V6.0 release. BPC RiskManager Express got it’s screen makeover with last years release (actually it was started in the release of the year before and completed last year).  Version 6, got its Vista screen make-over in 2008 with release of V6.2.0  (Enrima Edition).

In the years since V6.0 was released the world of Governance has advanced significantly, and many of the capabilities we phased out over the years are now becoming fashionable again. So…with the release of V6.2.5 we decided to put back into the database most of the features that had been retired in earlier years, feed them some steroids and add a raft of new capabilities (like corporate planning support), together with a Vista/Office 2007 style rework of the screen look and feel.  Buried in your V6.2.5 databases are 297 changes (some times fields, sometimes entire tables) just waiting to be surfaced to the client.

Over the next six months we will be progressively surfacing these capabilities to the V6 client. Things that are getting added or reworked include:

• Corporate Planning
• Compliance
• Multi-base consolidation
• Workflow
• Scripting
• Compliance Document Management
• Assertion based control assessment
• Control modelling
• Internal Audit Planning and Assessments
• Assets (including buildings)
• Scheduling
• Probability calculations
• What-If analysis
• Import and Export
• And much more…

Now I know, some of you will look at that list and say about individual items: “I’ve got that now! How is that being added?” . Well, note that I said “added or improved”.  Existing versions of these features are getting a good dose of steroids; transforming the system from a register and risk/compliance maintenance tool to a planning and analysis tool and full corporate governance management system.

We gave the process of governance a significant rethink over the last few years and realised that to make it work from the risk management dimension as an aid to an organisation, rather than a standards compliance exercise, ERM has to start with the corporate planning side of the business and flow down to the business processes and ultimately to compliance management, with Internal Audit floating across all dimensions validating the reliability of the strategic and tactical control frameworks.

Senior executives, therefore, should use the Governance system to create and report against their corporate and business plans, and in so doing design (or enable the designing of) the risk framework against the strategic and tactical plans. The system therefore has to see risks, not just as a static demographic and environment responses, but as a temporal and cognitive response to both the current and planned positioning of the organisation.

…And this is where we are going.

Introduction

I have been intending to start a blog to better inform our clients and friends about where we are going with the BPC RiskManager Governance software suite for some time. Coupled with that desire has been an intention to establish a forum for discussing a variety of topics in both Governance and Enterprise Risk Management. Time, as always, has been a harsh master, and this project has been pushed back repeatedly while we worked diligently to get V6.2.5 out.

Finally, thanks to WordPress, we have our blogging system up and running.

This RiskThink web site will add a more immediate information feed to to our existing Risk and Governance focused information feeds such as our popular RiskWiki site ( http://riskwiki.bishopphillips.com/ ). The main BPC web site ( http://www.bishopphillips.com/ ) provides a central point of access to our Australian and Canadian web sites, and information about our software products including BPC RiskManager. You can access an enquiry link to get a free, fully functional trial download of the BPC RiskManager suite from that page.

About Bishop Phillips Consulting

Bishop Phillips Consulting is a Governance and Enterprise Risk Management software developer and management consulting firm, in business since 1995. We have offices in both Australia and Canada. Software development occurs in Australia, using our in-house programming team, most of whom have been with us since the beginning. Our flagship systems include BPC RiskManager (Enrima Edition), BPC RiskManager (Express Edition) and BPC SurveyManager. We supply consulting services in Risk Management, Corporate Strategy, Government & Public Policy, Compliance, Business Process Design, Internal Audit, Forensic Accounting and Fraud Investigation – in short everything to do with in house Corporate Governance and Government Administration.

About BPC RiskManager

BPC RiskManager is a software suite that covers:

• Enterprise Risk Management
• Strategic Planning
• Compliance
• Surveys
• Control Self Assessment
• Wokflow
• Internal Audit
• Assets
• Incidents and Hazards

It runs on MS Windows systems.