What is the function of 'Processing entities' field on Entity?

[Community Alums]

I found there is Processing entities filter when I tried to apply Entity type to a Control Objective. What is the meaning or function of it?

Advanced thanks!

RM.

[Community Alums]

@Community Alums The Processing Entities filter helps you narrow down the list of entities (e.g., applications, processes, business units, or other scoped objects) that can be associated with a particular Control Objective. It ensures that the entity type applied to the Control Objective is further refined by the selected processing criteria.

If you are defining a Control Objective for "Secure Configuration of Applications," the Entity Type might be "Applications."

By applying the Processing Entities filter, you could restrict the scope to "Applications classified as high-risk" or "Applications with active production status."

Think of a Processing Entity refers to a subset of records within the chosen Entity Type that meet specific criteria.

Hope this will make sense to you 

[Phil Swann]

Inaccurate, sorry. See Henk's response. 

[Henk Heath · Accepted solution]

This is a Boolean field, hidden from view, on the entity type record.

This is a flag that is momentarily set to TRUE while the entity type is Updating/Generating the entities.  It prevents the sn_grc.manager from updating the entities (Related Links :  Update Entities from filters) while the previous configuration is still generating the entities.  

It is a safeguard to ensure that active entities from one entity type are not generated with 2 different configurations.

Eg.    Update entities where Business Application . active = True    and then the grc manager changes the filter Business Application . active = false and selects Update Entities from Filters before the first process has finished.

If this was allowed, you will have a mismatch between some of the entities and the entity type. 

The filter in your screenshot eliminates the risk of adding an entity type to a control objective that is still busy processing it's entities.

[Community Alums]

Thank you very much, Henk! This really helps 😀