Advanced Risk release notes

The ServiceNow® Advanced Risk application enables you to identify, analyze, evaluate, treat, and monitor risks that could impact your organization in achieving its business objectives. Advanced Risk was enhanced and updated in the Washington DC release.

Advanced Risk highlights for the Washington DC release

• Implement a parallel review and feedback workflow where second and third-line risk users can review records, provide feedback, and monitor closures.
• Create management reports directly in Microsoft Word by using the information that is available in the records through the Management reporting of Risk application.
• Use auto-save to reduce the number of clicks that a user has to make.
• Improve the maintenance and flexibility for object-based risk assessment methodologies. You can enable one methodology to assess multiple record types or multiple methodologies to assess the same record type.
• Approve and reassign multiple risk assessments in bulk.

See Advanced Risk Assessment for more information.

Important:

Advanced Risk is available in the ServiceNow Store. For details, see the "Activation information" section of these release notes.

New in the Washington DC release

Parallel Review and Feedback in Advanced Risk

Enable your second and third-line managers to become active participants in first-line activities by digitizing the review and feedback workflows. They can provide feedback on a record or fields in a record to recommend improvements that are related to data integrity, compliance, operational procedures, and other areas such as disposition and accountability. For example, a risk manager can provide feedback by requesting a root cause analysis task from the first-line risk user and also ask them to capture additional loss entries for the same risk event. With parallel review and feedback, your managers can perform the following actions:

• Provide feedback at any stage of the workflow.
• Update the feedback responses directly from the source record by using the side-panel feature.
• View and manage the feedback workflows that are raised against the records from a centralized dashboard.
• View the change history, which enables a quick comparison of the pre-feedback and post-feedback.
• Reopen the feedback if the responses are deemed unsatisfactory.
• Monitor the feedback and follow up with the record owners through an intuitive dashboard.
• Collaborate effectively with the reviewer, respondent, and other stakeholders through a sidebar discussion chat.
• Initiate and link further actions as outcomes of the feedback, such as creating an issue or linking to an existing one.
• Configure a feedback integration setup for any record type, including the custom tables where you can define the table or record type to create feedback from.

Important:

The Parallel review and feedback feature is only available in Next Experience.

Generating a report in Microsoft Word

Use the Management Reporting of Risk application to create reports in Microsoft Word that are based on the information that is available in the ServiceNow AI Platform. Risk managers can create reports independently, using real-time data, without relying on administrators. Also, report generation is enabled by one-click updates of the report data directly from the ServiceNow AI Platform.

Exporting risk heatmap information

Download or copy the risk heatmap information to include in reports or share with relevant stakeholders as needed.

Important:

The copy and download of heatmap information is only available in Next Experience.

Enhanced object-based assessment

Configure a risk assessment methodology (RAM) for multiple objects without having to select only one assessment object. You can reduce the additional effort to manage multiple methodologies for different objects. You can compare and report the data to promote enhanced data accessibility and coherence.

Risk administrators can also add multiple RAMs for a single object. For example, a compliance case table can be assessed using separate criteria for IT and corporate compliance, which enables a comprehensive understanding of risks across different domains.

Auto save feature in the risk and control assessment form

Improve the experience of performing advanced risk assessment with auto-save. When assessors respond, the application saves their responses and calculates the overall risk score. It significantly reduces the number of clicks required, which improves efficiency and the overall employee engagement.

Important:

The auto-save feature is only available in Next Experience.

Bulk approval and reassignment of risk assessments

Approve multiple risk assessments simultaneously, which significantly reduces the time that your team spends on individual approvals. Workflow efficiency is enhanced, especially when you're dealing with a high volume of assessments. An approver or an assessor can easily reassign multiple risk assessments to different stakeholders or team members.

Adding risks and controls from the library

Create and manage the risks and controls within the designated workflows by eliminating unnecessary navigation. Your team can do the following tasks:

• Add controls from a control taxonomy by using the Create from control objective option during control assessment.
• Identify and create ad-hoc controls by using the Create control option when responding to risk mitigation tasks.
• Add the controls from control taxonomy by using the Create from control objective option when responding to risk mitigation tasks.
• Identify and map the risks from risk taxonomy by using the Create from risk statement option while defining the risk assessment scope.

Enhanced user experience in Advanced Risk

Streamline your processes with the following enhancements:

• Use the Comments field to provide a brief response for the group factors in Risk Workspace. You can configure the comments from the group factors in the RAM form.
• Eliminate the need for assessors to navigate manually through the entire page to locate the areas that require attention. When moving to the next assessment stage on the risk assessment form, the application automatically scrolls to the unresponded factors.
• Reassign the in-progress assessments in bulk to new assessors in the absence of the current assessor. This feature helps to redistribute assignments, especially in cases of restructuring or emergency medical leave, and enables bulk reassignment as needed.
• Initiate a sidebar discussion for the risk event and issue record types. Your team gets a dedicated space to discuss events or issues. This space enhances the clarity and efficiency in the risk management processes.
• Use the Reviewer field on the risk response task page to inform the assessor about the reviewer's details.
• Use drop-down options for factor choices on the risk assessment form to enhance readability.
• Enable a horizontal layout for factor choices on the risk assessment form to minimize scrolling.
• Use a simplified navigation with a single breadcrumb trail from the advanced risk assessment homepage to the main page. Your team doesn't need to open multiple tabs.
• Use a vertical list view that is grouped by the related list for a manual, automated, and calculated metrics definition record.
• Collapse section headers within the advanced risk assessment to reduce scrolling on the advanced risk assessment page and optimize the screen space for accommodating more content.

UI changes

Submit for approval button

The Submit for approval button on the risk assessment form was renamed as Submit to support a dynamic approval workflow.

View assessment and Approve assessment buttons

The View assessment and Approve assessment buttons were combined and renamed as Submit on the risk assessment form to enhance the visual experience and reduce the number of clicks required.

Changed in this release

Risk identification configuration enhancement

In the Risk identification configuration, risk administrators can add multiple tables and map them to the respective RAMs.

Migration of content from GRC Workspace to the ARA Workspace

All risk assessment workspace content has been re-created in the new ARA Workspace. With this change, the risk assessment content can be referenced from the ARA workspace instead of the GRC Workspace. All customizations that were made in the GRC Workspace aren’t carried forward to the ARA Workspace. You must reapply those customizations to the available default pages in the ARA Workspace to see them during the risk assessment.

Migrating classic dashboards to the Next Experience

Starting with version 18.1.0 of the Advanced Risk and Risk Management applications, the following dashboards are available in the Next Experience:

• Risk Overview
  Note:

  Risk Overview PA Premium dashboard is migrated from classic to the Next Experience and renamed as Risk Overview dashboard.
• Operational Risk Management
• Basel Dashboard
• Continuous Risk Monitoring Overview
• My Assessment Overview
• Risk Event Overview
• Risk Identification Overview
• Risk Event Overview by Risk Class
• Risk Event Overview by Entity

Domain separation in Risk Management

The following changes have been made to the domain assignment process to manage data segregation by the Managed Service Providers related to entities, and other related objects, such as risks, controls, and control objectives:

• Profile generation job uses a domain iterator to generate entities and other related objects into the correct domains.
• Revised domain inheritance and assignment logic by adding new business rules to assign the correct domain when creating entities, risks, controls, and related objects.

Removed in this release

• The Save button on the risk assessment form has been removed. The risk assessment form is automatically saved.
• The stepper component was removed from the Approvals tab in the risk assessment form when there’s no approval configured within the assessment scope. This removal simplifies the user experience and declutters the interface, making it more intuitive.

Deprecations

• Starting with version 18.1.0 of the Advanced Risk and Risk Management applications, the following dashboards are deprecated:
  • Advanced Risk Assessment Overview
  • Exposure by Entity
  • Exposure by Risk Statement
  • Risk Overview
  • Risk Register
  • Project Risk Overview Dashboard

  If you're on a legacy release or already using these dashboards, you can continue to use them.

Activation information

Install Advanced Risk by requesting it from the ServiceNow Store. Visit the ServiceNow Store website to view all the available apps and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes.

Related ServiceNow applications and features

GRC Risk Management

Use the Risk Management with the ServiceNow® Advanced Risk application to identify and monitor high-impact risks, improve your risk-based decision-making, and reduce reaction time from days to minutes.

GRC Risk Workspace

The Risk Workspace with the ServiceNow® Advanced Risk application provides a simplified user experience with a single-pane view for all your risk-related activities.