Impact categories and ratings

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
  • Impact categories are the types of an impact that you can assess during a business impact analysis. The BCM administrator of an organization is responsible for defining the impact categories and the timeframe during which an organization may experience a downtime. This information is used to determine the recovery time objective and recovery point objective of the assets.

    Broad classification of the impact categories

    When a business service, process, or application experiences downtime due to a disruptive event, its impact can be classified in various broad categories:
    • Legal impact: Classified as an impact with legal implications such as a civil lawsuit or fines that result from a service disruption.
    • Regulatory impact: Classified as an impact due to a change in the existing regulation or the introduction of a new policy.
    • Reputation impact: Classified as an impact to the brand image and reputation of a company.
    • Revenue impact: Classified as an impact due to financial losses or low revenues.
    • Workforce impact: Classified as an impact of a disruptive event on the workforce. For example, a company experiences an increased attrition rate and low employee morale post the pandemic.

    Impact categories in BCM

    With the BCM administrator role, you can view the impact categories that are installed with demo data and set up new impact categories in the Impact categories module of the BCM application. The following example shows the impact categories that are installed with demo data in an instance.

    BIA impact categories that are installed with demo data.

    Configuration of an impact category

    The BCM administrators can configure or modify the impact categories by adding key information about the impact. The following example shows the configuration details of an impact category in an instance.

    Details of the legal impact category.

    The BCM administrators can configure the following details of a new impact category:
    Name
    Classify the impact of a downtime for your service, process, or applications by adding an appropriate name for the impact such as Legal or Reputational impact.
    Contributes to
    Select whether the impact contributes to recovery time objective or recovery point objective.
    Applicable timeframes
    Set the applicable timeframe for the impact category.
    Maximum RTO value
    Define the maximum RTO value for the impact category.
    Description
    Add description for the impact category.
    Helper text
    Add the helper text that provides a hint to the users on how to respond to the assessment questions. The helper text is then displayed for the user in the business impact analysis record. In the following example, Select an estimated time for each impact level is the helper text for the impact category.Helper text in the Impact Rating record.

    Impact category configuration by the administrators

    For more information on how to configure an impact category with the sn_bcm.admin role, see Configure impact category for BIA.

    Impact ratings in BCM

    If you have the BCM administrator role, you can view the impact ratings that are installed with demo data and define specific impact ratings in the Impact ratings module. The following example shows the impact ratings that are installed with demo data for an impact category.

    Impact ratings that are installed with demo data.

    The impact ratings for an impact category are shown in the following example.

    Impact ratings for an impact category.

    Configuration of an impact rating

    The BCM administrators can configure the following details of an impact rating for the business impact analysis:
    Name
    Assign a unique name to the impact rating.
    Impact Category
    Classify the impact category that the impact rating is associated with.
    Value
    Assign a unique numerical value to each impact rating. The same value can not be reused for any other impact rating in the BCM application.
    Tolerable
    Select the option for enabling the RTO impact as tolerable. This check box appears only if the impact category contributes to the recovery time objective.
    Description
    Add the description about the impact rating.
    Question text
    Revise the question text in the Impact Rating record for the recovery time objective of an impact category. The revised question is then displayed in the RTO assessment form of the business impact analysis record.

    Impact rating configuration by the administrators

    For more information on how to configure an impact rating with the sn_bcm.admin role, see Configure impact ratings.