IBM OpenPages Financial Controls Management (FCM) workflows

IBM OpenPages® Financial Controls Management includes sample workflows. You can use them as-is or modify them to meet your requirements. The sample workflows can also be used as templates and learning tools for your own workflows.
FCM includes the following sample workflows:
  • FCM Certification – Business Level
  • FCM Certification – Control Eval
  • FCM Certification – Process Eval
  • FCM Certification – Control
  • FCM Certification – Process

The workflows support the internal sub-certification framework at the Control and Process levels. Two distinct workflow paths, Control sub-certification and Process sub-certification, facilitate this and run simultaneously starting at the Business Entity Level.

Depending on the organization’s internal sub-certification framework, you can choose to:
  • Enable only one of these workflow paths.

    For example, the Control workflow may be disabled if the sub-certification at the Process level is all that is needed to meet your organization’s requirements.

  • Disable the FCM Certification – Business Level workflow if the business entity is not categorized as in-scope for SOX.

    If the FCM Certification – Business Level workflow is disabled, operations performed in this workflow must be reviewed, such as re-setting the Certification Status field to “Not Reviewed” to determine the impacts to the overall sub-certification process and remaining workflows.

FCM Certification – Business Entity Level workflow
  • The sub-certification process begins at the Business Entity level.
  • The workflow is activated for all business entities that are in scope for SOX.
  • The Business Level workflow has two stages, start and end.
  • The out-of-the-box workflow is started by using the Scheduler, which is set to start each calendar quarter and may be adjusted to the organization’s needs.
  • This workflow triggers the start of the following workflows:
    • FCM Certification - Control (field “classification” = key controls, workflow applicability = key controls), and
    • FCM Certification - Process (field “in scope” = SOX, workflow applicability = in scope for SOX)
Workflow Path at the Control level
The objectives of the FCM Certification – Control Workflow are to:
  • Start automatically from the Business Level workflow for all Controls that are classified as “key” controls.
  • Create a new Control Eval object for each key Control.
  • Automatically start the FCM Certification – Control Eval workflow.
The objectives of the FCM Certification – Control Eval Workflow are to:
  • Provide a mechanism for the user to certify the control data for each key Control on a quarterly basis.
  • Create a read only record of the certification (the Control Eval object) with the relevant data points mapped from the Control object on a specific date

The user has the option to complete the workflow with the following action: Certify or Certify with Exception.

The user can perform the following actions:
  • Certify – the Exception Description field must be blank
  • Certify with Exception - the Exception Description field must be populated with the exception description.
  • After certification is complete, the Control Eval object is locked to maintain the integrity of the data.
Figure 1. FCM Certification - Control Eval
Workflow path for Control Eval
Workflow Path at the Process level
The objectives of the FCM Certification – Process Workflow are to:
  • Start automatically from the Business Level workflow for all Processes that are "in scope for SOX".
  • Create a new Process Eval object for each in-scope process.
  • Automatically start the FCM Certification – Process Eval workflow.
The objectives of the FCM Certification – Process Eval Workflow are to:
  • Provide a mechanism for the user to certify the process data for each “in scope” process on a quarterly basis.
  • Create a read only record of the certification (the Process Eval object) with the relevant data points mapped from the Process object on a specific date

The user has the option to complete the workflow with the following actions: Certify or Certify with Exception.

The user can perform the following actions:
  • Certify – the Exception Description field must be blank
  • Certify with Exception - the Exception Description field must be populated with the exception description.
  • After the sub-certification is complete, the Process Eval object is locked to maintain the integrity of the data.
Figure 2. FCM Certification - Process Eval
Workflow path for Process Eval