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Monitoring Controls Tool “Good Practices” Update February, 2007

Monitoring Controls Tool “Good Practices” Update February, 2007. “Good Practices” Update.

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Monitoring Controls Tool “Good Practices” Update February, 2007

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  1. Monitoring Controls Tool“Good Practices” Update February, 2007

  2. “Good Practices” Update As the Monitoring Tool has been in use by Regional Teams for several months, and was recently implemented in North America, this document provides some “reminders” on “good practices” when using the tool. These “good practices” are focused primarily to assist Area Controllers as they complete the Monitoring Reviews. They are described on the following pages and include: • Document Issues Appropriately in Form • Avoid Unnecessary Entries! • Delete Forms That Are Not Required for the Period • Set Documents to “Final” Status Once Completed • Utilize Outstanding Items Capability to Manage “Open Items” • Leverage Reporting Tools to Support Work Tasks • Identify Changes to Scope or Other Reference Data

  3. Ensure key issues are documented appropriately in the form, even when using a supplemental attachment (such as a Pre-Close Review or On-Site template), to enable effective status reporting and issues resolution. Document Issues Appropriately in Form Recommended:  • Use the form to capture essential details of issues and use attachments to complement/ supplement this data • Note: if an attachment is used you can “tick” both “documented outcomes attached” and “documented in tool” as shown in this example • To the extent possible, fully document in the form: • - Issue • - Issue Description • - Action Plan • - Owner • - Due Date  Not Recommended: • “Burying” issues in an attachment • Setting Issues Status to “No Issues” and referring to issues in attachment

  4. Where no issues exist, avoid unnecessary data entry (or adding extra items, etc…) to save time & effort… Avoid Unnecessary Entries!  Recommended: Simply mark “No Issues” in the Issue Status, if there are no issues following the review  Not Recommended: • Inputting extra data that is not required. In this example, Owner, Due Date, Descriptions, Status Comments, and “Completed” are not needed, given that there are “no issues”. • Inputting comments that are “extraneous” – such as “Close Checklist to be done on Friday” – instead of the real issue.

  5. In some cases, the reviews conducted for an entity may exceed the “required”, but “unneeded” forms should be deleted to allow document completion… Delete Forms That Are Not Needed For The Period  Recommended:  • Delete any forms that are not required or intended to be completed in the period • Do not leave ‘unneeded’ forms in place, as validation errors will prevent sign off of the entire document (note: Area Controllers may delete forms for entities for which they have permission)   • The announcements section on the Home Page of FRC will have the latest instructions for required form completion for the month.

  6. Setting document status to ‘final’, once complete, is important to overall status reporting and the management of ‘open items’… Set Documents to “Final” Status Once Completed Recommended: • Remember to sign off the overall document, so that status = “Final”, once all reviews have been completed and signed off • Check ‘status’ of documents from prior period and finalize as appropriate • As a general rule, Documents should be set to final by the end of the month.  Entity Names Intentionally Deleted 

  7. The ‘Outstanding Items’ capability introduced in the tool at the end of November helps manage ‘open items’ that transcend the period end date… Utilize Outstanding Items Capability to Manage “Open Items” Recommended: • Utilize Outstanding Items pages, which capture “Open Issues”, to help easily manage and follow up on issues that require further attention* • Filter by Outstanding Items “status” to quickly identify those items that are late based on the “Due Dates” originally input • Update status of an Outstanding Item direct from the Outstanding Items page • “Close out” outstanding items, as appropriate, on an ongoing basis. Some Content Intentionally Deleted • * An issue is defined as an “Outstanding Item” if the status of the document has been set to ‘Final’, the issue status in a form is set to “Open Issues Remain” and the issue in the form does not have the ‘Completed’ Tickbox activated (set to “Yes”). NOTE: See Appendix to this document for more details on Outstanding Items

  8. There are a range of “Ad-hoc” and custom status reports that are easily updateable that are available to help track the workflow and status… Leverage Reporting Tools to Support Work Tasks Recommended: • Utilize the custom Excel-based “status report” to see sign-off status for a set of entities, country or cluster. (Note that this workbook has macros to easily refresh data) • Draw upon one of the 10 “Ad-hoc” reporting datasets* to develop more custom queries or extract data from the tool if needed Some Content Intentionally Deleted • Reporting data from the Monitoring Controls tool is fully explained in the User Manual, available from the “Instructions and Guidance” section of the FRC Homepage. • The Ad-hoc reporting tool is available from a link on the Home Page of the FRC system. The Customized Excel “status report” shown above is available from the Monitoring Controls section in the “Instructions and Guidance” page, also accessed via the FRC Home Page.

  9. Scope and reference data (such as cluster, Tier Rating*, etc) in the tool need to be updated by the end of the third week of the month to be effective for the next period document creation. Changes must be approved by the lead Area Controller or Regional Controller. Identify Changes to Scope or Other Reference Data Business Change? Recommended: • As required, notify appropriate managers of changes required, itemizing: • Hyperion ID for the entity • Entity Name • The change required (example: remove from scope, add to scope) • The rationale/explanation for the change • The effective date of the change (e.g., apply change from Jan close documents forward) • As appropriate, provide supporting details (e.g., impact on permissions, Tier Rating details, etc…) • Change in Scope? - Carve Out - Divestment - New Entity - Acquisition • Change in Other Reference Data? - Permissions - Cluster Details - Control/Associated Status - Tier Rating* - Etc.. * Tier Ratings are normally reviewed once per year only, but may be adjusted at any point in exceptional circumstances.

  10. Suggestions & Feedback • If you have comments or suggested enhancements to the Monitoring Controls tool, please discuss with your lead Area Controller in the region, so that they can be reviewed by the Regional Controllers Team.

  11. Since Version 2, the Tool contains functionality to assist the Area Controllers to monitor and proactively manage any documented issue items which remain outstanding at the end of a close period through to resolution. Once all the required forms are completed for a close period for a given site, when the Area Controller signs off the completed document and document status is set to final, for any forms where Issue Status = Open Issues Remain and the issue item Completed Status <> Completed, then the individual issue items will be appended to a new Outstanding Items List for that site. For items on the Outstanding Items List, only two fields may be updated – Completed Status and Status Comments No further updates to outstanding issues will be permitted within the original document. Outstanding Items will, therefore, provide the only meaningful views of the current status on all open issues carried forward from prior close-periods. . Appendix: Outstanding Items Overview

  12. Individual issue items will be appended to the Outstanding Items List for a site immediately upon the document status being set to FINAL as part of the document-level sign-off by the Area Controller Going forward, therefore, an Area Controller will, therefore, be required to: Either set the Completed Status = Completed to indicate that the Open Item has been resolved Or leave the Completed Status = “” and update the Status Comments to reflect the current status on that particular item. Outstanding Items is available as an additional Ad Hoc Reporting data set for users to create customized Excel reports NB: If the Outstanding Item has materially changed in nature, then Area Controllers should close out the Outstanding Item, and create a new replacement Issue item on the appropriate form for the latest close period Appendix: Outstanding Items Process Flow

  13. Appendix: “View” Outstanding Items Select the required view of Outstanding Items

  14. Appendix: Select an Outstanding Item Select the required issue item in EDIT mode

  15. Appendix: Edit an Outstanding Item Check Box to indicate issue item is now complete Status comment may be updated as required Details Taken from Original Form for Reference Purposes Only

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