Action ITAMs
- Christopher Rushing (Unlicensed)
Contents
Overview
Ideally, working toward compliance with a standard or framework is a cooperative effort between your organization and the Examiner / Auditor responsible for confirming that the standards have been met. Action ITAMs represent a key tool in facilitating that cooperation by coordinating and communicating about a form and the actions that need to be taken or any questions you might have.
In this section, we will explore the Action ITAM feature and how it is used to clarify requirements and move your organization forward toward compliance.
Action ITAMs
An Action ITAM represents a small, trackable work item or question-related to a single field in a form. As you work to complete a form, there will naturally be items about which you have questions or need clarification. Likewise, as you are working through a form or even after submission, there will be items that the Examiner needs to have adjusted or explained. Action ITAMs are a tool to help facilitate that communication while providing a way to keep track of what still needs to be addressed and what has been completed.
Initiating Action ITAMs.
Action ITAMs are always related to a particular field in a form and are initiated from the form while viewing that field. Below each field is a small ball with an arrow in it. This is the Action ITAM icon.
When no Action ITAM is assigned the arrow will be gray.
Clicking on the Action ITAM icon will bring up the Action ITAM screen. The form will allow you to assign the Action ITAM to the appropriate party, enter the action or question desired, and assign a due date.
Clicking the Save Note button will save the details and create the Action ITAM. Clicking on Close will close the form without saving your changes. Once you create an Action ITAM, as soon as the form is refreshed, the icon will change to green, indicating that there is a pending Action ITAM on the field. It will also display the profile picture of the user or examiner to whom it is currently assigned.
Viewing Action ITAMs
There are a couple of ways to view an Action ITAM that has been assigned to you. The quickest is by using the Dashboard. When viewing the Dashboard, it will display all of the Action ITAMs currently assigned to you including the name of the form with which it is associated, the Title of the associated field, the text of the Action ITAM, and the Due Date if assigned. The Form Name field is also a link directly to the field in the form.
Clicking on the Form name will bring you to the field in the form and highlight it for you in gray.
You can also access an Action ITAM by simply opening the form and navigating to the page in question. When accessing the Action ITAMs this way, the field in question will not be highlighted since you are not navigating to a particular field.
Regardless of how to access the form, you can view the Action ITAM on a field by clicking on the orange icon on the far right of the user profile. This will display the details of the Action ITAM.
The final way to view Action ITAMs is by running the Action ITAM Report if it is available to you. For more information about the Action ITAM Report see the appropriate report description in the Report Types section of the guide.
Responding to Action ITAMs.
If you have an Action ITAM assigned to you, it is simple to respond. The first step is to navigate to the form and field associated with the Action ITAM in one of the ways described above.
Once you have the field open, click on the first icon next to the user profile for the Action ITAM. This will open a form similar to the form displayed when initiating an Action ITAM. All you need to do to respond to an Action ITAM is to fill out the form and select the user to whom you need to send the response.
Clicking the Save Note button will complete the response and complete your Action ITAM. The field will update the next time the form is refreshed, displaying the icon of the user to whom the Action ITAM is now assigned based on your response.
Completing Action ITAMs.
Action ITAMs can be completed in two ways. As noted above, when responding to an Action ITAM, as soon as you assign the action to another user, your action will be completed. In addition, if you do not need to respond, you can opt to delete the Action ITAM if no further action is needed. This is done when viewing the Action ITAM as described above. When viewing the information there will be an option to delete it.
You will be prompted to confirm the deletion. Once confirmed, the deletion will be performed.
Deleting an Action ITAM is a permanent action, so use caution!
In this section, we explored Action ITAMs and how they are used to facilitate coordination between Users and Examiners. In the next section, we’ll look closer at the My Forms page and how to work within it to find and interact with your forms.
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