Overview
An engagement group is a system for grouping multiple simultaneous client engagements that have overlapping controls. This helps you manage multiple related engagements together, making it easier to stay organized.
Fieldguide helps you create a consolidated list of controls and cross-map them to multiple engagements. This lets you perform testing and collect documents that satisfy multiple different engagements at once.
How it works
An engagement group contains two or more engagements. It includes:
One consolidated engagement. This acts as an index of all the controls, tests, and requests used by any of the engagements in this group.
One or more individual engagements. Typically, each framework or report you plan on issuing will have its own individual engagement. For example, you may have an individual SOC 1, SOC 2, and HIPAA engagement in the group.
Controls and tests are linked between the consolidated engagement and the individual engagements.
Create an engagement group
Go to the Engagements menu and click +New > Create Engagement Group.
The engagement group setup wizard will walk you through four steps:
Enter a name for your engagement group.
Set up a consolidated engagement.
Import controls and test data.
Review and merge duplicate controls to create a consolidated list.
Set up the individual engagements.
If you need to take a break, you can close out of the setup wizard and your progress will be saved automatically. To return, click New > Resume engagement group setup in the Engagements menu. Or, create a new engagement group if you want to erase your progress and start from scratch.
Continue reading for information on each step.
Step 1: Enter engagement group details
Enter a name for your engagement group.
Step 2: Set up a consolidated engagement
Fill out basic information about your consolidated engagement.
When you're done, move on to the next step to continue setting up your consolidated engagement.
Step 3: Import controls, tests, and mappings
Use the template provided to create a CSV file with all the controls that you need for these engagements. Upload your CSV to the wizard when you're done.
Populating your CSV file
Every row underneath the header in the CSV represents a control/test pairing and its mapping. For the import to work correctly:
The first line of your CSV file must be the column headers specified in the template provided by Fieldguide.
Every row must have a value in the required columns. See below for information on the columns in the CSV.
You can use this sample CSV as a reference.
Description of the columns in the CSV file
Column | Description |
Section (required) | The framework criteria/requirement a control is mapped to. |
Row Key (required) | Appears in the Key column next to a row for that control/test inside the sheet. |
Control Key (required) | The key associated with that Control Activity inside the client's Controls menu. Every unique control language should have one unique control key. |
Control (required) | The control language. |
Test Procedures (required) | The control's test(s). |
Engagement (required) | The individual engagement this row is associated with. |
Adding a control with multiple tests to the CSV
If one control needs to have multiple different tests, create a separate row in your CSV for each unique test. Think of every row as representing a unique control/test pairing. You can have multiple rows with the same control but a different test.
Adding a control with multiple mappings to the CSV
If one control has mappings to multiple different sections, create a separate row in your CSV for each unique mapping. Think of every row as representing a unique control mapping. You can have multiple rows with the same control but a different section.
After you're done populating the CSV, upload it to the wizard and move on to the next step.
Step 4: Review and merge duplicate controls
To create a consolidated engagement, you'll need a list of unique control/test pairings (and their mappings) without duplicates. Fieldguide will display the control/test pairings from your CSV and try to detect any duplicates for you.
Review Fieldguide's suggestions and choose whether to merge or separate each of the control/test pairings.
Use the toggle to view the difference between potential duplicates.
Separate individual rows first if needed, and then you can quickly bulk merge any remaining duplicates.
Manually merge controls and tests
If Fieldguide doesn't automatically catch some duplicates, you can manually merge them.
Manually separate controls and tests
To mark controls-test pairs as non-duplicates, you can manually separate them.
You must review all potential duplicates before you can proceed to the next step. Once you're done, this completes the setup for the consolidated engagement. Move to the next step to set up the other engagements.
Step 5: Set up the individual engagements
Fieldguide will detect which other engagements you need to create based on which ones were listed in the CSV you used during the consolidated import. For each engagement, you'll need to:
Fill out basic information about the engagement. This includes the name, engagement template, and other information.
Set up the section mappings.
Mapping the sections
Every section mapping you listed on your CSV file must correspond with a section header on the engagement's sheet. Fieldguide will prompt you to choose which section from your CSV corresponds with each section in your engagement's sheet. Select a corresponding sheet section for each of the CSV sections using the dropdown menu.
When you're done setting up each engagement, move on to the next step to complete the setup.
The engagement group setup may take a few minutes to process. Once complete, Fieldguide will provide a link out to each of the engagements in the group. You can also see these from your Engagements menu at any time.
See also