Skip to main content

Controls

A control is a specific measure, process, or mechanism that an organization implements to ensure compliance with its obligations and policies. Controls are the same resource as Mitigations in Essential ERM , they share a single underlying record.

G
Written by Gagan

Control Details Screen

If you have Essential Compliance access, you will see the enhanced control details screen regardless of how you navigate to a control/mitigation (e.g., opening a control from the Essential Compliance screens and menus, or opening a mitigation from a risk bow tie in the Risk Details screen).

Summary Section

  • Standard fields Name, Owner, Description, Record Status

  • Control Execution fields — Optional sub-section that Admin users can toggle on/off

Control Management Section

This is a key feature for compliance managers. It supports scheduling recurring control reviews and managing the control approval lifecycle.

Status Tab:

Field

Description

Control Status

Mirrors the record status. Shows "Active and approved" when set to Active.

Reviewers

One or more users who will receive review notifications. Must be compliance users with portfolio access (Admin or Standard).

Who Must Review

"Any reviewer" (default) or "All reviewers" — determines whether one or all reviewers must respond for a review to be considered complete.

Review Start Date

The anchor date for calculating recurring reviews. For example, if January 1 is set as the start date and the review period is set to semi-annually, recurring review tasks will be due on July 1 and January 1 of each year going forward.

Review Period

None, Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-annually, Annually, Every 18 months, or Every 2 years.

Next Scheduled Review Due

Auto-calculated from Start Date + Review Period.

Notifications

Number of days before the due date to notify reviewers.

Review Status

Current review status (Waiting for Reviews, Complete, or Incomplete)

Last Review Completed

Date of the most recent completed review

Key Actions:

  • Mark Reviewed — Visible to Admin users and assigned Reviewers. Records a review immediately

  • Request Review — Sends an ad hoc review request to selected reviewers with a custom due date

Policy Activation Rule: When reviewers are assigned, a policy must be reviewed before it can be set to Active (Published) status.

Review Requests Tab:
Shows a table of all review requests (both scheduled and ad hoc) with:

  • Request Date, Due Date, Reviewers (with response status icons ✅/❌), and Review Status

Control Approval Permission

An Admin toggle controls whether Standard users can set controls to Active (Approved) status:

  • If Yes (default): New controls are created as Active

  • If No: New controls are created as Inactive and only Admins can set them to Active

Associations

Shows linkages between the control and its related frameworks and themes. Click Manage Associations to create or break these linkages.

Compliance Status Box

Displays the overall compliance status of the control, calculated automatically based on the status of it's attached evidence tasks.

Users can manually override the auto-calculated status using the "set value" link, and reset it back to the automatic calculation at any time.

Sub-Sections

The following sub-sections can be enabled and reordered on the Controls Details screen by client administrators:

  • Obligations, Policies, Evidence Tasks (coming soon), Risks, Indicators, Incidents, Action Plans, Notes

Must-Have Controls

When a control is attached to an obligation or policy, it can be marked as "Must Have" through the ellipsis menu on the control's row (in the controls subsection of the obligation or policy details screen). This is a property of the relationship between the control and the obligation/policy — not a property of the control itself. This means that a control may be "must have" for one obligation or policy, but not others.

Why it matters: Only must-have controls affect the compliance status of the parent obligation or policy. Non-must-have controls can be attached for tracking purposes without impacting compliance calculations.

Did this answer your question?