Regulatory alerts

  • Release version: Washingtondc
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Regulatory Alerts

    Regulatory alerts in ServiceNow's Regulatory Change Management application aggregate regulatory events and documents from various intelligence providers. These alerts keep you updated on the regulatory landscape and are transformed into actionable records within the application, enabling stakeholders to create compliance action plans based on the changes reported.

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    Key Features

    • Types of Alerts:
      • Regulatory Event Alerts: General alerts for regulatory changes and updates.
      • Source Document Alerts: Specific alerts indicating changes in citations within authority documents, available through integration with providers like Thomson Reuters.
    • Regulatory Tasks: Tasks are created when alerts are marked applicable, including regulatory change tasks for event alerts and source document import tasks for source document alerts.
    • User Roles: Alerts can be assigned to users with specific roles for management, user access, and task execution, with various states indicating their progress and assignments.
    • Table Cleaners: Automated cleaning of records marked as not applicable can be scheduled by users with admin rights to maintain data integrity.

    Key Outcomes

    By utilizing regulatory alerts, ServiceNow customers can efficiently manage and respond to regulatory changes, ensuring compliance and informed decision-making. The ability to assign alerts and monitor their statuses enhances collaboration and accountability within the organization. Regular cleanup of irrelevant alerts further optimizes system performance and usability.

    Regulatory alerts are an aggregation of different regulatory events and documents that are sourced from multiple regulatory intelligence providers. Similar to web feeds, a regulatory alert is a record of these regulatory changes. Such changes are frequently updated, and the alerts help you stay informed about the regulatory landscape.

    The Regulatory Change Management application transforms and maps the alerts. The application provides the information in regulatory alert tables.

    The Regulatory Change Management life cycle starts with the regulatory alert record. Each regulatory alert record contains metadata that helps stakeholders to translate the changes, create an action plan, and implement actions to comply with the regulatory changes.

    With the Regulatory Change Management application, you can use the regulatory alerts to inform the users about regulatory updates.

    Types of alerts and associated regulatory tasks

    Different types of alerts are displayed under the Regulatory Alerts module in the Regulatory Change Management application.

    You can use the following types of regulatory alerts:
    • Regulatory event alerts: Signify alerts, provide updates to news, and provide insights on regulatory changes. Alerts are by default regulatory event alerts. All RSS feeds result in a regulatory alert record.
    • Source document alerts: Signify changes to the citations. Citations are like various sections of an authority document. ServiceNow® GRC offers the Network Frontiers Unified Compliance Framework (UCF) integration. The integration creates authority documents after the import, and it creates corresponding citations under each authority document. When an existing citation is updated or a new citation is inserted, it signifies a change in the source document. Source document alerts are only available when integrating with a third-party regulatory intelligence provider; for example, Thomson Reuters.

    The difference between a regulatory event alert and a source document alert is scope. Regulatory event alerts signify general alerts for general changes and for upcoming regulatory changes. In contrast, source document alerts signify changes that are specific to the citations. When an existing citation is updated or a new citation is inserted, it signifies a change in the source document.

    The different types of alerts each involve a separate set of regulatory tasks. These tasks are created whenever a user with the sn_grc_reg_change.user or sn_grc_reg_change.admin role takes an alert and then marks it as applicable. These tasks are the following:
    • Regulatory change task: This task is created for regulatory event alerts. The task is used to evaluate the changes and to update the GRC objects, such as policies, controls, and risk statements in the library.
    • Source document import task: This task is created for source document alerts. The task is used to update an existing citation or to insert a new citation that is received from the provider into the regulatory library.

    Alerts and user roles

    Alerts can have different states. The main property of an alert is whether it’s assigned or unassigned. For assigned alerts, the Coordinator field has a value. An alert can be assigned either to a user with the sn_grc_reg_change.manager role or the sn_grc_reg_change.user or sn_grc_reg_change.admin role. In contrast, an unassigned alert isn’t assigned to anyone.

    You can do various actions on unassigned alerts. These actions are the following:
    • Update
    • Applicable
    • Defer
    • Initiate Impact Assessment
    • Not Applicable
    • Cancel Regulatory Alert
    • Delete

    When an unassigned regulatory event alert is marked as applicable, a regulatory change task is created. When an unassigned source document alert is marked as applicable, a source document import task is created.

    When an unassigned alert is marked as not applicable with due comments, its state is updated as Closed in the regulatory alert form.

    Assigned alerts can have different states. These states are the following:
    • New
    • Deferred
    • Impact Assessment
    • In Progress
    • Closed

    In terms of user roles, all alerts can be accessed by users with either the sn_grc_reg_change.admin role or the sn_grc_reg_change.manager role. Users with the sn_grc_reg_change.user role can view assigned alerts that are assigned to them, but they can’t view unassigned alerts or alerts that are assigned to other people.

    Table cleaners for regulatory alerts

    The alert records that are marked as not applicable must be cleaned at regular intervals. The Regulatory Change Management application provides table cleaners for cleaning the alert records automatically. Users specify the time and frequency for the cleanup activity. Only users with the sn_grc_reg_change.admin role can perform cleanup activities.

    Similarly, registry file records that have been processed can be cleaned at specified time intervals.