Advanced Risk Assessments in the Risk Workspace

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Advanced Risk Assessments in the Risk Workspace

    The Risk Workspace in ServiceNow's Yokohama release offers an enhanced, simplified experience for performing Advanced Risk Assessments. It allows users to easily access risk assessments assigned to them or their groups via the GRC Risk Portal or directly from the Risk Workspace. This workspace provides a more intuitive interface with immediate access to relevant data, supporting operational risk managers in effectively managing assessments.

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    Key Features

    • Risk Assessment Methodology Filter: On the Home page, users can filter risk assessments by methodology to focus on specific types of risks, such as operational risks.
    • Contextual Side Panel: Offers explanations of assessment sections and includes default training content. The panel is configurable to display custom training materials and can be closed if not needed.
    • Assessment Home Page Summary: Displays key details at a glance including the assessed entity, due date, assigned person, approver, risk description, assessment results, and selected risk response strategies.
    • Reference Information for Risks and Controls: The Contextual side panel provides clickable graphs and data such as:
      • Risk events graph showing aggregated gross and net loss forecasts.
      • Quarterly percentages of key indicator breaches.
      • Control indicator failure statistics with control test results.
      • Number and severity of open issues, with the ability to create new issues directly.
    • Factor Guidance: Users can quickly access guidance on risk factors via a Show guidance icon, improving response efficiency.
    • Assessment Reassignment: Users can reassign risk assessments to other users from the home page. Email addresses are displayed to distinguish users with similar names, reducing assignment errors.
    • Factor Weighting Information: First line risk assessors can view qualitative weights, qualitative scores, and quantitative scores by clicking on Overall rating.

    Practical Impact for ServiceNow Customers

    This enhanced Risk Workspace streamlines the Advanced Risk Assessment process, making it easier to manage, review, and act upon risk data within ServiceNow. The availability of detailed reference data and guidance supports informed decision-making. The reassignment feature promotes flexibility in workflow management, while customizable training content supports user onboarding and consistency in risk evaluation practices. Overall, these improvements help operational risk managers efficiently perform assessments, drive risk mitigation actions, and maintain compliance.

    The Risk Workspace offers an enhanced and a simplified user experience for users to perform Advanced Risk Assessments. You can quickly access the risk assessments assigned to you or your group from the GRC Risk Portal or the Risk Workspace.

    With the new Risk Workspace, your risk assessments are more intuitive with more data readily available for you to refer for every assessment that you perform in the risk assessment instance. As an operational risk manager, when you use Advanced Risk Assessments, on the Home page, in the Risk Summary field,you have a filter available to select your risk assessment methodology. For example, you can select the risk assessment methodology that shows you the operational risks assessed. For more information on risk assessment methodologies, see Advanced Risk Assessment.

    For a new user to understand risk assessments, a Contextual side panel is provided with an explanation about the assessment sections. While a default explanation and a brief training are provided, you can also configure the system to show your training content related to risk assessments. If you do not want to keep the side panel training information open, you can also close it using the information icon.

    At a glance, the risk assessment home page shows you the entity being assessed, the due date for the assessment, the person the assessment is assigned to, the approver, and the risk description. The home page also shows the results of the risk assessment and the selected risk response strategies.
    Figure 1. Risk assessment home page
    Risk assessment home page

    Some of the major enhancements for Advanced Risk Assessments in the Risk Workspace are as follows:

    View reference information for associated risks and controls

    The Contextual side panel shows the reference information for associated risks and controls. The graphical representations can be clicked to get detailed information about the risk events, issues, indicator breaches and so on. The reference information shows the following:
    • Risk events graph that displays the gross loss and the net loss of the aggregated risk events for that particular risk. This graph also displays the forecasts of the losses.
    • Percentage of key indicator breaches for every quarter.
    • Percentage of control indicator failure graph. When performing a control assessment, you can refer to the control test results, indicator failures, and so on
    • Number of open issues with their severity. You can also create issues by clicking the plus icon.
    Figure 2. Reference information for Advanced Risk Assessment
    Additional information for Advanced Risk Assessment.

    View factor guidance

    In the workspace, while responding to factors, you can quickly view the guidance by clicking the Show guidance icon Show guidance.. This ability saves your time as you can view the guidance and understand the factor while responding.

    Reassign assessments

    If you are assigned a risk assessment that must be assessed by another user, you can reassign the assessment from the risk assessment home page. In case there are two users with the same name, you have the ability to view their email addresses while reassigning the assessment. This ability prevents users from assigning the assessment to the wrong users.Reassign assessment to another user.

    View factor weighting information

    As a first line risk assessor, you may need to view the qualitative weight, the qualitative score, and the quantitative score of a factor. You can easily access this information by clicking Overall rating.