Manage engagements

Release version: Xanadu

Updated August 1, 2024

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Summary of Manage engagements

The Manage engagements process in ServiceNow supports the full audit engagement lifecycle, including creation, planning, scoping, conducting, reporting, and closing audit engagements. This process helps audit managers and auditors efficiently manage audit tasks, risks, controls, and issues while ensuring compliance with regulations and policies.

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Engagement Process States

Scope: Audit managers define the entities involved in the engagement, such as business services or departments relevant to the audit. Adding entities automatically includes their associated risks, controls, test plans, and indicator results.
Validate: Risks, controls, test plans, and indicator results are reviewed and can be updated. Audit tasks are planned and prepared for execution.
Fieldwork: Auditors perform assigned audit tasks including control testing, interviews, and walkthroughs. Issues discovered are documented and linked to the engagement. Audit managers finalize the engagement result.
Awaiting Approval: Assigned approvers review audit results and issues to approve or reject the engagement.
Follow Up: After approval, any remaining open tasks, issues, or milestones must be resolved before closing the engagement.
Closed: Engagements are closed when incomplete or when all tasks and issues are resolved after approval and follow-up.

Audit Task Management and Capabilities

Create and manage engagements: Audit managers create new engagements, re-use previous engagement scopes, auditors, and approvers to streamline recurring audits.
Control tests and activities: Create control tests, audit activities, interviews, and walkthroughs to gather evidence on control effectiveness.
Reporting: Generate audit reports and maintain multiple versions during the follow-up phase. Summarize engagement findings into Knowledge Base articles for executive communication.
Approval process: Approvers can approve or reject engagements during the Awaiting Approval state, facilitating governance and oversight.
Visual management: The Audit Engagement Workbench offers a timeline view for easy navigation, selection, and creation of audit engagements.

Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

ServiceNow customers can leverage this structured engagement process to improve audit efficiency, ensure comprehensive risk and control coverage, and maintain clear documentation and evidence throughout the audit lifecycle. The automation of state transitions and task management reduces manual effort, supports compliance requirements, and enhances communication between auditors, managers, and approvers. Using the Engagement Workbench simplifies engagement oversight and planning, enabling better resource allocation and audit quality.

The audit engagement process involves creating, planning, scoping, and conducting engagements as well as reporting on engagement findings.

Engagement process

The base system audit engagement process includes steps for scoping, validating, conducting, and approving engagement results. It also contains steps for following up on open audit tasks and issues, and finally closing out the audit engagement.

Table 1. States of the engagement process
State	Description
Scope	During the Scope state, audit managers define which entities are involved in the audit engagement. For example, for a financial audit, one may include all business services that the finance department relies on and the finance department itself. See Add entities to an engagement scope.
Validate	After an engagement has moved to the Validate state, all the risks, controls, and test plans associated with the entities in the engagement's scope will be associated with the audit. Indicator results that were collected during the audit period of the engagement will also be associated with the audit. Audit managers can review the risks, controls, test plans, and indicator results, and update the scope of the engagement, if necessary. Audit managers can also begin creating and planning audit tasks for the engagement. To move an engagement into the Validate state, click Validate on any engagement currently in the Scope state.
Fieldwork	Auditors complete their assigned audit tasks during the Fieldwork state. These tasks include control testing, interviews, walkthroughs, and other activities. Issues that are found during control testing are associated with the engagement. Auditors can also create general issues associated with the engagement. Audit managers can create additional audit tasks as needed. When the audit is done, audit managers specify the result of the engagement, whether it's satisfactory, adequate or inadequate, and provide details on their opinion. To move an engagement into the Fieldwork state, click Advance to Fieldwork on any engagement currently in the Validate state. See Audit task management.
Awaiting Approval	During the "Awaiting Approval" state, the approvers specified in the Approvers field of the engagement review the results of the audit tasks conducted and the issues that were created. After reviewing the results of the engagements, approvers approve or reject the engagement. To move an engagement into the Awaiting Approval state, click Request approval on any engagement currently in the Fieldwork state. See Approve or reject an engagement.
Follow Up	After an engagement has been approved, if there are any remaining open tasks, issues or milestones, in case of GRC Advanced Audit, associated with the engagement, the engagement automatically goes into the Follow Up state. During this stage, auditors must close out all remaining issues, tasks, and milestones before the engagement are marked as complete.
Closed	Engagements move into the "Closed" state under one of three conditions: The engagement is closed as incomplete during the Scope, Validate, or Fieldwork states. There are no open audit tasks, issues, and milestones after the engagement is approved. In this case, the engagement automatically moves from the Awaiting Approval state to the Closed state. All follow-up tasks, issues, and milestones are closed out. In this case, the engagement automatically moves from the Follow Up state to the Closed state.