If you’re following a directional standard like HIPAA, SOC 2, or CCPA, Total Compliance Tracking just solved a common problem for organizations and their auditors. Our newest feature makes compliance management more streamlined, simplifies auditing, and elevates TCT Portal as the top compliance management software for compliant organizations.
The problem we tackled involved the fact that directional standards don’t tell you what to do, which is both a blessing and a curse.
Some compliance standards are very prescriptive. They tell you exactly what you need to do to be compliant, and how you need to do it. Others are more directional. They tell you what you need to accomplish (criteria), but leave it to you to determine how you will get there (controls).
On the one hand, it’s nice to have the flexibility to determine what controls work best for you — but now you have to document exactly what they are, how you’ll accomplish them, and how to test their effectiveness. The controls you establish need to be granular enough that the auditor can test what you’re doing.
Until now, documenting the controls for directional standards within TCT Portal was more of a challenge to manage. You had to document your controls and the audit tests in detailed notes in the TCT Portal or in separate attached documents. When our customers mentioned the need for enhanced TCT Portal capabilities, we prioritized the request — as we do with any client-requested enhancement that benefits the overall functionality of the compliance management software.
The result is a more flexible, more streamlined compliance tracking tool for both organizations and auditors.
Greater Flexibility and Efficiency for Directional Standards
TCT’s new functionality allows you to define your control objectives — the requirements that are to be met — and then to define how you’re going to test, to ensure that those controls are effective.
For example, SOC’s criteria requires you to register and authorize users. In TCT Portal, you can enter the controls you’ve established to meet that criteria: Unique usernames or numbers for identifying and tracking user identity. Next, enter the testing to be performed during an audit to determine effectiveness: you can establish one test to validate that the policy is in alignment with criteria, a second test to load current user listings across the systems, and finally a testing step for validation through interview with personnel to confirm that the controls are in place.
Currently in Beta release, this functionality introduces significant flexibility to customize directional standards to fit your unique organization. It increases TCT Portal’s effectiveness for you and maximizes your collaboration with auditors.
This development gives you the flexibility to create a tracking mechanism that you can use alongside all of your other industry standard certifications. For directional standards, you can define all of the control and testing elements. And you can take a very prescriptive certification, such as PCI, and use the same compliance management tool to accomplish those compliance objectives.
It’s an essential capability for organizations that are facing more and more compliance requirements that they need to fulfill.
Best yet, every customer using TCT Portal already has access to the feature. You can start using it today!
Continuous Improvement Isn’t Just a Buzzword at TCT
TCT was founded on a vision to support every person who deals with compliance. The whole premise of TCT Portal is to streamline the compliance activities that are a complete and utter waste of time. We’ve made a seismic difference in the compliance lives of our customers.
Total Compliance Tracking takes customer input very seriously. I can’t think of a software release we’ve done in the last two years that didn’t have enhancements that originated from our customers. Every time we have another release, I can tell a customer, “I’m releasing your features.” I can also say, “By the way, here are five new features that come from other customers, too.” I love hearing customers say, “Thanks for taking care of my request, but whoever came up with this other feature, that was awesome!” It has been very rewarding to see the continuous growth in the capability and strength of the TCT Portal over the years.
We’re passionate about helping companies that need a compliance management tool to calm the insanity, and this latest feature alleviates some of the hardships that directional standards pose.