TCT Portal’s Native Tools Make PCI DSS 4.x Easy to Manage

For many organizations, managing PCI DSS compliance is a frustrating and painful manual process. Usually, you have convoluted spreadsheets and multiple drop zones. Team members deal with clunky communication across multiple platforms and there’s a general sense of disorganization and chaos. Nothing is simple and everything takes longer than it should.

PCI DSS is a monstrous framework on its own merits. Add the manual mayhem and you have a system designed for compliance nightmares and high turnover.

With the deadline to convert to PCI 4 quickly approaching (by 4/1/2024), there’s never been a better time to invest in compliance management software that’s built to eliminate chaos and streamline complex compliance engagements.

TCT Portal is designed to simplify the compliance management of massive security frameworks like PCI DSS. Packed with a suite of tools and capabilities for PCI 4.x, TCT Portal can eliminate hundreds of man-hours per year.

Let’s take a look at the proprietary functions that TCT Portal offers for making PCI compliance management suck less.

Get TCT’s complete guide to PCI DSS Certification

INFI Support

One of the new aspects of PCI DSS 4.x is the Items Noted For Improvement (INFI). INFI gives the QSA the ability to flag items that required improvement during the assessment. INFIs require additional paperwork, called INFI worksheets. If you’re using manual processes, these worksheets are an opportunity for more work and longer hours. 

TCT Portal has native support for INFI worksheets. The compliance software can automatically generate the paperwork at the end of the engagement, with the click of a button. All the information is captured throughout the assessment, and TCT Portal automatically imports it and formats it to the INFI worksheet for generation at time of report generation.

Automatic Report Generation

With each new major update to PCI DSS, the total number of items for a SAQ or a ROC increases. PCI 4 has more information than ever that needs to be filled in for reporting. Normally, that would add more man hours to your engagement — and probably more overtime for your team.

With TCT Portal, your documentation is generated in seconds. Whether it’s a Report on Compliance (ROC), Attestation of Compliance (AOC), or Self=Assessment Questionnaire(SAQ), it just takes the click of a mouse. 

All the required information for reporting comes straight from TCT Portal and is automatically populated into a fully formatted report. No manual adjustments, edits, or formatting are required. And as PCI reporting becomes more complex, TCT Portal will keep the report generation simple and quick.

Mapping Across Multiple Certifications

For organizations that are subject to multiple compliance standards, TCT Portal provides automated mapping across frameworks. Our compliance management platform currently has more than 150 different standards already built in, all of which can be mapped to one another. 

When you upload evidence to PCI DSS, the system has the capability to be configured to automatically apply that evidence to every other certification based on requirement mappings. By the time you’re done with PCI, you only have the leftover requirements in each of your remaining certifications.

TCT’s certification mapping capabilities minimize the time you spend collecting information across your certifications. Load once and eliminate redundant efforts to manually transpose evidence to secondary certifications and standards.

Customized Approach Support

TCT Portal offers full support for PCI 4’s new Customized Approach. A customized approach applies to large or complex organizations that have an established approach that meets the intent of a particular control, but may not have implemented it according to the letter of the PCI law.  The customized approach allows the organization to show that they meet the intent of the PCI requirement with generation of the customized approach templates at time of report generation.

Flexible Workflows

TCT Portal doesn’t force your organization to adjust your way of doing things in order to fit the compliance tool. The platform is flexible enough to drop into the workflows you’ve already established for your organization.

Multiple people can work simultaneously on compliance tasks. With an engagement as large as PCI DSS, the more your team can work concurrently, the more you’ll streamline your engagement and speed through the entire process.

• Each person can manage and update their assigned tasks simultaneously.
• Dozens of people can submit evidence simultaneously, adding written explanations and evidence attachment information for review. 
• Assessors can check on progress and respond to questions while their clients are actively using the system.
• QA can do their work as each item is completed, without waiting. 

Operational Mode

The largest benefits come in Year 2 and beyond, when TCT’s Operational Mode kicks in. After you’ve become certified in PCI, there are dozens of activities that need to be completed throughout your compliance year. 

TCT has the capability to keep you on target for each of those tasks. Automated assignments and timely reminders ensure that none of your ongoing compliance activities is overlooked and forgotten. 

The time savings that Operational Mode provides is enormous. On top of that, you have complete assurance that your organization is doing what you need to be doing to maintain compliance, all year long. Go into your annual assessment confident that you won’t be blindsided with any unpleasant surprises. 

The Right Tool for PCI DSS 4.x

TCT Portal’s PCI capabilities make the compliance management software a standout option among the crowd. Our clients that leverage the TCT Portal long enough to clearly understand the benefits are customers for life. They take us with them when they move to new jobs in new organizations. Users seek us out at conferences before they do anything else. Our clients are often the best sales resource we have, as they refer us to others with an enthusiasm that surprises even us.

Our customers do that because TCT truly cares about their user experience. Our support capabilities and customer responsiveness are unmatched in the industry — for example, customer support tickets are typically closed in a few business hours.

Trying to manage PCI DSS compliance really can suck. It’s complex and enormous and pretty damn painful to get through. But with the right tool, managing PCI compliance can suck a lot less. 

Get a demo and see what a difference TCT Portal can make for your company.