Procedures serve as instructional materials for people in your organization. Each procedure may only be owned by a single department. It is best practice to ensure that every procedure is owned by a Department. Department managers (and organization owners) have the authority to assign authors as well write and approve procedures.

NOTE: Before digging too deeply into procedures make sure you have set up departments and department managers in the platform.

Importantly, procedures also serve as a bridge by creating links between articles and evidence. Not all procedures are relevant for your compliance program, but for those that are, be sure to link it to an article and to evidence.

Controls -- Articles -- Procedures -- Evidence

Creating a New Procedure

Click Procedures from left menu, and click Add New
Title your procedure
Select the appropriate department for the procedure from the dropdown
Begin editing the procedure

Note: If you have an existing procedure and are copying and pasting from another document to migrate your existing procedures into PolicyCo, we suggest copying and pasting from a Word document or GoogleDoc. If PDF is the only option available, we suggest copying from Apple's Preview (instead Adobe or Chrome) when possible. Using the recommended document format when copying and pasting existing documents into PolicyCo will ensure the most reliable formatting transfer. You may still need to adjust some formatting. If you are not migrating existing procedures and creating from scratch, simply type right into PolicyCo!

Submitting a Procedure for Review

In the event that you are not the Department Manager with authority to approve, or would like a Department Manager or Owner to review the procedure before approving, you may submit the procedure for review. This action will place a task on the Department Manager's task list.

Navigate to the procedure you would like to submit for review
Click the red arrow icon to submit the procedure for review

Canceling a Procedure Review

You may also choose to cancel the review if no longer relevant.

Navigate to the procedure for which you would like to cancel the review
Click the left-facing arrow icon

Editing a Procedure

You may choose to edit a procedure.

Navigate to the procedure you would like to edit
Click on the Edit Version Button in the article editor to start a new draft
Skip above step if the article is already in a draft status

Deleting a Draft

You may choose to delete a draft of a procedure instead of submitting for review or approving.

Navigate to the procedure you would like to edit
Click the trash can icon

Determining Procedure Visibility

Procedures can be set to be viewed by a specific department within your organization, by the entire organization, or by the general public. Additionally, a procedure can be tied to a department, but viewable to the entire organization. More on this below.

The first circular icon, Department, means only employees in the selected department will be able to view the procedure in the Viewer interface. The procedure in this example would only be viewable to employees in the IT department:

The middle building icon, Organization, means everyone within the organization can view the procedure in the Viewer interface. The procedure in this example would be labeled as an IT procedure, but viewable to all employees:

The last globe icon, Public, means anyone with the link to the procedure can view the procedure in the Viewer interface:

Approving a Procedure

Only Department Managers and Owners can approve a procedure. This action makes the procedure effective, available in the Viewer interface, and to be optionally included in downloaded documents.