What is the SIG Manager?

The SIG Manager is a comprehensive product to enable the scoping and configuration of SIG Questionnaires. The SIG Manager provides two pre-configured questionnaires, and the ability to easily create customized assessments.  The SIG Manager automates the creation and analysis of SIG Responses and options to maintain SIG data – bringing efficiency to the assessment process.  Review your third party risk management (TPRM) program to identify how to best use the SIG Manager based on your requirements.

Scoping Functions Available in the SIG Manager

Scoping means customizing a SIG Questionnaire by choosing the type and level of questions appropriate for your assessment. Scoping enables you to:

1. Create questionnaire templates based on the type of 3rd or 4th party vendor, or
2. The product or service they provide, or
3. The data classification of the information they work with, or
4. The SIG Risk Domain or Category, or
5. SIG Mapping References.

Overview of the 2022 SIG Manager for your TPRM program

SIG Manager video reference guide

This video demonstrates the basic operations of the SIG Manager, including how to create a Standardized Information Gathering (SIG) Questionnaire, how to create a custom SIG Scoping Template, and an overview of select product features.

SIG Manager functionality is located on a single worksheet and is where you will perform all the available functions. The SIG is built within Microsoft Excel and comes with two standard templates for third-party risk assessments: SIG Lite and SIG Core.

The SIG Lite scoping template contains 150 appropriate questions for third-party vendors with lower risk, while the SIG Core template contains 825 questions for third-party vendors, 4th party vendors, or any Nth vendor in your vendor ecosystem that present a more critical risk to business operations. Selecting either of these two out-of-the-box templates will create SIG questionnaires quickly and easily.

This worksheet was designed with a dynamic user interface, and the options available for that function are dynamically displayed when selections are made.

Getting Started Creating a Standard SIG Questionnaire (Lite or Core) using the SIG Manager

To begin, select a SIG Scoping template. This must happen first before users can create a SIG Questionnaire.

Let’s create a standard SIG Core Questionnaire. The standard SIG Core Questionnaire is now created and open in another window, but I’m choosing not to save this one. That is fine since neither the SIG Manager nor the SIG Questionnaire will close, and they will stay open for use.

The newly created SIG Questionnaire appears as a separate document on your desktop. There are additional sheets on the SIG questionnaire, including:

1. The copyright tab,
2. A basic instructions worksheet,
3. A dashboard to display completion progress,
4. Business information,
5. Documentation, and
6. The SIG 2022 worksheets, and
7. A full tab of all levels of each question.

To make the SIG Manager easier to navigate, some functions will not be visible unless either a custom SIG scoping template or a response template is created.

Create a custom SIG Scoping Template

We’ve chosen to demonstrate the Risk Domain scope method. After selection, you may choose SIG Lite, SIG Core, or SIG Detail for one or all the domains.

Default names are provided for all custom templates, as well as the SIG scoping and response templates. However, we highly recommend that you change the name of the template to your organization’s name or naming convention.

Now save the template. Additional functions are now visible, like the “Export Scoping Template” under the “Manage SIG Data” section, and the SIG Scoping template under the “Recall/Modify Templates” section.

When a function is selected, dynamic instructions are now provided in the “Next Action/Status” field. These instructions provide all steps necessary to complete the selected function once the last action of the function was completed, or an “Error” message if an error occurred.

Demonstrating the Error function from the “Next Action/Status” field

To demonstrate one kind of error, we will create a custom SIG scoping plate using SIG Reference Mapping. Once I select the “Mapping References” scoping method, the “Next Action/Status” field indicates the need to select a scope level.

To trigger the error display, we select a third mapping reference to include in the SIG scoping template. The “Next Action/Status” field now shows there is an error. Unselecting one of the reference mappings will clear the error. Please note that user-selectable reference mappings can now be included in custom SIG Questionnaires.

Overview of the Content Library

The Content Library contains all the questions and associated information for each question contained in the SIG. The Content Library worksheet is versatile. As a standalone tool, It can be used to create custom SIG Scoping templates by using the “include/exclude” dropdowns, or in conjunction with scoping methods to achieve the same results – a custom scoped SIG Questionnaire.

Conclusion

As with all Shared Assessments Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) tools, any field with a gray background is editable. There is also a column to identify if the question text has changed since the last version of the SIG Questionnaire, or if it is a new question.

Thank you for taking the time today to review the Shared Assessments 2022 SIG Manager and SIG Questionnaire.

Please remember that if you have any questions or comments, you can contact us by email at info@sharedassessments.org or through an online chat available at https://sharedassessments.org.

You can also find more detailed information about the functions in the SIG Manager by reviewing the SIG User Procedure Guide that was included in your SIG Manager zip file documents. The SIG Implementation Workbook and SIG Documentation Artifacts Request List are included as well.