Compliance
Compliance site work and reports
Purpose Purpose
Compliance work usually happens at the site level. A site can be a factory, warehouse, office, region, department, or any other unit your organization tracks in 21RISK.
The site detail view brings all requirements for one site into one workspace. It is where teams update statuses, add evidence, assign responsible users, and prepare for reviews.
A site appears on a Compliance board when it has been added directly or when it belongs to a site group that has been added to the board. Even when a site is included through a group, the work still happens on the individual site: answers, reports, responsibilities, files, and comments remain site-specific.
What an answer contains What an answer contains
Each answer belongs to one question at one site. It can contain:
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Status | The current compliance state for this requirement at this site. |
| Responsible | The person accountable for follow-up. |
| Due date | The date by which work should be completed or reviewed. |
| Cost estimate | The expected cost of remediation or implementation. |
| Labels | Tags for filtering and internal workflows. |
| Comment | Notes, decisions, evidence explanations, or next steps. |
| Files | Supporting evidence such as images, certificates, inspection records, policies, permits, or spreadsheets. |
These fields help separate the requirement itself from the current work needed at each site.
Updating a site Updating a site
To work through a site:
- Open the Compliance board.
- Go to Sites.
- Select the site you want to work on.
- Review the questions in table or card view.
- Open or edit the relevant answer.
- Set the status.
- Add responsible user, due date, cost estimate, comment, labels, and files where relevant.
- Continue until the site has the level of evidence required for your review.
The site view respects the board's question hierarchy, so users can expand and collapse sections while working.
When you need to work across sites, open the board's Questions table. It supports saved table views, so you can preserve recurring worklists such as overdue questions, open items for one team, or answers awaiting review.
If a site is missing from the board, check the board's Settings → Site Access page. The site may need to be added directly, or it may need to be added to one of the site groups already linked to the board.
Site fields Site fields
Some information belongs to the site rather than to one board, such as how far the site has come with ISO 45001, who manages it, or the date of its last fire drill. A Compliance board can show such site fields at the top of each site's page, so they are kept up to date while the site is audited.
To choose the fields:
- Open the Compliance board.
- Go to Settings.
- In the Site fields card, choose the site fields the board should show.
- Select Save.
Choosing the fields takes the Manage settings permission on the board. The fields are your organization's site fields, created in the Sites table under Manage table. See Site Custom Columns.
On a site's page, the fields appear under the introduction. Change the values and select Save.
- Values are saved on the site itself. The Sites table, other boards, analytics, and the site's history show them too.
- Changing a field takes access to the site, plus Update Sites or membership of one of the field's editor groups. See who can edit a field. A field you can't change is disabled, with the reason on hover.
- Multi-select site fields can decide which questions apply to a site, see conditional applicability. The site's questions update as soon as you save.
- A saved report shows the values the site had when the report was saved, and they can't be changed there. The PDF lists them in the site box, and the Excel export adds a Site Fields sheet.
- Deleting a site field removes it from every board that shows it.
Using statuses Using statuses
Statuses should be used consistently across the board. The available statuses are configured in the board's Status settings, and every answer must use one of those statuses.
Your board might use statuses such as Yes and No, Compliant and Non-compliant, To do and Done, or another set of terms that fits your process.
When designing statuses, make sure each one has a clear meaning that users can apply consistently. It should be obvious which status represents new unanswered work, which statuses represent open work, which statuses represent completed work, and which statuses should be ignored or treated as not relevant.
| Status design decision | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Default status | Used when new answer items are created for new questions or newly added sites. |
| Open, closed, or ignored behavior | Controls whether the answer is counted as open work, closed work, or excluded from the compliance calculation. |
| Color | Makes the matrix and site views easier to scan. |
| Name | Should match the words your team already uses. |
Compliance calculation Compliance calculation
21RISK calculates a site's compliance percentage from the status behavior of its question answers. The resulting percentage is shown in the Compliance column on the board's Sites table. Hover over the column header for an inline explanation.
| Behavior | Effect on calculation |
|---|---|
| Open | Included in the total and not counted as closed. |
| Closed | Included in the total and counted as closed. |
| Ignore | Removed from the total. |
The formula is:
Compliance percentage = (closed questions / (open + closed)) × 100
Equivalently: the total number of scorable questions is the sum of open and closed questions. Ignored questions are excluded from both the numerator and denominator.
Examples:
| Site answers | Calculation | Compliance |
|---|---|---|
| 10 total questions, 9 closed, 1 open, 0 ignored | (9 / (1 + 9)) × 100 | 90% |
| 15 total questions, 5 closed, 5 open, 5 ignored | (5 / (5 + 5)) × 100 | 50% |
This means the same visible status name can have a major reporting impact depending on whether it is configured as Open, Closed, or Ignore.
Statuses can also have rules that restrict who can use them. For example, a site user might be allowed to set Awaiting review, while only a reviewer or organization owner can set Completed. See Compliance statuses for the full setup guidance.
Files and evidence Files and evidence
Files make answers auditable. Attach files when they help another user, manager, auditor, insurer, or AI agent understand why a status was selected.
Useful evidence includes:
- Photos from inspections
- Certificates and permits
- Maintenance records
- Training records
- Policies and procedures
- Vendor documentation
- Screenshots from other systems
- Corrective action plans
Add a comment when the file is not self-explanatory.
Reports Reports
A report is a saved snapshot of a site's Compliance state. Reports are useful when you need to preserve what was true at a specific time.
Create reports for:
- External audits
- Insurance submissions
- Customer or supplier reviews
- Monthly, quarterly, or annual management reporting
- Evidence before and after improvement programs
- Internal governance meetings
Creating a report takes the Create Reports permission on the board. When creating a report, provide a clear name and optional description. Add participants if the report should record who was involved in the review.
Historical behavior Historical behavior
Reports are point-in-time records. After a report is saved:
- The report opens in a read-only view.
- Later question movement does not rewrite the report's hierarchy.
- Later major question versions do not appear in the old report.
- The report remains tied to the site and snapshot date.
This makes reports suitable for evidence because users can continue improving the live board without destroying the historical record.