About

Plan of Action is your Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M). It lists the action items you are tracking for remediation, who owns each one, what will be done and when. Use it to answer the question an auditor or customer asks: what is weak, and what are we doing about it?

Every POA&M item is an action item. You can review the list, open an item to see and change its details, and create new items from the page.

Open Plan of Action

To open the page:

1. In the sidebar, go to your framework section.
2. Click Plan of Action. It sits between Objectives and Evidence.
3. Use the framework switcher to choose what you see. All Frameworks shows POA&M items for every framework. Choosing one framework shows only that framework's items.

The Action Items tile on the Dashboard also opens this list for all frameworks.

What you see on the page

The page is titled Plan of action. Under the title, a count line such as "Showing 16 POA&M items" tells you how many items match. Above the table you have:

• Search action items by title or code: also matches description, corrective action, milestones, department, contact, roadmap, objective codes and framework name.
• Filter: narrows the list by Status, Priority or Assignee.
• Create POAM: starts a new POA&M item.

The table has one row per POA&M item and these columns, in this order:

• POA&M ID: the action item code, for example AI-90.
• Priority: an icon for Critical, High, Medium or Low. Items with no priority show a dash, and the word appears when you hover.
• Title / Weakness: the problem the item is meant to fix.
• Status: a dropdown on each row.
• Controls / source: the objectives the item is mapped to, a few codes then "+N more".
• Affected asset.
• Contact: the responsible person.
• Remediation plan: the corrective action text.
• Detection & completion: the created date, then the due date.
• Milestones / changes.
• Vendor dependency.

Empty cells show "—". When nothing matches your search or filters, the page says "No POA&M items found". Items created from assessment answers are titled "Not Performed: " followed by the question, and long titles are cut off in the table. Open the row to read the whole title.

Find items with search and filters

1. Type in Search action items by title or code to narrow the list.
2. Click Filter and choose Status, Priority or Assignee. The assignees you can pick come from the items on the page.
3. Choose a value to apply the filter.

Change an item's status from the list

1. In the Status column, click the dropdown on the row.
2. Choose Not Started, In Progress, Review, Completed or Not Applicable.

This changes the action item itself, so the new status shows everywhere that item appears.

Open an item

1. Click a row, anywhere except the Status dropdown.
2. A panel opens from the right with the item's title and these tabs: Action Item, Mappings, Documents, Comments and Activity.

The address changes when you open an item, so you can share the open item as a link.

The Action Item tab has these fields:

• Status
• Planned Completion Date
• Responsible Person
• Responsible Department
• Include this action item in POA&M. tick box
• Description and Corrective Action. Click Show more to read the full text.
• Priority: Critical, High, Medium or Low.
• Roadmap
• Effort In Hours

The tab also has a collapsible Plan & Milestones section with these fields:

• Planned Start Date, Planned Completion Date, Actual Start Date and Actual Completion Date
• Currency and Cost
• Milestones and Changes to milestones

A message appears under the completion date when the item is overdue or due soon.

If your account is connected to ScalePad Lifecycle Manager, the tab also shows a Linked Initiatives section. Click Link Initiative to link the item to a Lifecycle Manager initiative. Each linked initiative has an unlink action, and unlinking only removes the link: the initiative stays in Lifecycle Manager. A new item must be saved before you can link it to an initiative.

Link an item to objectives, risks and more

1. Open the item and click the Mappings tab.
2. Click Link item.
3. Add links from the groups listed under Mapped items.

The groups are:

• Framework Objectives
• Questions
• Risks
• Controls
• Asset Types
• Assets
• Vendors

Each group shows how many items are linked. Linked objectives appear in Controls / source on the list, linked assets in Affected asset and linked vendors in Vendor dependency.

Add documents, comments and see history

The other tabs in the panel work like this:

• Documents: click Upload to add a file (up to 30 MB per file). You can also preview, download, replace or delete a file. Documents on a Completed item can't be changed.
• Comments: discuss the item with your team.
• Activity: see the item's history.

Edit an item

1. Click the row to open the item.
2. On the Action Item tab, change the fields you need, for example Responsible Person, Planned Completion Date, Priority or Corrective Action.
3. Use the Mappings and Documents tabs to change what the item is linked to and which files are attached.

When an item's status is Completed, you can't change its Responsible Person or its documents.

Create a POA&M item

1. Click Create POAM. A create panel opens on the Action item form.
2. Type the title in the Name the action item box. You can add details under it.
3. Set any of the fields along the bottom: Due date, Assignee, Department, priority, status, Roadmap, Planning, Cost & effort and Mappings.
4. Click Planning to open the planning fields. The Include this action item in POA&M option is at the top.
5. Click Save, or press Cmd/Ctrl + Enter, to create the item. Click Cancel, or press Esc, to close without saving.

The Planning fields also include Corrective action, Planned start date, Actual start date, Actual completion date and Milestones. A new action item also appears in To do › Action Items.