Managing Incident Workflows

You can use workflows to manage your incidents by dividing certain tasks into stages. This helps security teams prioritize and fulfill incident reporting requirements in a timely manner.

About Incident Workflows

Many incidents that occur do not have major impacts to an organization, which is why you can create workflows and routing rules to escalate incidents as needed using an automated process. Create custom workflows specific to your organization needs or use workflows provided by OneTrust.

The OneTrust application has pre-configured workflows to major Incident Management standards, such as NIST and ISO/IEC 27035. Privacy professionals can add more stages to this seeded workflow to customize their privacy team's preferred timeline for managing information security and privacy responses. OneTrust allows you to add and edit workflow stages and rules for each stage.

To create a workflow

  1. On the Incident Management menu, select Setup > Workflows & Rules.

    The Incident Workflows screen appears.

  2. Click the Create New button.

    The Create New Incident Workflow modal appears.


    Create New Incident Workflow modal with fields to define a new workflow.
  3. Enter a name for the workflow.
  4. Click the Create button.

To add a new stage in the workflow

  1. On the Incident Management menu, select Setup > Workflows & Rules.

    The Incident Workflows screen appears.

  2. Click on the name of the workflow you want to edit.

    The Workflow Details screen appears.

  3. Click the Add icon button.

    The Add New Stage modal appears.


    Add New Stage modal showing fields for title, badge color, and description.
  4. Enter a title, badge color, and description for the stage.
    Note:

    Badge colors help identify different workflows stages and helps with managing individual stages to assist with reporting on items that are new, in-progress, under review, rejected, or completed.

  5. Click the Add button. Your stage will be added in the sequence of the workflow.
    Note:

    You can configure the name, badge color, and description of each workflow stage to build a detailed workflow that fits your organization's needs.

    If you want to update the status of a stage, click the Badge Color field and assign a new stage color.

    If you want to add more stages and change the sequence, click the Add icon button before or after the stage.

    If you want to delete the stage, click the Delete icon button on the stage you wish to delete.

To enable the Close Incident setting

You can enable the Close Incident setting on the last stage of an incident workflow to close the incident and capture the time and date of closure on the record.

  1. Click on the name of the workflow you want to edit.

    The Workflow Details screen appears.

  2. Navigate to the last stage of the workflow.
  3. Enable the Close Incident setting.

    Close Incident setting enabled on the last stage of the workflow.

To edit the name of a workflow

  1. On the Incident Management menu, select Setup > Workflows & Rules.

    The Incident Workflows screen appears.

  2. Hover over the row for the workflow you want to edit until the Context menu icon appears.
  3. Click the Context menu icon.
  4. On the Context menu, select Edit Workflow.

    The Edit Workflow modal appears.

  5. Rename the workflow.

    Edit Workflow modal showing the field where you can rename the workflow.
  6. Click the Save button.

To clone a workflow

  1. On the Incident Management menu, select Setup > Workflows & Rules.

    The Incident Workflows screen appears.

  2. Hover over the row for the workflow you want to clone until the Context Menu icon appears.
  3. Click the Context Menu icon.
  4. On the Context menu, select Clone.

    The Clone Workflow screen appears.

  5. Enter the workflow name.

    Clone Workflow screen with the workflow name field highlighted.
  6. Click the Clone button.

To set a default workflow

You can set published workflows as the default workflow used.

  1. On the Incident Management menu, select Setup > Workflows & Rules.

    The Incident Workflows screen appears.

  2. Hover over the row for the workflow you want to set as default until the Context menu icon appears.
  3. Click the Context menu icon.
  4. On the Context menu, select Set as default.

    The Set as default modal appears.

  5. Click the Confirm button.

To archive a workflow

You can archive published workflows.

  1. On the Incident Management menu, select Setup > Workflows & Rules.

    The Incident Workflows screen appears.

  2. Hover over the row for the workflow you want to archive until the Context Menu icon appears.
  3. Click the Context Menu icon.
  4. On the Context menu, select Archive.

    The Archive Workflow modal appears.

  5. Click the Archive button.

To delete a workflow

You can delete workflows that are in draft status.

  1. On the Incident Management menu, select Setup > Workflows & Rules.

    The Incident Workflows screen appears.

  2. Hover over the row for the workflow you want to delete until the Context Menu icon appears.
  3. Click the Context Menu icon.
  4. On the Context menu, select Delete .

    The Delete Workflow modal appears.

  5. Click the Delete button.

To publish a workflow

You can publish a draft workflow.

  1. On the Incident Management menu, select Setup > Workflows & Rules.

    The Incident Workflows screen appears.

  2. Hover over the row for the workflow you want to publish until the Context menu icon appears.
  3. Click the Context menu icon.
  4. On the Context menu, select Publish.

    The Publish Workflow modal appears.

  5. Click the Publish button.

To activate a workflow

You can activate an archived workflow.

  1. On the Incident Management menu, select Setup > Workflows & Rules.

    The Incident Workflows screen appears.

  2. Hover over the row for the workflow you want to activate until the Context Menu icon appears.
  3. Click the Context Menu icon.
  4. On the Context menu, select Activate.

    The Activate Workflow modal appears.

  5. Click the Activate button.

To view workflow activity

You can view the activity of incident workflows to track the activity of workflow changes.

  1. On the Incident Management menu, select Setup > Workflows & Rules.

    The Incident Workflows screen appears.

  2. Hover over the row for the workflow you want to view activity for until the Context menu icon appears.
  3. On the Context menu, select View Activity.

    The Workflow Activity modal appears.

  4. View the activity history of the workflow.

    Example of the Workflow Activity modal showing the activity history for an incident workflow
  5. Click the Close button to close the Workflow Activity modal.

To enable required attributes

Enable required attributes to enforce the completion of the required attribute before the workflow will advance to the next stage.

  1. On the Workflown & Rules menu, select a Workflow name.
  2. On the Stage details tab, enable the Set required attributes for this stage switch.


  3. Complete the fields to customize the Title and Guidance that appear on the confirmation modal of the selected attribute.

To enable commenting or required comments

Provide users with an opportunity to add a comment before moving to the next stage.

  1. On the Workflown & Rules menu, select a Workflow name.
  2. On the Stage details tab, enable the Allow comments when moving to another stage switch.

    You can also enable Require comments to move to another stage to make commenting mandatory.



Enable stage approval requirements

Configure approval requirement conditions in workflow Stage details. This can enforce if any or all approvers must give approval before stage advancement.

  1. On the Workflown & Rules menu, select a Workflow name.

  2. On the Stage details tab, enable the Set as approval stage switch.



  3. Enable Auto-advance on approval if you would like the stage to automatically advance once the approval is complete.

  4. Specify if you would like Any or All approvers to respond before stage advancement.

  5. Select the Approvers for the stage.

Best Practices

Stage Configuration

You can configure workflow stages by adding rules that automate specific actions such as notifications, subtasks, and assessments. For more information about how to configure a workflow stage, see Adding Incident Workflow Rules.