Configuring Audit Checklists (QMS)

QualityOne Vaults provide audit-specific checklist functionality to allow users to create their own audit checklists. These checklists allow users to identify one (1) or more checklist items as audit findings when performing an audit. When a user completes and submits a checklist, QualityOne automatically creates audit finding records along with the finding type, observations, and objective evidence (attachments) for any audit checklist question that is flagged as an audit finding.

You must configure this functionality before users can start working with audit checklists in their audits. For more information about configuring and designing general checklist functionality, see Configuring Checklists and Designing Checklists.

Audit checklist configuration also applies to QualityOne Audit Checklist Mobile with some additional configuration specific to the application. QualityOne Audit Checklist Mobile allows users to download and perform an audit checklist on an iPad® for a checklist already configured in Vault.

Audit Checklist Objects

QualityOne uses the following core objects and object types to support Audit Checklist:

  • Audit (audit__qdm): This object represents audits.
    • Internal Audit (internal_audit__qdm): This Audit object type represents internal audits.
    • Supplier Audit (supplier_audit__qdm): This Audit object type represents supplier audits.
  • Audit Finding (audit_finding__v): This object represents audit findings identified through the Audit Checklist and can also be added independent of the checklist response for a particular audit.

Configuration Overview

Configuring your Vault to use Audit Checklists involves the following steps:

  1. Enable Checklists in your Vault
  2. Configure the Audit Checklist workflow
  3. Configure your Audit Checklist design
  4. Configure Audit Findings
  5. Configure the QualityOne Audit Checklist Mobile
  6. Configure user permissions

Enabling Checklists

You can configure your Vault to allow you to submit data in a checklist format. To enable this feature, navigate to Admin > Settings > General Settings and click Edit. In the Checklist section, select the Enable Checklists checkbox and click Save.

Once enabled, you can create a Checklist Type for the Audit object types. See Configuring Checklists for more details.

Configuring the Audit Checklist Workflow

By default, the Audit Accepted and Audit Pending Acceptance object workflows are active and do not contain steps. If your organization plans to use workflows to initiate checklists, we recommend you use these because they have specialized system actions that are not available with other workflows:

  • Set Respondent, which sets the Respondent field.
  • Ensure Completeness, which verifies that all sections of the checklist are completed.

To configure the Audit Accepted and Audit Pending Acceptance object workflows, see Configuring Checklist Workflows for more details. Replace the Accepted workflow with the Audit Accepted workflow and Pending Acceptance workflow with the Audit Pending Acceptance workflow for the purposes of the Audit Checklist configuration.

Configuring the Audit Checklist Design

Once you have enabled Checklists and configured the workflow, you can configure and design your audit checklist to allow users to submit data in a question-and-answer format. You can build checklist designs by creating records for the various checklist-enabled objects within your Checklist Design for Audit object types. For help designing your checklists, see Designing Checklists for more details.

To configure an Audit Checklist Design, see Configuring Checklists for more details. Complete the steps listed in the Configuration Overview and ensure that you also do the following at the appropriate step in the process flow:

Configuring Start Checklist Object Action

The Audit Lifecycle contains the Start Checklist action. Start Checklist triggers Vault to instantiate a checklist for the Audit object and send the checklist to the respondent. Add this action as a record action on the Audit object. Do not select Available in All Lifecycle States and click Save.

You must configure this action as an entry action or a user action on an Audit Lifecycle state needed to initiate the audit checklist. Ensure that you configure the checklist using only the user action approach or only the entry action, but not both. See Configuring Checklists for more details.

If you configure the Start Checklist action as a user action, ensure you configure the Audit Accepted workflow. If you configure the Start Checklist action as an entry action, ensure you configure the Audit Pending Acceptance workflow. See Configuring the Audit Checklist Workflow for more details.

Configuring Manual Checklist Assignment User Action

The Manual Checklist Assignment user action allows users to manually assign a specific checklist to a particular audit team member as the respondent. To configure the Manual Checklist Assignment user action, you must do the following:

  1. Add the Manual Checklist Assignment user action to the appropriate state of the Audit Lifecycle. Typically, you would add this user action to an Audit Preparation lifecycle state. This state occurs before the user starts to perform the audit.
  2. Create or edit the page layout for a particular Audit object type. For example, the Internal Audit Detail Page Layout.
    • If applicable, remove the Audit Checklists section related to document records.
    • Add a Related Object section and select the Audit Checklist Assignment object. Only make this object available in audit-planning and preparation-related lifecycle states.
    • Add a Related Object section and select the Audit Checklist object. Only make this object available in all lifecycle states after the audit planning and preparation-related lifecycle states. For example, this section might only be visible in the In Audit Performance, In Audit Report, In Audit Follow-Ups, and Closed lifecycle states.

About the Audit Checklist Assignment Object

When you add or delete an Audit checklist type from Admin > Configuration > Checklist Types, Vault automatically updates the VQL criteria in the Checklist Design field of the Audit Checklist Assignment object. The VQL criteria restricts a user to only select related Audit Checklist Design records based on the created Audit object type. If you change the VQL statement, Vault automatically overwrites it with the intended VQL the next time a Checklist Type is added or deleted.

Configuring Audit Findings

Configuration for Audit Findings are available for Audit Checklist Responses and include the following steps:

Configuring the Audit Accepted Workflow

To include Audit Finding, configure the Audit Accepted Workflow using MDL or a configuration migration package; click here for an example MDL configuration. Click here to download a VPK to deploy the workflow configuration.

Modifying Audit Finding Button Visibility

You can control the visibility of the Audit Finding Create button so that users see and interact appropriately with your Vault’s configuration.

To hide the button at the object level, clear the Create permissions of the Audit Finding object and object types as needed within Admin > Users & Groups > Permission Sets > Objects tab.

To hide the button in the particular Audit Checklist Lifecycle state, ensure the user role does not have edit permissions for the Audit Finding-Audit Checklist relationship within Admin > Configuration > Object Lifecycles.

Modifying Hovercard Display

Users can view hovercards by mousing over an Audit Finding token. You can adjust what displays on the hovercard. By default, the hovercard displays the shortened values of the Record ID, Observations, and Finding Type fields.

To modify the hovercard display, navigate to Admin > Configuration > Objects > Audit Finding object and select the Object Types tab. Under Actions, select Edit Object Type Fields and locate the specific object type you want to modify. Clear or select the appropriate object type field (Observations or Finding Type), then click Save.

Configuring QualityOne Audit Checklist Mobile

Ensure the Checked out on Mobile? field on the Audit Checklist object is set to “Yes” for the appropriate record when a user downloads an audit checklist on QualityOne Audit Checklist Mobile. This field sets the checklist to read-only in Vault after a user downloads a checklist to a device so that the user on the device can complete the checklist without causing a conflict.

Reassigning Manually

If you need to reassign the checklist to a different user, you can reassign the workflow task and then change the value of the Checked out on Mobile? field to “No” in your Vault for the Audit Checklist object.

Resetting Workflow Assignment

To reset the Checked out on Mobile? field to “No” and assign the checklist to a different user through a workflow task, you need to add a custom action on the Audit Accepted Workflow in the Complete Workflow task. To do so, navigate to the Complete Workflow > Custom Actions section. Add Actions for Mobile Audit Checklists, then save your changes.

Configuring User Permissions

You must ensure users have the appropriate read and create permissions to access the appropriate objects and object fields in addition to the permissions outlined below:

  • For the Audit object and its object types: Create, Edit, and Delete permission.
  • For the Audit Finding object: Create, Edit, and Delete permission. Once Create is enabled, the Audit Finding Create button will be visible in the checklist response section.
  • For the Checklist Design object: Create, Edit, and Delete permission.
  • For the Audit Response object and its object types: Create, Edit, and Delete permission. Once permissions are enabled for the Text Response object type, users can make changes to ad hoc questions.

Configuring QualityOne Audit Checklist Mobile User Permissions

You must ensure users have the appropriate application permissions to access the QualityOne Audit Checklist Mobile application in addition to the related permissions outlined:

Type Permission Controls
Security Profile Application: Vault Actions: API: Access API Ability to communicate with Vault.
Permission Set Application: Client Applications: Mobile Audit Checklist: Enable Ability to access QualityOne Audit Checklist Mobile.

You can complete all the steps in this article with the standard System Administrator or Vault Owner security profile. If your Vault uses custom security profiles, your profile must grant the following permissions:

Type Permission Controls
Security Profile Admin: Configuration: Object Lifecycles: Create, Edit Ability to create and modify object lifecycles.
Security Profile Admin: Configuration: Objects: Create, Edit Ability to create and modify Vault objects.
Security Profile Admin: Security: Permission Sets: Edit Ability to modify permission sets for users.
Security Profile Admin: Settings: General Information: Edit Ability to modify settings in the Vault General Settings page.