Building a risk and control library in IBM OpenPages from scratch is one of the most important steps in setting up a scalable GRC program.
What a good library looks like
A well-designed OpenPages library is a centralized catalog of standardized risks, controls, and related objects (e.g., regulations, policies, tests) that can be reused across business units and processes.
Key library components in OpenPages include:
- Risk Library (canonical list of risk statements).
- Control Library (standard control objectives and activities).
- Regulatory Requirement objects (laws, standards, internal rules).
- Policies and procedures linked to controls.
- Test / Control Evaluation objects for assurance activities.
Step 1: Define your design principles
Before configuring any object types, agree on some design principles so your library doesn’t become a dumping ground. Typical decisions include:
- Scope: Which risk categories (operational, IT, compliance, financial) and which regulations you will model first.
- Level of granularity: How detailed risk and control statements should be for your organization.
- Ownership: Who owns each part of the library (risk owners, control owners, library governance).
- Reuse vs local: What must come from the central library vs what business units can extend locally.
Using a simple regulation‑to‑control mapping model helps align everyone: Requirements ↔ Risks ↔ Controls ↔ Policies/Procedures ↔ Testing/Findings.
Step 2: Configure core object types and relationships
OpenPages ships with standard object types such as Risk, Control, Test, Regulatory Requirement, Policy and others that you can configure for your use cases. The goal is to make sure these are enabled, appropriately named, and correctly related in the Library hierarchy.
Typical configuration tasks:
- Enable or adjust Risk Library and Control Library object types under your Library folder.
- Confirm parent–child relationships:
- Regulatory Requirement → Risk → Control → Test / Control Eval.
- Control ↔ Policy / Procedure.
- Add key fields needed for governance: category, subcategory, impact/likelihood scales, control type, frequency, owner, etc.
- Configure evaluation objects (e.g., Control Eval) to capture assessment cycles when needed.
This configuration ensures you can later use helpers like Baseline Copy to instantiate risks, controls, and tests from your library into operating environments.
Step 3: Design your risk taxonomy
A clear risk taxonomy is the backbone of the Risk Library. It allows consistent risk assessment, aggregation, and reporting across the enterprise.
Practical steps:
- Start from existing frameworks (e.g., operational, compliance, IT, strategic risk categories) and adapt to your business.
- Create 2–3 hierarchical levels (category, subcategory, specific risk) rather than dozens of layers.
- Write risk statements in a consistent “cause–event–impact” format where possible.
- Tag risks with attributes such as business function, process, geography, regulatory driver and reporting groups.
A streamlined taxonomy makes it easier to map risks to regulations and controls and to keep the library maintainable over time.
Step 4: Build the Control Library
Your Control Library translates high‑level risk and regulatory expectations into standardized control statements that can be reused across entities and processes. Each control object should describe what needs to be done, how often, and by whom.
Good practices for control design:
- Align control statements with recognized frameworks where applicable (for example, ISO or COSO mapped via your regulatory requirements).
- Capture control attributes: type (preventive/detective), frequency, automation level, control owner, evidence required, and control objective.
- Map each control to one or more risks and (where relevant) to specific regulatory requirements.
- Link controls to related policies and procedures so users can easily see how a control is executed.
Once standardized, these controls can be instantiated repeatedly in different business units with consistent testing and reporting.
Step 5: Connect requirements, risks, and controls
To get real GRC value from OpenPages, you need end‑to‑end traceability from regulatory obligations to risk and control execution. OpenPages supports this through library relationships and helpers that create child objects.
Implementation steps:
- For each Regulatory Requirement in the library, define the key risk(s) it creates and the control(s) that mitigate those risks.
- Use parent–child links to connect Requirement → Risk → Control, and then Control → Test or Control Eval.
- Where available, use Baseline objects and copy helpers so a group of requirements can automatically spawn linked risks, controls, and tests in operational hierarchies.
This linkage enables powerful reporting on which controls support which regulations and where there are coverage gaps.
Step 6: Establish governance and maintenance
A risk and control library is a living asset and needs clear governance to stay relevant. Without rules, duplicate or inconsistent items quickly appear.
Key governance elements:
- Library committee or steward responsible for approving new risks and controls.
- Change process when regulations change: update requirements first, then impacted risks, controls, and tests.
- Versioning and effective dates for key library objects so assessments and audits stay historically accurate.
- Periodic reviews (e.g., annually) to retire obsolete items and consolidate duplicates.
Strong governance ensures your OpenPages library remains a reliable “single source of truth” for risk and control information.
Step 7: Prepare for reuse, reporting, and AI
Once the library is in place, you can start to leverage it across modules and advanced capabilities. A structured library improves not just operational risk management but also analytics and AI‑assisted insights.
Ways to unlock additional value:
- Reuse library risks and controls across operational risk, compliance, third‑party risk and internal audit modules.
- Use the consistent taxonomy to drive heat maps, KRI reporting, and trend analysis.
- Feed standardized risk and control data into AI models to summarize incidents, highlight weak controls, and predict emerging risks.
By following these steps, you create a robust risk and control library in OpenPages that supports regulatory traceability, consistent risk assessment, and scalable automation over time.
About us
We are Timus Consulting Services, a fast-growing, premium Governance, Risk, and compliance (GRC) consulting firm, with a specialization in the GRC implementation, customization, and support.
Our team has consolidated experience of more than 15 years working with financial majors across the globe. Our team is comprised of experienced GRC and technology professionals that have an average of 10 years of experience. Our services include:
- GRC implementation, enhancement, customization, Development / Delivery
- GRC Training
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Our team
Our team (consultants in their previous roles) have worked on some of the major OpenPages projects for fortune 500 clients across the globe. Over the past year, we have experienced rapid growth and as of now we have a team of 15+ experienced and fully certified OpenPages consultants, OpenPages QA and OpenPages lead/architects at all experience levels.
Our key strengths:
Our expertise lies in covering the length and breadth of the IBM OpenPages GRC platform. We specialize in:
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Connect with us:
Feel free to reach out to us for any of your GRC requirements.
Email: Business@timusconsulting.com
Phone: +91 9665833224
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Website: www.Timusconsulting.com
