Mason Karrer

GRC On the Move Tapping Into Archers Mobile Capabilities

Blog Post created by Mason Karrer Employee on Jan 23, 2014

I was very excited about the release of RSA Archer’s enhanced mobile capabilities last week. This is a huge step toward unlocking the potential of RSA Archer in today’s distributed, mobile workplace. Here’s a brief rundown on this latest RSA Archer Platform feature and some tips for how to take full advantage of it.


What is it?
RSA Archer GRC Mobile combines a new mobile application with Archer platform enhancements to enable you to easily leverage assessments and content from any Archer Solution remotely on your iOS mobile device.


What can you do with it?
RSA Archer GRC Mobile allows you to perform any kind of assessment against a defined target in Archer. This simple concept can drastically transform time-consuming operational chores into efficient, value-added processes that significantly reduce overhead and cost. Here are just a few customer examples already in play.


Facility Assessments
One of our large customers with thousands of locations around the world is currently piloting a program to complete weekly onsite facility assessments using Archer Mobile. Since Internet connectivity is nonexistent in most of their locations, it’s impossible to log into Archer directly to do the assessments. So they have been limited to performing them using the original word processor (paper & pen) and then manually re-entering the results later. Talk about painful!


With Archer’s new GRC Mobile app local managers and their teams can actually walk around their locations completing the assessments in real-time, as well as capture additional details and evidence on the spot. What happens if they get interrupted by a priority like overseeing a loading dock delivery? No problem, they can simply pick up later where they left off and sync the rest of the results when they’re done.



Not only does this new mobile approach yield efficiency gains it also establishes a stronger gated process to improve data integrity. Since the assessment forms are pre-configured, managers can more easily delegate the completion of certain sections to staff members without the need for direct interaction or supervision. Paper pushing and duplicate efforts are eliminated. Everyone wins.


Compliance Evaluations
A transportation customer anticipates Archer Mobile will drastically improve the speed and reliability of aircraft safety audits performed around the world. Their planes can’t operate without a current inspection and every minute an otherwise perfectly good aircraft sits on the ground costs the airline money. The inspection interval varies depending on the type of aircraft, duty roster, maintenance schedule, etc. Imagine trying to coordinate this for an entire fleet of planes and inspectors globally!


With Archer’s new mobile capabilities global safety inspectors can centralize the inspection effort while working in their local language. Since they’re able to easily capture notes and attach images as evidence on the spot as part of the documentation, they reduce downtime required to collate and submit responses. Planes are cleared for service operations faster so they can spend more time in the air earning revenue. Plus the increased operational efficiency and reduced administrative overhead translates to direct cost savings.


Onsite Audits
A large financial services client plans to leverage Archer Mobile to support internal audit activities such as capturing self-assessment results and reducing the paper trail for audit evidence. Auditors can guide business owners and team members through completing the assessments in person while onsite rather than having to chase them down remotely afterward. The ability to aggregate evidence into a single system of record more quickly means less time in the field and less follow up required. Reducing the administrative overhead for audits means they can be wrapped up faster and with less hassle which benefits everyone involved.


How does it work?
The RSA Archer GRC Mobile application is available for download from the Apple iTunes store. Mobile capabilities can be enabled on any Archer Platform instance v5.4 SP1 or later once a separate mobile license has been applied. Both are free. In terms of platform changes you’ll see new layout options to support mobile versions of questionnaires. The original layout builder has been renamed “Web Layout” and a new “Mobile Layout” tab appears when you check the option to make your questionnaire “Mobile Ready.”


You can drag and include many field types onto the mobile layout. Since the mobile assessments are content-driven they can be developed and displayed in any language on the mobile app. Security features include encryption, access control, secure wipe and more.


What should you do next?
Explore! The examples above are tip of the iceberg for how RSA Archer’s new mobile capabilities can quickly make a difference in a company’s operations. The potential for additional creative implementations is much broader. Remember, Archer Mobile is really just an extensible front end to the Archer Questionnaire feature, which itself possesses many of the same capabilities as a full-blown Archer application. So there’s plenty of latitude to adapt it to non-traditional and even esoteric use cases.


Additional resources are available if you’re interested in learning more about RSA Archer GRC Mobile. An overview is posted on the RSA Link ArcherGRC Community as well as the Platform 5.4 SP1 documentation that provides detailed information about how to enable these mobile capabilities for your instance. Check it out and let us know how you are planning to take your GRC program mobile!