How to Create and Manage Risk Registers

Who is this article for?
Risk Managers responsible for managing risk assessments.

Staff access to edit risk matrices is needed.

A risk register is a record or list of all identified risks relating to an initiative, including their status and history. This may be referred to as a risk log in your organisation. In Q-Pulse Cloud risks can be shared across registers, meaning the same register will appear in different lists.

There is no limit to the number of registers you can have in Q-Pulse Cloud and there is no right or wrong way to approach risk registers. The best approach is what works best in relation to the risk appetite^? and risk capacity^? of your organisation.

Examples: Some organisations may have a register for specific projects, others based on a category (like Health & Safety) and others may have a register for assets that require a risk assessment.

This article outlines how to create risk and manage a risk register. This article does not include any details on how to perform the risk assessment (please visit How to Perform a Risk Assessment for details).

To make managing risk registers easier to learn, this article is split into 7 sections so that you can either walk through the steps in sequence or you can jump to the section relevant to what you are doing in Q-Pulse Cloud:

Create a New Risk Register
Add a Risk to a Register
Remove a Risk from a Register
Archive a Risk Register
Reinstate an Archived Risk Register
Delete a Risk Register
Further Reading

1. Create a New Risk Register

To create a risk register:

Go to Risk, then Registers.
Click the [Create Register] button.
Enter the required information:
- Title: A clear and meaningful title for the register.
- Description: A clear and concise description which will help users understand the purpose of the register.
- Owner: The person responsible for maintaining this register.

Click [Save].

2. Add a Risk to a Register

With the register created you are now ready to add risks. This can be done by searching for an existing risk or by creating a new risk.

To add an existing risk:

Go to Risk, then Registers.
Open the risk register.
Go to the Risk
Type the name of the risk you would like to add.
Click [Add].

To create a new risk:

Go to Risk, then Registers.
Open the risk register.
Go to the Risk
Click [Create].

Enter the required information and click [Save].

3. Remove a Risk from a Register

Risk can also be removed from the register if they are no longer relevant..

To remove a risk from a register:

Go to Risk, then Registers.
Open the risk register.
Go to the Risk
Go to the Risks
Hover over the risk record and click the remove button ( ).

When prompted, click [Yes, Remove].

Note: Removing a risk from a register does not delete the risk record.

4. Archive a Risk Register

When a risk register is no longer required it can be archived.

Important: Archiving a risk register does not remove active risks from the system if they are part of another register. Only risks that are exclusive to this register will be archived along with the register.

To archive a register:

Go to Risk, then Registers.
Open the risk register.
Click on the ellipsis button
Click Archive.

Click the [Yes, Archive] button.

Notice the status banner of the register now shows as Archived.

5. Reinstate an Archived Risk Register

When a risk register has been archived it cannot be used to hold risk assessments. You can choose to reinstate archived registers so that they can continue to be used.