From Task to Evidence: How the Evidence Collection Workflow Works

Overview

FutureFeed uses a structured workflow to collect, verify, and store compliance evidence for your documents and tools. The process follows three stages:

This ensures that all evidence is properly collected, signed, and reviewed before it counts toward your compliance posture.

Stage 1 - Creating a Task Assignment

Who performs this step: An administrator or manager

1. Navigate to the document or tool that needs evidence collected.

   • For documents: Go to Documentation and find the document in the appropriate category (e.g., Policies, Plans, Procedures).
   • For tools: Go to Tools and Services and find the tool in your inventory.
2. Open the item by clicking the Edit icon next to it.
3. In the item detail dialog, click the Task Assignments tab.
4. Click the Assign New Task button.

5. Fill in the task details:

   • Customize Evidence Title — Enter a descriptive title for what evidence needs to be collected.
   • Notes — Add any instructions or context to help the assignee understand what is needed.
   • Assignee — Click the Assignee dropdown and select the team member responsible for providing the evidence.
   • Recurrence — Click the recurrence dropdown (labeled “Don’t Repeat” by default) and choose how often this task should repeat, if applicable. Options include Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, and others.
6. Click Submit to create the task.

Once submitted, the task will appear in the Task Assignments tab. If the task is set to recur, future occurrences will be generated automatically.

Stage 2 - Finding and Completing an Assigned Task

Who performs this step: The assigned team member

Finding Your Tasks

You can access your assigned tasks in two ways:

From the Dashboard:

1. Click the FutureFeed logo in the top navigation to return to the Dashboard.
2. Click User Dashboard in the left navigation panel.
3. Click User Tasks to see all tasks assigned to you.

From the Document or Tool directly:

1. Navigate to the document or tool that the task is associated with.
2. Open the item and click the Task Assignments tab.
3. Find your task in the list.

Completing a Task

1. Click on the task name to open it.

2. Select an evidence type. Choose the format that best fits the evidence you are providing:

   • Linked Document — Provide a URL to an external document or resource. Enter the full URL in the URL field that appears.
   • Attachment — Upload a file (PDF, image, spreadsheet, etc.) as evidence.
   • Live Document — Write or paste content directly into FutureFeed’s built-in editor.
   • New Document — Create a new document within FutureFeed as your evidence.
3. After entering your evidence content, click the Save button.
4. From the save menu, select Save - Complete to indicate that your submission is finished.
5. A signature area will appear. Draw your signature using your mouse or touchpad to certify your submission.
6. Once your signature is drawn, the Mark Complete button will become active. Click Mark Complete to finalize your submission.

Your completed task is now an artifact. It will move from the Task Assignments tab to the Evidence tab and will no longer appear in your User Tasks list on the Dashboard.

Stage 3 Reviewing an Artifact

Who performs this step: A reviewer (typically a manager, compliance officer, or designated accountable person)

1. Navigate to the document or tool associated with the evidence.
2. Open the item and click the Evidence tab.
3. Find the artifact you want to review. Artifacts that have been submitted but not yet reviewed will show a status of Completed.
4. Open the artifact and review the submitted evidence for accuracy and completeness.
5. Once satisfied, complete the review process by signing. This transitions the artifact from Completed to Reviewed status.

Once reviewed, the artifact officially becomes evidence and contributes to your organization’s compliance scoring and System Security Plan (SSP) progress.

Understanding Evidence Status

Each piece of evidence moves through three statuses during this workflow:

Checking Evidence Status

From any document or tool overview page, you can click the Evidence Status button to see the current state of all evidence items. You can also filter by Pending Tasks to see tasks that are still awaiting completion.

Managing Tasks

Reassigning a Task

An administrator can change the assignee of a task at any time by clicking the current assignee’s name in the Task Assignments tab and selecting a new team member.

Archiving a Task

If a task is no longer needed, an administrator can archive it by clicking the Archive button on the Task Assignments tab. Archived tasks are moved to a collapsible “Archived Tasks” section and will no longer appear in the assignee’s User Tasks list.

Recurring Tasks

When a task is set to recur, FutureFeed automatically generates future task occurrences based on the selected frequency. Each occurrence is an independent task that must be completed and reviewed separately, ensuring ongoing evidence collection for continuous compliance.