Use published assessments to apprise internal or external auditors of your security status and settings. For more information about how to use saved assessments in your audit process, see Save Assessments. A published assessment represents the review phase of your audit process. Published assessments typically contain the required security checks and an accurate security status for your audited instances, as well as any explanation notes regarding known violations or discrepancies.
When you publish an assessment, it is automatically set to the published mode. SQL Secure begins tracking each subsequent change applied to the assessment. Use the Change Log tab to review this activity.
Use the published mode to create and maintain a historical electronic trail of change activity, ensuring you can validate and document when, how, and why changes were made.
Approve a published assessment
Approving an assessment lets you safely archive your assessment for future reference. An approved assessment proves you are in compliance with specific corporate and government regulations, and have successfully completed an audit. For each subsequent audit, you can start (save) a new assessment using the approved assessment as a template.
Approve an assessment when the internal or external audit team has "signed off" on your assessment and it is ready to be archived. Approved assessments accurately represent your security status at a specific point in time and no longer require changes.
Actions and Tasks
Approve
Allows you to approve this assessment. Approving an assessment lets you safely archive a final version of this assessment, preserving your findings and explanation notes. When an assessment is approved, SQL Secure locks the assessment, preventing you from changing or deleting the assessment settings as well as the associated audit data. However, you can manually add or remove notes about an approved assessment by editing the Notes field on the Assessment Properties window. You can also continue to use the Change Log tab to review activity that previously occurred on this assessment.
Compare Assessments
Allows you to compare the findings and settings of this assessment against another saved assessment or the original policy. You can compare different types of assessments (draft, published, or approved). When you compare this assessment against the original policy from which it was saved, you can identify changes that have occurred since the assessment had been saved.
Edit or View Assessment Settings
Allows you to edit or view the configuration settings for this assessment, such the security checks this assessment performs. If your SQL Secure login does not have administrator permissions , you can only view assessment settings.
Refresh Audit Data
Allows you to re-run this assessment using different audit data (up to a specific point in time).
Remove Assessment
Permanently deletes the selected assessment from the SQL Secure Repository.
Remove from Assessment
Removes the selected SQL Server instance from the assessment. This option is available when you have selected a registered instance from the Servers in Policy tree.
Save as New Assessment
Allows you to create a new assessment that uses the same settings and audit data as the selected assessment. When you save a new assessment, SQL Secure lists the assessment in the Draft Assessment folder under the associated policy in the Policies tree.