How to Use RMS - Risk Management System
Overview
This tutorial will guide users on how to utilise the Risk Management System from the SMS Dashboard page.
Why RTOs Need a Risk Management System in Their SMS
Risk management is an important part of how Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) run their operations—especially with the new 2025 Standards for RTOs. These standards expect RTOs to keep a close eye on their processes and deal with potential problems before they become serious.
A risk management system helps an RTO spot issues early, understand how serious they are, and take steps to fix or prevent them. These issues could relate to training quality, assessments, learner support, compliance, or even everyday operations. By managing risks well, RTOs can deliver better training and keep their organisation running smoothly.
Risk management also influences important decisions, like how often validation should happen and how big the validation sample should be. Instead of using a one-size-fits-all approach, RTOs now need to base these decisions on actual risk levels. The RMS feature provides functionality to realistically gauge the severity of risks by
Modern SMS and LMS platforms now include built-in compliance tools that help RTOs stay on top of risks. These tools make it easier to monitor what’s happening, gather evidence, and respond quickly when something needs attention. This shifts RTOs away from “checking compliance at the end” and toward proactively maintaining quality every day.
In short, having a strong risk management system helps RTOs stay compliant, deliver better training, and operate more efficiently in a changing regulatory environment. This tutorial will walk you through how this works and how it benefits your organisation.
Step Tutorial
1. From the sidebar menu, go to Dashboard, then search and select the program instance where you want to set up the subjects.
This provides users with a quick overview of risk statistics. Users can easily monitor the total number of risks, including those that are High/Critical, Active, and Controlled, for better visibility and more efficient risk management
| All Risks | Complete list of all identifier risks in the system |
| High/Critical Risks | Risks with high or critical severity levels that require immediate attention |
| Risks requiring Review | Risks that are due for review within 30 days or are overdue |
| Risks without Controls | Risks that have no mitigation controls in place and need immediate attention |
| Controlled Risks | Risks that have one or more controls implemented to mitigate their impact |
2. Adding a New Risk Modal
This page will show a summary of all the Risk registered on your SMS site, to log/register a new risk, simply click on the + button, located just below the RMS Dashboard - Risk Management section
Description | Field where you can type in the nature of the risk. |
Owner | Active System Users under that specific SMS, the point of contact |
Area of Operation | Information is based on Administration ➔ Templates ➔ System ➔ Area of Operation, identify which area of the operation impacted by the risk to log |
Status | Indicates the current stage of the risk: Active - needs action In Progress - being managed Mitigated - controls in place Closed - resolved or accepted |
Inherit Impact | The potential consequence if the risk occurs before any controls are applied. Rated on a scale of 1 to 5 (e.g - Significant to 5 - Catastrophic) |
Inherit Likelihood | The probability of the risk occurring before any controls are applied. Rated on a scale of 1 to 5 (e.g 1 - Rare to 5 - Almost Certain) |
Review Date | Date for formal review of this risk and its controls to ensure ongoing appropriateness |
Divisions | Provides list of which specific topic the new risk is related to. |
Relevant RTO Standards | This lists down the relevant '2025 Standards for RTOs' clauses to demonstrate compliance and contextualize importance. |
Performance Indicators | This relates to the specific Relevant RTO Standards chosen. |
Link System Document | Link to Document within the System |
Upload Document | This part of the feature provides a way to attach relevant supporting documents for the risk to be added (policies, procedures, reports, etc.) |
• If no Division is selected, all Relevant RTO Standards will appear.
• If User choose one or more Divisions, only the Relevant RTO Standards linked to those Divisions will be shown.
• The Performance Indicators list will also update automatically based on the selected Relevant RTO Standards.
• When users upload a document, additional fields
(Document Category, Sub-Category, and Sub Sub-Category) will appear.
The uploaded document will then be saved to the
Documents page and automatically linked to the Risk once you save it.
3. Navigating through Risk Register Data table
After adding a risk modal, the section below would show a list of Risks with the following columns: Actions, Risk, Date Identified, Area of Operation, Inh. Score, Res. Score, Status, Owner and Review Date.
Edit Risk - This will open the Edit Risk Modal Wherein User can modify and update Risk details.
Add Control - This will open the New Control modal wherein user can Add controls to the Risk selected.
Delete - This will open a pop-up confirmation window wherein User can Confirm or Cancel the deletion of the Risk selected.
| Risk | This column will display the Risk Id together with the Risk Description |
| Date Identified | This column will display the Date Identified for each Risk |
| Area of Operation | This column will display the Area of Operation set for each Risk |
| Inh. Score | This column will display the Inherit. Score for each Risk. • This column will be a calculated field wherein the calculation will be Impact value multiplied by the Likelihood value. (Impact x likelihood) • Overall risk level before controls. This is calculated by the system as: Inherent Likelihood x Inherent Impact. Higher scores indicate greater risk. |
| Res. Score | This column will display the Residual Score for each Risk. • This column will be a calculated field wherein the calculation will be based on the Controls set for each Risk. • Remaining risk level after considering the effectiveness of implemented controls. This indicates the current exposure. • Calculation for this field will be Inh. Score multiplied by the total remaining risk or residual risk score based on the controls set. (Please refer to the RMS Control Effectiveness Level Logic calculation.) |
| Status | The probability of the risk occurring before any controls are applied. Rated on a scale of 1 to 5 (e.g 1 - Rare to 5 - Almost Certain) |
| Owner | Date for formal review of this risk and its controls to ensure ongoing appropriateness |
| Review Date | Provides list of which specific topic the new risk is related to. |
4. Add a Control to the Added Risk
Users can add Risk Control by clicking on the Risk Actions ➔ Add Control.
You can add multiple controls for each risk logged by filling in the necessary details such as its Description, Type, Effectiveness, Status, Owner, Review Date, Divisions, Relevant RTO Standards, Performance Indicators and Link System Document or Upload Documents.
| Type | Describes when or how the control acts: • Preventive - stops risk before it occurs • Detective - identifies risk when it happens • Corrective - fixes/reduces impact after risk occurs • Compensative - alternative control when primary control cannot be implemented |
| Effectiveness | Measures how well this control reduces the risk. Higher effectiveness means a greater reduction in residual risk. |
| Status | Current situation of the added control: • Planned - designed but not started) • In progress - implementation underway • Active (fully established and operational • Under Review - Testing (being reviewed, tested, or updated), Retired (decommissioned or replaced) |
| Review Date | Scheduled date for the next review of this control's effectiveness and relevance. |
| Relevant RTO Standard(s) | Link to relevant '2025 Standards for RTOs' clauses to demonstrate compliance and contextualize importance. |
| Link System Document | Link to Document within the System |
| Upload Document | Upload supporting documents for this risk (policies, procedures, reports, etc.) |
5. Adjusting the Controls Data Table
If there are multiple control points needed to mitigate the risk, users can adjust these settings under the Controls Data Table; This will show a list of Controls under the selected Risk with the following columns: Actions, Control Id, Description, Type, Effectiveness, Status and Review Date. You can edit or delete any controls from this section.
RMS Control Effectiveness Level Logic
Sample:
In this example the Inherent Risk Score (Inh Score) is 25 so to calculate the Reduced Risk Score (Res. Score), system needs to adhere to the following logic/conditions:
- Look at each Controls Effectiveness here is the based reduction per Effectiveness level
- High = 70%
- Medium = 50%
- Low = 30%
- Ineffective = 0%
- Then on the same control, system will need to check the control status to multiply it to the weight
- Active = 1
- Under Review – Testing = 0.5
- Planned, In Progress, Retired = 0
- We need to multiply first the effectiveness percentage against the weight, so from the example above please see this table below
• Now that we have the weighted effectiveness, we can now calculate the Reduced Risk Score (Res. Score):
Summary of this computation is also added in the dashboard [Residual Risk Calculation: Uses Diminishing Return Method. Control weighting: Active (100%), Under Review-Testing (50%), Other statuses (0%)]:
A message is displayed that will show the percentage of Combined Control Effectiveness level below the Control table
RMS Quick Filters
Users can easily search, filter, and refine risks based on categories, statuses, levels, and other criteria — enabling faster risk analysis and monitoring.
Quick Filters – This allows users to quickly filter risks based on specific criteria such as High/Critical Only, Overdue Reviews, Due Soon, or Uncontrolled.
| Filters button | This will hide/show the filters section of RMS Dashboard |
| Text Fields | This is used for searching. It contains the label “Search Risks” |
| Clear all | This clears all the filters selected |
Risk Filters – This allows user to filter Risk based on Area of Operation, Status, Risk Level, Owner, Review Date, RTO Standard, Control Status, Date Ranges Identified From, Identified To, Review Date Range From and Review Date Range To.
And that’s how to use the RMS: Risk Management System in the SMS!
Congratulations on completing this tutorial. We hope this has been helpful to you and your organisation. For any questions or concerns regarding this function, please reach out to the contact support via email.
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