What is “The Dashboard”?

The Dashboard is an open-source framework that implements the Continuous Assurance (CA) methodology proposed by the Institute of Internal Auditors (see GTAG 3: Continuous Auditing, 2nd Edition). It implements configurable dashboards with various data visualisation modules for Ongoing Risk Assessments. It will also soon provide a data presentation and capture layer for Ongoing Control Assessments. The aim of The Dashboard is to provide the equivalent of what electronic working paper systems are for traditional audits for the new approach of Continuous Assurance.

What sets The Dashboard apart from existing visualisation and analysis tools such as Tableau or ACL is that it allows auditors to record the results of their investigations directly within the tool and thus to attach any audit results to the individual data records analysed. For existing analytics, the usual workflow is that the analytics software will perform its calculations and provide auditors with an Excel spreadsheet of records to be investigated. The auditors will record the results of their work in the spreadsheet and upload it to their electronic working paper system. This process requires auditors to jump around in various systems and, more importantly, the relationship between individual data points and audit results is lost for further processing. The aim of The Dashboard is that the tool allows the auditor to capture results obtained for very data point in the system. Was this a false positive? Or a real issue that warranted further investigation? Capturing this data in a systematic way is the first step to use this data to train machine learning or other AI algorithms (“advanced” analytics) to improve the results obtained with “classical” analytics. Note that the IIA Standard 2330 “Documenting Information” applies equally to traditional audits and CA work.

On the other hand, The Dashboard does not aim to replace ACL, SAS, R or whatever analytics engine you already have in place. The Dashboard does not perform analytics, it just displays the data delivered by your existing analytics engine in a way that allows auditors to directly capture any relating information or results.

Can we use The Dashboard in our own audit department?

Yes, of course. The Dashboard is an open source project licensed under the MIT license, which allows it to be used freely also in corporate settings.

To use The Dashboard, all you need is a Microsoft SharePoint installation and access to a SharePoint site where you can create new document libraries and custom lists (they are used to store the data recorded on The Dashboard). You can find the files to be installed under Try It.

Do you provide support in implementing The Dashboard for our audit department?

If you have questions on how to use or install The Dashboard, feel free to get in touch and we will do our best to answer them. If you are willing to collaborate on a larger research project on Continuous Assurance implementation at your organisation, we might also be able to provide further support in getting The Dashboard up and running and working for you.

We have implemented some additional features or fixed some bugs in The Dashboard. What can we do with them?

As The Dashboard is open source we welcome any enhancements to the codebase. You can either directly provide us with a Pull Request on Gitlab or just contact us with any enhancements you wish to give back to the community.

Are there other ways we can help with this project?

Yes, for example we are looking for support in the following areas:

• The user documentation for The Dashboard is currently almost non-existant. So if you want to improve the documentation, we are desperately looking for help!

• The Dashboard is currently available only in English and German. If you want to provide translations into your native language, get in touch and we will provide you with the tools and instructions on how to create new language packs.

• As this is a research project on Continuous Assurance methodology, we are also always interested in business partners who have, are in the process of or want to implement Continuous Assurance and would like to collaborate with researchers in this area. We will be happy to hear from you!

What is powering this website?

This website is generated using the static site generator Jekyll, you can find the source code on its website. For efficiency, we are using the default Jekyll new theme, the source code of which you can find at: jglovier / jekyll-new

We are very thankful to the creators of Jekyll and the Jekyll new theme. By building on their amazing work we can focus on developing The Dashboard instead of this website.