Category: Simple GRC

A practical deep dive into records, requirements, gates, and “Pending”

If you’ve ever built workflow software with approvals, phases, and deadlines, you’ve probably learned this lesson the hard way:

Dates lie unless you’re very explicit about what they depend on.

At some point, a user will ask:

• “Why does this record say it’s due on March 10?”
• “Why did the date move when I edited a requirement?”
• “Why can’t I set this requirement later if the record already exists?”

And if your answer is “well… it depends”, you already know you’re in trouble.

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Most companies want structure, but few want rigidity. When I started designing a workflow engine flexible enough to support assessments, issues, action plans, exceptions, vendor reviews, and policy changes, I realized one unavoidable truth: every business wants the freedom to configure a process their way, but they also need enough guardrails to keep approvals consistent and auditable. That tension-flexibility vs. structure, is exactly what a Unified Workflow System must solve.

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been shaping the core structure behind Simple GRC — specifically how all the governance, risk, and compliance content connects together.
I wanted something clean, logical, and scalable. GRC data tends to get messy fast — one framework references another, controls overlap, requirements duplicate, and every “simple mapping” turns into a web of dependencies.

To handle that without losing my mind, I built a model centered around Libraries, Objects, and Requirements.
It sounds simple (and that’s the point), but there’s quite a bit going on under the hood.

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Managing large volumes of interconnected GRC records is typically painful. Users often rely on spreadsheets to manage controls, requirements, mappings, or entire libraries before bringing them into a centralized platform. The challenge is building an import process that is flexible enough to support complex hierarchies, easy enough for non-technical users, and reliable enough to ensure correct tenant scoping and data validation.

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Modern GRC platforms are evolving rapidly as teams demand more flexibility in how they capture, review, and manipulate operational data. While structured fields remain essential, users increasingly want a dynamic area where they can model calculations, track notes, compare values, or collaborate on process details—without leaving the system. Spreadsheet-like interfaces are the natural solution. They’re intuitive, powerful, and require almost no training. Integrating an embedded spreadsheet per record or requirement can dramatically improve the usability of a GRC system, especially one that handles complex workflows or documentation management.

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Project: MapGRC (Laravel 12, Multi-Tenant)
Feature: Dynamic Sankey Diagram Visualization Page
Goal: To create an interactive Sankey diagram that visually represents relationships between GRC entities (Libraries, Types, Objects, and Requirements) across user-defined steps or sections, allowing users to explore complex mappings in a structured, intuitive, and analytical way.

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