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TPRM Engagements

An Engagement (ENG-YYYY-NNNN) is a specific arrangement with a third party. It answers what — and it is the only object in TPRM that carries risk.


What an engagement holds

FieldPurpose
Business referenceENG-YYYY-NNNN, immutable, assigned once
Third partyThe provider
Service descriptionWhat is being provided
Business serviceThe internal service it supports
OwnerWho is accountable internally
Criticality tierFrom the criticality determination
Regulatory classificationFrom the classification process
StatusIts lifecycle state
Contract datesStart, end, renewal notice
Review datesNext review, reassessment frequency guidance
TerminationDate, reason, exit notes

Contract and review dates

FieldMeaning
start_date / end_dateContract start and expiry
next_review_dateSet manually at each review cycle — never auto-computed
reassessment_frequency_monthsCadence guidance only — informational, never used to derive a date
renewal_notice_dateThe contract renewal or notice deadline
termination_date, termination_reason, exit_notesRecorded on termination

Review dates are set, not calculated

reassessment_frequency_months is guidance. OrviQ does not use it to compute a next review date.

A derived date would look authoritative while being a guess — and a supplier review is a commitment someone has to make deliberately. If no date has been set, the engagement shows no date rather than a fabricated one.


The lifecycle computation

Whether an engagement is due, upcoming, overdue or terminated is a pure read-time computation with no side effects. It is calculated when you look, not stored.

Rules:

  • Where an active engagement decision carries a review or expiry date, that governed fact wins over the engagement's own fields — the more specific governed fact takes precedence.
  • A terminated engagement reports terminated rather than due or overdue.
  • A missing date is always none — never a fabricated signal.

The last rule is the important one. An engagement with no review date is not overdue; it is unscheduled, which is a different problem requiring a different response.


Reminders and escalation

Reminders reuse the platform's alert policy engine rather than a TPRM-specific scheduler. Three trigger types are available:

TriggerFires when
engagement_review_dueA review date is approaching
engagement_review_overdueA review date has passed
engagement_contract_expiringA contract expiry is approaching

The alert sweep is administered under tenant settings and requires settings.manage. It is never exposed to tprm.read, and the matcher checks the vendor_risk entitlement directly so a non-TPRM tenant receives no jobs.

Deduplication is handled by the alert engine: one active event per policy, source, trigger and recipient.


Reassessment

Initiating a reassessment advances next_review_date. It never overwrites a prior risk assessment, regulatory classification or questionnaire run — those tables are insert-only, so a subsequent assessment naturally adds a new history entry.

Requires tprm.assess.


Termination

Terminating an engagement sets its status to terminated with a date and reason.

  • Idempotent — retrying an already-terminated engagement is a no-op, not an error.
  • Non-destructive — assessments, classifications, questionnaire runs, decisions, findings and enterprise risk links all remain reachable.

Requires tprm.manage.


Business services

Engagements link to the internal business service they support, which is the same canonical business service used by operational resilience.

This is what lets you answer: "which third parties does our payments service depend on, and what happens if one fails?"


Permissions

ActionPermission
View engagementstprm.read
Create and edit engagements, lifecycle dates, terminatetprm.manage
Governed risk assessment and reassessmenttprm.assess
Regulatory classificationtprm.classify
Approve, reject or record risk acceptancetprm.decide

Requires the vendor_risk entitlement.


Example

Engagement ENG-2026-0041 — Core banking platform hosting.

FieldValue
Third partyTP-2026-0018
Business serviceCore Banking
OwnerHead of Technology Sourcing
Criticality tierCritical
Regulatory classificationMaterial outsourcing
Contract start / endThree-year term
Renewal notice date180 days before expiry
Next review dateSet at each review; currently 3 months out
Reassessment frequency12 months, guidance
StatusActive

Lifecycle at read time: upcoming — the next review date is within the alert window.

Alerts firing: engagement_review_due to the owner and the Head of Third-Party Risk.

History preserved:

Record typeEntries
Criticality determinations3
Regulatory classifications2
Risk assessments3
Questionnaire runs3
Engagement decisions2

The second classification superseded the first when the arrangement's scope expanded. Both rows remain, so the question "when did this become material outsourcing, and on what basis?" has a dated answer.


Troubleshooting

"An engagement shows no review status." No review date is set. The lifecycle reports none rather than guessing.

"Reassessment frequency is set but no date appeared." Frequency is guidance only. Set the review date deliberately.

"Reminders are not firing." Alert policies are configured under tenant settings and require settings.manage. Also confirm the vendor_risk entitlement is enabled.

"Terminating an engagement offboarded the party." It does not. Party offboarding is a separate explicit action. See Third Parties.


OrviQ Enterprise Governance, Risk & Compliance Platform