Serenity was built with simplicity and speed in mind—especially when it comes to managing and completing corrective and preventive actions. Actions are lightweight tasks designed to empower individual users and teams to take ownership and drive resolution without unnecessary friction.
Update the Action State
To close a corrective or preventive action, users simply update the State field on the action record.
Available State Options:
New – Action has been created but not yet assigned.
Assigned – Action has been delegated to a user or group.
Work in Progress – Work has begun on the action.
Approval – (Optional) Indicates pending review, if used.
Closed Complete – Action was completed successfully.
Closed Skipped – Action is no longer needed, was cancalled, or invalidated.
In most cases, an assignee will move the action from Work in Progress to Closed Complete once the remediation is finished.
Why It’s Simple by Design
We intentionally keep the action lifecycle simple and flexible. Each action is a discrete task that can be:
Assigned to a specific person or group
Prioritized and tracked independently
Closed directly by the assignee when finished
There are no mandatory approvals or validation steps built into this workflow out-of-the-box. This encourages momentum and makes it easier for users to stay on top of their responsibilities.
Caution Against Over-Engineering
Organizations that prefer more structured workflows can work with our Professional Services team to implement custom approval stages or conditional logic.
However, we strongly caution against building overly restrictive workflows for closing actions. In our experience, too much complexity can lead to:
Delays in task resolution
Bottlenecks waiting on unnecessary approvals
A growing backlog of “stuck” actions
💡 Pro Tip: Let actions stay lean. Use the review process on the parent finding to verify whether the linked actions were sufficient and effective.
Use the Parent Finding for Oversight
Serenity includes a built-in review workflow at the finding level. This is where managers and investigators can:
See a full picture of the issue
Review all related corrective/preventive actions
Determine if additional steps are needed before closing the finding
This ensures that actions are effective without micromanaging each one individually.