FAQs on policy and procedure management

Policy management solutions include many features which support policy compliance. These include facilitating easy access to policies through a central policy library, lifecycle tools to help policy owners keep policies up to date, and employee attestation features so employees read mandatory policies. Policy management software will also include reporting to track success and monitor the attestation process, as well as automated reminders. All these features are essential in supporting policy compliance.

Employee attestation is a process where employees digitally confirm that they have read, understood, and will comply with a policy. This is usually mandatory. Solutions that support employee attestation also include reporting to track success and send out automated reminders to employees who have yet to confirm. This feature is a tried and tested way to drive policy compliance as employees need to explicitly confirm they will follow a policy.

There is no one single way to increase policy compliance, but a range of tactics can make a difference. These include making policy compliance a strategic priority, ensuring policies are up to date, and then removing barriers to adoption – for example making policies easy to access and embedding them in everyday workflows. Using an employee attestation feature for mandatory policies will also increase policy compliance.

A policy states the rule, while a procedure explains how to put the rule into action. Xoralia makes it easy to manage, communicate, and distinguish both types.

Policies and procedures should be reviewed regularly, at least yearly or after changes occur. Xoralia’s automated review workflows make this process efficient, auditable, and stress-free.

This is the primary reference for staff on all your key policies and procedures. Xoralia helps you keep this manual up to date, compliant, and accessible to all staff.

They reduce risk, guide behaviour, and provide legal protection. Xoralia helps communicate and enforce these vital standards organisation-wide.

The purpose is to set consistent standards and support training and compliance. Xoralia makes documenting and updating policies easy for your team.

Identify objectives, research compliance needs, draft rules (policies), create step-by-step procedures, seek input, and approve. Xoralia provides templates and tools for fast, consistent policy writing, review, and rollout.

They should be reviewed regularly, usually every year, and in some cases every six months depending on the type of policy and associated risks.

Each policy should have a named owner who is accountable for keeping it accurate and up to date, with senior leaders providing overall oversight.

A review should check that each policy is accurate, compliant and up to date. It should involve collecting feedback, updating content, getting approvals and publishing the latest version for staff to use.

SharePoint provides version history and permissions, but Xoralia adds automated version control and approval workflows. This ensures only the latest approved policies are published and accessible to employees.

Not by default. With Xoralia, automated reminders notify policy owners when reviews or updates are due, helping keep all policies current and compliant.

Write them in clear, plain language with a consistent structure, and store them in a central, searchable system so employees can easily find and follow the right version.

SharePoint provides version control, permissions, and audit trails within Microsoft 365. It centralises policies, keeps them current, and helps organisations stay compliant across teams.

SharePoint supports document control but lacks automation such as review reminders, approvals, and read tracking. Xoralia adds these features to make policy management complete.

Xoralia is the only policy management solution built fully within Microsoft 365. That means it runs natively inside SharePoint and Teams—using your existing security, permissions, and data—so no external systems or data transfers are required. It extends SharePoint with automated reviews, acknowledgements, and dashboards, giving you a seamless and compliant experience.

Effective adoption can be measured using completion tracking, version acknowledgment, and compliance audits. Progress reports and user analytics in a policy management system can also show whether employees have read and understood required policies.

Accountability typically sits with policy owners or department leads, supported by compliance or HR teams. A structured review cycle and automated reminders help ensure policies stay accurate and up to date.

HR teams can upload, categorise and update policies in Xoralia directly from SharePoint. Automated workflows handle version reviews, publishing and staff acknowledgements.

Yes. Xoralia records acknowledgements for each user, giving HR full visibility of who has read or not read specific policies.

Yes. While it works well for HR policies, Xoralia can also manage IT, finance, compliance and other controlled documents to keep them accurate, approved and easy to access.

Policy management focuses on creating, updating and communicating policies so that employees always have access to the right and most recent information. Compliance monitoring goes a step further by checking that these policies are actually being followed across the organisation. Xoralia combines both areas by making it easy to manage policies and track employee understanding and acknowledgement in one place.

Yes. Xoralia is built entirely on Microsoft 365 and integrates seamlessly with SharePoint, Teams and Azure Active Directory. It uses your existing permissions and user groups, so the right people automatically see the right policies. There are no separate logins or new systems to learn, which helps employees adopt it quickly.

When compliance content appears within the intranet that employees already use every day, it becomes part of normal working life rather than an extra task. Policies, reminders and dashboards can be viewed alongside regular company news and resources. This improves visibility, increases completion rates and helps build a culture of everyday compliance.

SharePoint provides core document storage features but lacks lifecycle controls like approvals, reviews, attestations, and audit reporting out of the box. Many organisations add governance tools or policies to meet compliance needs and ensure accountability across teams.

SharePoint automatically tracks document versions, lets you restore previous copies, and records who made changes. However, it doesn’t enforce mandatory review cycles or policy acknowledgements without additional configuration or software.

Metadata helps organise and classify documents by department, document type, owner, or review date. This improves search accuracy, prevents duplicates, and supports structured governance as your library grows.

Without a formal process, organisations face inconsistent practices, outdated policies, and compliance risks. A structured approach helps maintain version control, ensure accountability, and reduce human error.