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RuleSphere International, Inc.
AEM Compliance Suite
Frequently Asked Questions

What is the AEM Compliance Suite?
RuleSphere’s Agile Enterprise Management (AEM) Compliance Suite is an integrated software solution based on best-of-breed software for implementing regulatory compliance and IT governance programs enterprise-wide. The AEM Compliance Suite offers a comprehensive end-to-end collaborative software environment that integrates mission-critical Compliance Oriented Architecture (COA) services. The RuleSphere solution can be leveraged by global teams of business and technical professionals to not only achieve and sustain compliance, but also to create and sustain strategic shareholder value within the corporate infrastructure. This is accomplished by advanced Business Rule / Process Management (BR/PM) functionality that makes up all types of internal controls. Hence, the RuleSphere name.

How does the AEM Compliance Suite help us to address SOX?
There are a number of primary classes of software that help companies to address the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). For instance, there are document management systems, project management systems, process improvement systems, automated monitoring systems, methodology-oriented systems (that leverage proven best practice frameworks), and compliance management systems. RuleSphere's base platform solution falls into the last category; compliance program management. Yet the RuleSphere AEM Compliance Suite also encompasses or integrates with the other categories of software to provide the most comprehensive solution on the market. What sets the RuleSphere solution apart, however, is the unique set of over 30 mission-critical Compliance Oriented Architecture (COA) services that make up the technical capabilities. These technical software functions are listed in the table below. When you begin your compliance software evaluation it is best to start with a list of the COA services that you want to implement. This is an ideal way to compare one vendor with another.

What other applications does the AEM Compliance Suite integrate with?

. Authoring Tools
. Code Generation
. CRM
. Data Warehouses
. ERP
. Project Management
. Product Data Management / Content Management
. Software Change & Configuration Management
. Software Cost Estimation, Development, Modeling
. Systems Modeling & Simulation
. Test Management
. Text Search
. UML Modeling
. Zachman Framework Modeling
. Business Rule / Process Management Modeling Tools
. Other applications

Why is the AEM Compliance Suite unique?
The AEM Compliance Suite is unique in that it is based on the most important set of COA services that sustain compliance. It is also unique because it is based on best-of-breed and commercially-available off-the-shelf (COTS) software modules. These modules can be installed systematically and in time phases that match your resource constraints. RuleSphere's goal is to provide you with a proven (i.e. lower risk) software growth path that can be established early in your compliance planning stages. The RuleSphere solution offers a greater level of flexibility, extensibility, and overall system performance than other solutions. The test of this statement lies in the COA services. When you compare the COA services that our solution provides with other competitive solutions you will agree that RuleSphere offers a greater degree of application breadth and technical depth unmatched in the industry.

How does the AEM Compliance Suite compare with other compliance solutions?
RuleSphere's AEM Compliance Suite offers your company a much greater breadth and depth of compliance / governance functionality than any other solution on the market today. period. Please see the Compliance Oriented Architecture (COA) services matrix below for details.

How does the AEM Compliance Suite compare from a cost perspective?
The AEM Compliance Suite offers a Total Cost-of-Ownership that is lower than competitive offerings. This is because the AEM Compliance Suite offers greater flexibility and functionality that enables you to address a wider range of business infrastructure improvements (business efficiencies) in the areas of communication, coordination, control, and collaboration. These benefits enable significant cycle-time reductions due to increased task-to-task, role-to-role, and phase-to-phase integration capabilities and functions. However, from a dollar and cents perspective, a company can start small (as little as $9K for a pilot system that offers core repository functionality) and scale up to collaborative functional team or enterprise team configurations as budgetary and other resource constraints allow

Why is the AEM Compliance Suite your best compliance system alternative?
RuleSphere has determined that there are over thirty (30) separate “services”, or functions (shown below) that make up a comprehensive compliance systems architecture. But, there is no one vendor or solution on the market that addresses all of these requirements. Yet RuleSphere believes that every company will need to invest in these functions sooner or later to sustain compliance or support enterprise governance requirements. Thus the question becomes “is your company willing to risk your initial compliance infrastructure investment by buying a “point solution” that may not offer you any upgrade path”? Or, is your company willing to take on the risk to integrate multiple solutions that may limit your system flexibility and, in the end, not provide an optimal solution?

RuleSphere scoured the market for over two and a half years to find proven, best-of-breed modules that form the ideal COTS compliance configuration. The AEM Compliance Suite is the result and it offers a much greater breadth and depth of functionality than any other compliance system. RuleSphere and partners have integrated these best-of-breed modules. To this integrated platform, RuleSphere has added significant intellectual property to provide the least risk, and most flexible compliance / IT governance solution on the market.

What Intellectual Property does RuleSphere provide?
RuleSphere’s intellectual property (IP) falls into 5 primary areas; 1.) best-of-breed COTS software configurations that form solution suites, 2.) layered software that runs on top of COTS modules, 3.) application integrations, 4.) best practice framework “content” that runs on select modules, and 5.) collaborative decision models that companies can leverage for a number of compliance / IT governance needs. Of particular note is RuleSphere’s AEM Vault, the industry’s first compliance “system-of-record” which is composed of the following RuleSphere intellectual property:

• Integrated 7-level Agile Enterprise Management (AEM) compliance environment.
• Business Strategy Management Repository
• Enterprise Program Management Repository
• Enterprise Function (i.e. Departmental) Ops. Mgmt. Taxonomy & Repository
• Business Rule / Process Management (BR/PM) Repository
• RuleSphere and 3rd party Best Practice Frameworks

What COA services are required for compliance?
The following list of compliance services (i.e. functions) was originally created by the regulatory compliance market watch firm, Redmonk, in August of 2004 (www.redmonk.com). RuleSphere appended to the Redmonk list those services that RuleSphere believes were missing. Please contact Redmonk or RuleSphere to obtain Redmonk’s full Compliance Oriented Architecture (COA) report.

Service Name

RuleSphere

Other Vendors

1. Access Control

X

X

2. Analytics

X

X

3. Archive / Backup

X

4. Auditing

X

X

5. Baseline Set Generation

X

6. Best Practice Framework Management

X

7. Business Rule / Process Mgmt. Repository

X

8. Collaboration

X

X

9. Collaborative Assessment

X

10. Conflict Resolution / Impact Assessment

X

X

11. Decision Support

X

12. Destruction

X

13. Disposition Management

X

X

14. Enterprise Requirements Management

X

15. Goal Cascading / Goal Alignment

X

16. Incentive Compensation Management

X

17. Indexing

X

18. Information Integration

X

X

19. Monitoring

X

X

20. Notarization

X

21. Policy Engine

X

X

22. Process Registry

X

X

23. Program Management Structuring

X

24. Retention

X

25. Retrieval

X

26. Rule Approach / Rule Automation

X

27. Software Change Management

X

28. Software Configuration Management

X

29. Tagging

X

30. Traceable Linking

X

31. Version Control

X

X

32. Workflow

X

X

33. XBRL Processing & Reporting

X

What COTS Software components make up the AEM Compliance Suite?
The AEM Compliance Suite consists of 10 core modules that can be implemented in a standalone fashion or in conjunction with other integrated modules. The goal is to provide a smooth and flexible transition path that fits a company’s budget and functional requirements.

1. AEM Vault – System-Of-Record for Compliance, and Governance Information Management

2. Decision Factor AEM – Collaborative Environment for Decision-Making / Risk Assessment

3. AEM Process Manager – Business Process Management

4. AEM XBRL Report Manager – 2nd Generation Financial Reporting

5. AEM Software Change Manager – Auditable Management of All Code Change Information

6. AEM Configuration Manager – Auditable Management of Legacy System Configuration Information

7. AEM Compliance Dashboard – Metrics Management & Internal Controls Reporting

8. AEM Balanced Scorecard – Metrics Management Using Kaplan / Norton Approach

9. AEM Business Activity Monitor – Transaction Monitoring / Event Management (FUTURE)

10. Performance Factor AEM – Enterprise Performance Management (FUTURE)

What international character sets are supported?
RuleSphere’s AEM Vault supports the following international character sets:

• English (U.S.), English (U.K.)
• German, German (Reform)
• French
• Spanish
• Chinese
• Japanese
• Korean
• Taiwanese

Where does a company start? What module(s) should be purchased first?
There are two primary entry points for companies. The determination is often based on how far along a company might be in their compliance program planning. This is not cast in concrete, but generally we have found that if a company has done very little formal compliance program planning we would have them assess our Decision Factor AEM module and look at our suggestions for an (initial) 120 day project plan to get off to a quick start. The Decision Factor AEM module enables program planning, risk assessment, and cost:benefit analysis, and resource allocation. This module can also provide immediate help for SOX 302 and 404 internal control and risk management reporting.

If a company is well past the planning stage then we might recommend that they assess our AEM Vault module. This application enables a wide number of compliance program tasks so that a company can structure compliance information access, set up roles, teams, processes, manage enterprise requirements, and lay out a program environment for both business and technology professionals at the strategic, program, functional, or information systems levels. RuleSphere’s AEM Balanced Scorecard, and AEM Compliance Dashboard modules are usually implemented in conjunction with AEM Vault.

However, many companies have found that they have adequate staff, mental bandwidth, and budget to create a center of expertise around both products. Our conclusion is that they can save significant time by installing these 2 modules concurrently.

In instances where a company would like to implement performance management, business process management, software change & configuration management, or business activity monitoring as a first step, we can accommodate them.

What quantities of users will the AEM Compliance Suite support?
RuleSphere’s AEM Compliance Suite is composed of best-of-breed enterprise-class modules. These can all be configured for a small collaborative team, or for a global enterprise compliance program that is spread over many countries and supports 10,000 users or more. Small companies may want to start off with a single user “pilot” system prior to implementing support for a collaborative team.

What applications can the AEM Compliance Suite support in addition to regulatory compliance and enterprise or IT governance?
The AEM Compliance Suite is an ideal platform for any enterprise-wide program initiative no matter what the subject matter or functional need. For instance, many companies need to introduce one or more of the following initiatives that concern either business professionals, technology professionals, or both:

• Business Process Management (BPM)
• Knowledge Management (KM)
• Business Rule Management (BRM)
• Corporate Policy / Forms Management
• Six Sigma / Quality Management
• Corporate Standards / Functional or Ways-of-Working Standards

What price range should we budget for?
RuleSphere configurations can be sized to meet the needs of your compliance or IT governance team. We recommend budgeting around $10 - 25K for a pilot system that would address most basic compliance needs. Our AEM Business Process Manager module would increase this rough estimate. The key is to know your business objectives and a configuration cost will be driven by these objectives. We can help you with the objective setting phase if you’re not quite sure.

Who will help us with the system configuration and pricing details?
RuleSphere works closely with Alliance partners (both system integrators and software providers) to make sure that you have the best level of technical support regarding RuleSphere’s specialized modules at every phase of your project. When you are considering trying out one or more of our modules, please call us and we will make sure that you get the necessary pre-sales support. This also goes for when you are ready to implement a system. We will ensure that the post-sales support is scheduled and that the integration components are ready and on site.

Lastly, whenever training is needed, prior to your purchase, or after your purchase, we will provide the necessary information around our specialized configured modules. RuleSphere also offers specialized consulting and training services, that supplement those service offerings of our partners. The bottom line is that RuleSphere is your primary contact and we will provide you with the level of technical support that you will need to be successful.

How do we purchase?
When you are ready to purchase, your purchase order should be faxed to RuleSphere at (978) 456-3979 or e-mailed to orders@rulesphere.com. We will check the order for completeness and will forward the order to our partner(s). Depending on the size of your order a purchase agreement may be handled either by RuleSphere on RuleSphere paper or by our system integrator or system partner. Order composition and geographical locations are the driving factors in how we can best support your purchase requirements and system integration needs.

Who will install our software?
RuleSphere provides consultants that can install and configure all software modules or we subcontract the work to our system integrator or software partners. Once the base modules are installed and an acceptance test is run and signed off, RuleSphere will install it’s proprietary layered software, integrations, best practice frameworks, and decision models.

Who will provide training and technical support?
Both RuleSphere and Alliance partners (software vendors) will provide technical support and training that represent the base modules that comprise RuleSphere’s AEM Compliance Suite. RuleSphere will provide training and 1st line support for all product integrations and layered software.

Who will provide product updates?
RuleSphere will ensure that all base module product support is maintained between the customer and the software vendor. RuleSphere will provide the additional product support for it’s proprietary layered software, integrations, best practice frameworks, decision models, and other components. In certain instances, RuleSphere will obtain product enhancements from 3rd parties on a periodic basis and in these instances an annual support agreement may not be warranted.

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