The Certification Assistant Partner Program (CAPP) is designed for third party consultants, Service Providers, CMMC Assessors, and others who want to assess or verify the self-assessments of Certification Assistant end customers. In order to participate in the program, you must:
– Obtain an Exostar’s Managed Access Gateway (MAG) user account.
– Purchase a Phone-Based One Time Password (OTP) token without Proofing credential.
– You must reach out to cmmc-team@exostar.com and sign an agreement, if interested.
For detailed process steps on gaining all required access, please see the Certification Assistant Get Started page.
User Levels
There are three user levels within CAP and please note, the dashboard displays information based off the individual’s role:
- CAP Admin: Responsible for accepting or declining engagements, assigning Consultants and overall access to the CAP system.
- CAP Manager: Responsible for engagement and project oversight, as well as documentation review.
- CAP Consultant: Responsible for executing the project, interacting with the client organization, and producing the final report.
CAPP Dashboard
All users have access to the same dashboard, although the information is filtered based on the individual’s role. The dashboard provides the following information:
Clients Panel
This panel displays the total Clients over a Partner’s lifetime.
Projects Panel
This panel displays counters for Unassigned, Kick-off (Consultant assigned, but no access request submitted), Active, Completed and Total Projects, as well as a list of the projects currently unassigned.
Consultants and Message Inbox Panel
This panel displays counters for Benched, or currently unassigned consultants, as well as Active, and Total Consultants. The Message Inbox displays below the counters.
My Active Projects
If the current user is a CAP Consultant, this panel displays all active projects to which the consultant is assigned. If you are logged in as an Admin or Manager, no information displays.
Left-Hand Navigation
Additional navigational features display along the left-hand side of the CAP Dashboard. Each item is clickable and redirects to that respective management page.
The Client Management screen allows CAP Admins to accept or decline engagement requests. For accepted engagement requests, CAP Admins also have the ability to select the Terminate Engagement button to terminate active engagements.
CAP Managers and CAP Consultants have READ-ONLY access for the Client Management page.
The Project Management screen allows CAP Admins to assign CAP Consultants to accepted project engagements, via the Assign Consultants button.
CAP Managers have READ-ONLY access for the Project Management page.
CAP Consultants can manage interactions with the CA organization, access project documentation, as well as access the client account data via the Project Management page.
Please note, prior to a CA User accepting an access request, a Request Access button displays. If the CA User declines the access request, the CAP Consultant and the CA User work together, outside of the system. Once the CA User accepts the access request, the following buttons display:
Access Client: This option allows the CAP Consultant to access, navigate and take action in Certification Assistant as if you were the CA User. The last comment entered by the Consultant is included in the report, delivered at the end of the project. Use the Exit Client button in the green, header box to return to CAP.
Update Documentation: This option allows you to access the report for this client. Please see the Documents section below for additional information.
Disconnect Access: When the consultant completes work needed in the CA organization’s account, click this button to remove the ability to enter the account. If needed, the Consultant can request access again.
To begin work on documentation for a project, click the Access Documentation button. Please note, the message: No Documentation created for this Project displays if there is no documentation available. To start, click on the Edit button.
The following buttons display:
– Edit: This option opens the report in edit-mode, where you can begin data input. Click Save when complete.
– Download/Print: This option allows you to download the report to your local drive or print the report.
– Deliver Documentation: This option sends the final report to the CA organization.
– Return to Projects: This option allows you to redirect to the Project Management page.
– Return to Documents: This option allows you to redirect to the main Documents page.
NOTE: If the documentation has already been submitted, it is editable by selecting the Update Documentation button. Once resubmitted, the new report simply replaces the previous report.
CAP Admins can select the View/Edit button to navigate to the Consultant Details page.
The Consultant Details page lists the Consultant’s Assigned Active Projects, Active Projects and Completed Projects. To assign the consultant to the project, select the Assign To Project button. If there are no currently assigned consultants, the selected Consultant is assigned as the Lead. Otherwise, they are added to the list of available consultants on the project.
Each user displays in a table listing their individual role. Select the View/Edit button in order to manage their roles. Once in the individual user management page, place or remove check marks next to the desired roles.