Data Retention, Backup and Business Continuity

Overview

Assessment Manager has been designed to provide a highly available, resilient and secure platform for managing organisational assessments, benchmarking, validation activities and continuous improvement.

Protecting customer information involves more than preventing cyber attacks. It also includes ensuring information remains available, recoverable and protected against hardware failure, infrastructure outages, accidental data loss and other unexpected events.

Assessment Manager is hosted on enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure incorporating redundancy, automated backups, disaster recovery capabilities and continuous infrastructure monitoring to help maintain service availability and protect organisational information.

While every effort is made to maximise platform availability, organisations should also maintain appropriate internal governance and business continuity processes to support their own operational requirements.

Data Retention

A

ssessment Manager maintains organisational information throughout the life of your subscription.

Information retained within the platform may include:

• Assessment history.

• Maturity ratings.

• Goals.

• Improvement actions.

• Benchmarking information.

• Validation results.

• Uploaded evidence.

• Organisation information.

• User account information.

Retaining historical information allows organisations to demonstrate continuous improvement, monitor long-term performance and maintain an accurate record of operational activities over time.

Backup and Recovery

Customer information is protected through enterprise-grade backup and recovery processes designed to minimise the risk of data loss.

The hosting infrastructure incorporates:

• Automatic backups.

• Redundant storage.

• High availability architecture.

• Infrastructure redundancy.

• Disaster recovery capability.

These controls are designed to support business continuity and enable recovery should an unexpected infrastructure event occur.

High Availability

Assessment Manager is hosted on resilient cloud infrastructure designed to maximise platform availability.

Infrastructure incorporates multiple layers of redundancy to reduce the impact of hardware failures, network interruptions or other infrastructure-related events.

Continuous infrastructure monitoring assists in identifying and responding to issues quickly, helping maintain reliable platform performance.

Disaster Recovery

Business continuity planning includes disaster recovery capabilities that support restoration of services following significant infrastructure events.

Disaster recovery processes are designed to:

• Protect customer information.

• Minimise service disruption.

• Support recovery of critical systems.

• Restore platform functionality as quickly as practical.

While infrastructure resilience significantly reduces operational risk, organisations should also maintain their own internal business continuity and disaster recovery procedures.

Planned Maintenance

From time to time, scheduled maintenance may be required to improve platform performance, implement new functionality or apply security updates.

Where practical, maintenance activities are planned to minimise disruption to customers.

Applying regular updates helps ensure Assessment Manager continues to provide a secure, reliable and modern platform.

Data Accuracy

While Assessment Manager protects customer information through secure hosting and backup processes, organisations remain responsible for ensuring the information entered into the platform is accurate and current.

Organisation Administrators should regularly review:

• User accounts.

• Organisation details.

• Facility information.

• Assessment data.

• Improvement actions.

• Uploaded evidence.

Maintaining accurate information improves reporting, benchmarking and continuous improvement outcomes.

Business Continuity Responsibilities

Assessment Manager forms part of your organisation's broader business continuity arrangements.

Organisations should also:

• Maintain appropriate governance processes.

• Review user permissions regularly.

• Protect login credentials.

• Maintain secure organisational devices.

• Keep browsers updated.

• Develop internal business continuity procedures.

• Maintain copies of critical organisational policies where required.

Combining secure cloud technology with good organisational governance provides the strongest protection against operational disruption.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1: Maintain Current Information

Regularly review organisation details, facilities, users, assessments and improvement actions to ensure information remains current and accurate.

Current information improves reporting, benchmarking and organisational decision-making.

Step 2: Protect User Accounts

Ensure every employee has their own user account and remove access promptly when staff leave the organisation.

Strong account management reduces security risks and protects organisational information.

Step 3: Review Uploaded Evidence

Periodically review uploaded evidence to ensure documents remain current, relevant and aligned with organisational policies.

Replacing outdated evidence supports more accurate assessments and validation activities.

Step 4: Monitor Platform Communications

Stay informed about planned maintenance or important platform updates communicated by Drowning Prevention Australia.

Understanding upcoming changes helps organisations plan operational activities and minimise disruption.

Step 5: Support Organisational Business Continuity

Assessment Manager supports business continuity through secure cloud infrastructure; however, organisations should also maintain appropriate internal procedures to manage operational disruptions, emergency events and information governance.

Best Practice

Use Assessment Manager as the central source of truth for organisational assessments, improvement activities and benchmarking.

Maintain current organisational information and review assessments regularly to ensure historical information remains meaningful and supports long-term continuous improvement.

Organisation Administrators should periodically review user access, uploaded evidence and organisational information to maintain high-quality data and support effective governance.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is my information backed up?

Yes. Assessment Manager is hosted on enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure incorporating automated backup processes, redundant storage and disaster recovery capabilities designed to protect customer information.

What happens if there is a system outage?

The platform has been designed using resilient cloud infrastructure with redundancy and business continuity capabilities to minimise service disruption and support recovery following unexpected events.

Will I lose my assessment history?

No. Assessment history, maturity ratings, improvement actions and uploaded evidence are retained throughout your organisation's subscription, providing valuable historical information for benchmarking and continuous improvement.

How long is information retained?

Assessment information remains available while your organisation maintains an active subscription. If your subscription changes or ceases, data management arrangements can be discussed with Drowning Prevention Australia.

Does my organisation still need its own business continuity plan?

Yes. Assessment Manager supports secure information management and platform resilience; however, every organisation should maintain its own business continuity, disaster recovery and information governance procedures appropriate to its operational requirements.

Why is retaining historical information important?

Historical assessment information demonstrates organisational progress over time, supports benchmarking, validates continuous improvement initiatives and provides valuable evidence during audits, reviews and external assessments.