Asset Value Scoring
An asset's value is calculated from three ratings, resolved to a score and then to a band.
The three dimensions
| Dimension | Token | Asks |
|---|---|---|
| Confidentiality | [C] | What would disclosure cost? |
| Integrity | [I] | What would corruption cost? |
| Availability | [A] | What would an outage cost? |
Each is a definition list whose entries carry a numeric value — the weight the formula reads. The default scales run 1 to 5:
| Value | Confidentiality | Integrity | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Public — disclosure causes no harm | Negligible — corruption goes unnoticed | Not required — any outage is tolerable |
| 2 | Internal — inconvenient, not damaging | Low — noticed and corrected locally | Low — tolerable for several days |
| 3 | Restricted — damages a business process | Moderate — misleads a decision | Moderate — tolerable for one working day |
| 4 | Confidential — damages the organization | High — invalidates reporting or compliance | High — tolerable for hours only |
| 5 | Strictly confidential — irreversible harm | Critical — undetected and acted upon | Continuous — no outage tolerable |
Availability is the dimension people rate loosely, because "we need it" feels like a 5. Write the levels as tolerable outage durations, as the defaults do — a question somebody can answer the same way twice.
Score and band
Two formulas do two jobs:
- The asset value score formula turns the three dimensions into a number, available afterwards as
[AV]. - The asset value band formula turns that number into a band number, which selects the band.
The shipped pair is multiplicative:
[C]*[I]*[A]
IF([AV]>64 : 4 : IF([AV]>27 : 3 : IF([AV]>8 : 2 : 1)))
That gives a 1–125 range banded at 8, 27 and 64 into Low, Medium, High and Critical.
An alternative pair ships inactive: MAX([C]:[I]:[A]) with bands at 3, 4 and 5. It is a different scale
altogether — 1 to 5 rather than 1 to 125 — which is exactly why it is not active alongside the first pair.
The two tiers are activated independently and nothing pairs them. Activate the highest-dimension score while leaving the multiplicative bands in place and every asset lands in the lowest band, with no error anywhere. If you switch one, switch both.
A band expression may name [AV] and the three dimensions — forcing the top band from a single dimension
at its highest level is a common requirement. A score expression may not name [AV]; that is what it exists
to produce, and the system refuses to save such an expression.
See Asset Risk Formulas for the editor.
The value is calculated and stored
Both the score and the band are worked out on the server on every save, and written onto the record.
- Rewriting a formula does not move an assessment already made. That is the point of storing rather than computing on read.
- With no formula active, what the record already carries stands. Clearing it would empty the value of every assessment saved while a formula was in force.
- Neither number is typeable. There is no manual mode here — unlike Health & Safety, where a missing formula falls back to manual entry.
If the band formula returns a number that no band declares, the save fails with a message rather than storing an assessment with no level. Hiding a broken pair of definitions behind a blank field would be worse — a register of assessments with no bands and no explanation.
The asset value bands
The band list is where the levels themselves are defined. Each row carries a band number — what the formula has to return to land on it — plus a name and a colour. The defaults:
| Band number | Name | Colour | Covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Low | green | Score of 8 or less |
| 2 | Medium | yellow | 9 to 27 |
| 3 | High | orange | 28 to 64 |
| 4 | Critical | red | Above 64 |
No two bands may declare the same band number, and every number the active formula can return needs a band. See Scoring Lists.
The classification label is suggested, then decided
When you pick a confidentiality rating, the system suggests the classification label whose threshold matches that rating's weight.
The suggestion is written only into an empty field. It never overwrites a label somebody has chosen, and changing the confidentiality rating afterwards does not move it.
This is deliberate and it is the whole implementation of the rule. A classification is a decision with handling consequences attached — who may receive the asset, how it is stored, what happens on disposal. One that shifted quietly when a rating was corrected could not be explained in an audit.
Live feedback
The form asks the server for the score and band on every rating change, so the consequence of a choice is visible before the record is saved rather than after. The band is drawn in its own colour.