How to choose columns in a risk register on Mac
You can do this with RiskOS, a risk register for macOS. Ten columns, one menu, and a layout that stays where you leave it.
A register table has more to say than one screen can show at once. Ten columns is the full account of a risk, and the full account is rarely what you need in front of you: a Monday triage wants owners and dates, a scoring session wants inherent beside residual, a tidy-up wants references and review dates and very little else. The table bends to the pass you are making, and it stays bent until you change it.
Hiding a column hides nothing but the column. The value is still recorded on the risk, still searchable, and still counted by every filter and every report.
Where the column menu lives
Choose Risks in the sidebar. The register fills the middle of the window as a sortable table, and the panel on the right shows whichever row is selected. Along the top of the table sits the header row — the strip carrying the column names. That strip is the control. Right-click anywhere on it and a menu opens listing every column the register can show, with a tick beside the ones currently on.
The header row is also how you sort: click a column name and the table orders itself by that column. Sorting and column choice do two halves of one job — the sort decides which rows reach the top, the columns decide what each row says once it gets there. The arrangement of columns is remembered, so the register you come back to is laid out the way you left it.
If the table feels cramped before you have hidden anything, take the space back first. The sidebar and the panel both resize by dragging their dividers, and RiskOS remembers where you leave them. Narrowing the panel while you work through a long list often does more for readability than hiding two columns would.
Set up the table, step by step
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Open the register
Choose Risks in the sidebar. The full register appears as a table with the standard arrangement: reference, risk title with its category, owner, the three scores, trend, appetite, status and the next review date.
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Name the job before you touch the menu
Decide what this sitting is for. Chasing owners is a different job from re-scoring, and re-scoring is different again from finding what has gone stale. A layout built for one of them will be wrong for the other two, which is fine — changing it back takes seconds.
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Right-click the column header
Right-click anywhere along the header strip at the top of the table. The menu that opens lists every available column, each with a tick showing whether it is currently displayed. Nothing here is destructive; every item is a toggle you can reverse from the same menu.
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Hide what this pass does not need
Click a ticked column to switch it off. The table closes the gap immediately and the remaining columns take the width back, so the titles you actually read stop being truncated. Start with the scores you are not comparing this time — inherent and target are usually the first two to go on a chase-the-owners pass.
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Show the columns it does need
Click an unticked column to bring it in. Nothing you hid earlier is lost: every column the register holds stays in the menu whether it is ticked or not, so a column you switch on and off from one week to the next is always waiting in the same list.
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Put the columns in reading order
Use the same menu to set the order. Put the column that answers your question nearest the risk title, because that is where the eye lands after reading a row's name. On an appetite pass that means appetite sits next to the title rather than seven columns away, and the whole table can be read without tracking across the screen.
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Sort on the column you read first
Click the header of the column your question is really about. Sorting on residual puts the worst of what is left at the top; sorting on review brings the stalest rows up; sorting on owner groups a register by the person you are about to speak to. A layout and a sort order chosen together do most of the work of a saved view.
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Pair the layout with a saved filter
Columns decide what you see about each row. Filters decide which rows appear at all. Narrow the register with the band filter, the over-appetite toggle or the closed-and-accepted toggle, then choose Save Current Filter… and name the combination. The next time this pass comes round, the rows come back in one click and the columns are already where you left them.
What each column tells you
Every column in the register earns its place for a different kind of question. Knowing which question each one answers is most of the skill in choosing between them.
| Column | What it holds | Keep it when |
|---|---|---|
| Ref | The permanent reference, such as RSK-0007. Never reissued, even after a risk is closed. | You are working from minutes, a report or anything written down elsewhere. |
| Risk | The title, with its category beneath it. | Always. It is the row's name and the anchor everything else reads against. |
| Owner | The person accountable for the risk. | You are chasing, grouping by person, or preparing for a one-to-one. |
| Inherent | The score before controls: likelihood × impact, 1 to 25. | You are comparing exposure with what is left, or questioning a rating. |
| Residual | What is left once the linked controls are taken into account. | Nearly always. It is where you stand this morning. |
| Target | The score you intend to reach. | You are working on treatment plans and want the gap visible. |
| Trend | Which way the residual score has been moving. | You are looking for movement rather than magnitude. |
| Appetite | Whether the residual score sits above the threshold that applies to this risk. | You are preparing anything an executive will read. |
| Status | Where the risk stands — active, accepted, closed. | You have switched on the closed and accepted rows and need to tell them apart. |
| Review | The date the next review falls due. | You are planning a review pass or hunting for what has gone stale. |
Layouts for the pass you are making
Three arrangements cover most weeks. None of them is a setting to be got right once; they are positions you move the table into and out of, in the same way you would turn a page.
| The pass | Columns to keep | Sort on |
|---|---|---|
| Triage | Ref, Risk, Owner, Residual, Appetite | Residual, highest first |
| Scoring | Ref, Risk, Inherent, Residual, Target, Trend | Inherent, highest first |
| Cadence | Ref, Risk, Owner, Review, Status | Review, oldest first |
The triage layout
Five columns, and the question is what is bad and who is on it. Residual and appetite beside each other turn the table into a short list of conversations to have: on a register of twelve active risks averaging 9.6, that is usually the four rows above appetite plus whatever has moved since the last pass.
The scoring layout
Here you want the three scores in a line so the distances are visible. Inherent beside residual shows what the controls are actually buying you; residual beside target shows how far the treatment plan still has to travel. RSK-0007 reading 20, 15 and 4 across those columns tells a story in one glance that three separate screens would take a meeting to tell.
The cadence layout
Drop the scores entirely. Reference, title, owner, review date and status is enough to plan a quarter's work, and without the numbers competing for attention the overdue dates stand out. Sort on review, oldest at the top, and the queue writes itself. When you are ready to work it rather than plan it, Review takes the same risks one at a time with the full context beside the scoring inputs.
Columns in the register's other tables
The risk register is not the only table in RiskOS, and each of the others is built around the questions its own section gets asked. Knowing what they carry saves you looking for a column in the wrong place.
The controls table
Choose Controls and the columns are reference, the control with its detail, type, status, an effectiveness meter, owner, a count of the risks relying on it, and the next review date. The risks count is the one people underuse: a control with a high count is load-bearing, and its status is worth more of your attention than its neighbours'.
The indicator and event tables
Indicators list reference, the indicator with the direction that counts as bad, the latest reading, status, trend, thresholds, the risks it watches and the next due date, sorted worst first so the breached ones greet you. Events list reference, the event with its linked risks, when it occurred, severity, status, the detection delay and the cost.
Troubleshooting
I cannot find the column menu
Right-click the header strip itself — the row of column names at the very top of the table — rather than a risk row beneath it. The column menu belongs to the header and opens nowhere else. If you are unsure which strip you have, look for the words Ref, Risk and Owner: that row is the one to right-click.
Rows are missing, not columns
A filter is on. Check the filter icon above the table: it fills in when any filter is applied, which is the register's way of telling you that what you are looking at is a subset. Clear the band filter, switch off the over-appetite toggle, or switch on closed and accepted rows, and the register comes back whole.
The titles are cut off
Too many columns for the width available. Hide the scores you are not comparing on this pass, then take the space back by dragging the panel divider to the right and the sidebar divider to the left. RiskOS remembers both, so you are not setting them up again tomorrow.
A new risk is sitting at the top, out of order
That is deliberate. A newly created risk pins to the top of the table so it does not vanish into a sort order before you have finished writing it. Click any column header to re-sort and it drops into its proper place.
I hid residual and now nothing makes sense
Residual is the column the rest of the register is really about, and most of the other numbers are read in relation to it. Bring it back from the header menu. If you want fewer numbers rather than different ones, the cadence layout above drops all three scores together instead, which reads better than dropping the middle one.
Habits that keep the table readable
- Treat the layout as disposable. Change it for the job in front of you and change it back without ceremony. A table you are willing to rearrange is worth more than one perfect arrangement you defend.
- Keep the risk title and residual in every layout. Between them they answer what is it and how bad is it now, which is the minimum a register row has to say.
- Put the answer next to the question. Whichever column your pass is about belongs beside the title, not at the far edge of the window.
- Let the filter do the narrowing. Hiding columns shortens a row; only a filter shortens the list. Use both, and name the combinations you rebuild often with Save Current Filter…
- Fewer columns read better aloud. VoiceOver reads a whole row as one sentence, and a five-column sentence is far easier to follow than a ten-column one.
- Do not read band by colour alone. Every band badge in the table pairs its colour with a symbol and the written word, so a screenshot in a report stays readable for everyone.
- Leave the reference on. It costs almost no width and it is what ties a row to the minutes, the report and the conversation you had in March.
Frequently asked questions
How do I hide a column in a risk register on Mac?
Right-click the header row at the top of the register table. The menu lists every column with a tick beside the ones currently shown. Click a ticked column and it is hidden; click it again later and it returns to the same position. The risk's data is unaffected — only the display changes.
Does RiskOS remember my column layout?
Yes. The arrangement you set — which columns are shown and the order they sit in — is remembered, along with the widths you give the sidebar and the panel. Move to another section and come back, or come back tomorrow, and the register looks the way you left it rather than resetting to the default.
Can I reorder the columns in the risk register?
Yes. The same right-click menu on the header row that shows and hides columns is where the order is set. Most people move the column their current pass is about next to the risk title, so a row can be read without tracking across the width of the window, then move it back afterwards.
Can I still search on a column I have hidden?
Yes. Search covers the title, reference, category, owner, detail and tags of every risk regardless of which columns are on screen. Hiding the owner column does not stop you finding every risk owned by M. Halvorsen by typing the name into search. The same is true of filters, which always read the underlying value.
What does the Trend column show?
Which way a risk's residual score has been moving. It answers a different question from the score itself: a Medium risk climbing steadily often deserves attention ahead of a High one that has been flat for a year. Trend also appears on the risk's own panel header, beside the band badge and the over-appetite flag.
Do the columns I choose change what a report contains?
No. The column arrangement is for the screen you are working on. What a report contains is chosen separately in Reports, using the section toggles for the executive summary, matrix, top risks, full register, per-risk detail, controls, actions, indicators, events and framework coverage.
Why is a risk flagged in the Appetite column?
Because its residual score is above the threshold that applies to it. RiskOS resolves that threshold in order: an override on the risk itself, then the risk's category, then the organisation-wide appetite set in Settings. A risk above appetite is flagged everywhere it appears, not only in this column.