I need a little more help on Risks...manual and videos are hopeless...

1.) Priority is a numerical field and you can use whichever number system you would like here.  For work items 500 is the default priority, but this can be changed with customizations. Risk Rate is a calculated field that is the % Probability of the Risk happening multiplied by the Impact.  This is only available for the Risks object.  Lastly, Importance is a picklist with 4 default options, but like many aspects of Clarizen is customizable.  You can also easily create your own fields to determine priority and importance.

2.) I would do this by creating a custom picklist field (drop-down) and adding 3 values with red/yellow/green icons.  I would also recommend hopping on an advanced webinar to learn how you can use business rules to automatically set these values based on various criteria in the system ( http://www.clarizen.com/live-demo.html).

3.) Likely you are talking about the risk fields for the Risks module. These do not carry over into Work Items (Tasks/Milestones/Projects). May need more specifics on this one.

Thanks Josh....

1) But with Risks, is the idea that you would tend to use EITHER Priority OR Risk Rate OR Importance? Are they effectively three different ways of saying the same thing? Or do they serve different purposes?

2) How do you create a custom pick list with colours?

3) In my Work Plan, when I manage my columns there are at least colum headings with the word Risk in them. I have selected all of them - after creating some risks and adding them to items in the work plan, and nothing appears in any of the columns. Why are they available as columns if they  are unable to carry any values in them?

1.) They are different ways of saying the same thing, but with different levels of specificity. If you limit yourself to less than 10 or so levels or priority, you can easily use the importance field.  If you want to be very granular or perhaps even have priority be derived from a formula, the priority field will be the way to go.

2.) You first would need the colored icons that you can upload into your account (you can easily find some royalty free icons online). Then when adding options to your picklist, there is an option to add an image next to each selection.  I would again recommend an advanced Q&A to see this in action as it will make much more sense after seeing it in action.

3.) Can you give me the exact names of these fields? Also are you on version 5.4 or version 6?  There are some fields that are calculated by the system or that require specific permissions, but I'm assuming you have full admin/super user rights correct?

Josh, thank you for your patience - but a further question: I have just done a Q&A and am setting up Cases on my related items panel on the right. I have set up a number of test risks and test issues and given them various values ion terms of importance, probability, etc. and have attached them to various work items. But only ONE of them ever appears in the Cases grid in the related items panel. Even though I can see all the others in the main work plan panel against each task. Why aren't they all appearing in the related Cases box?

If you are in the project drill-down view, it will show only cases that are related to the overall project. If you are in a task view, when selecting each task you should see the related panel change to show the relevant cases (and other related items).