Event and incident report software (tutorial)
There’s a famous phrase in business, “what gets measured, gets managed“. In other words, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. This goes a long way to explaining why reporting incidents and events is so important to companies. However, to just report an incident or event is not enough. The speed of a report and the quality of the report itself are both important.
Click here if you want to go straight to the tutorial.
Quick and rich
Getting reports to decision makers in a timely fashion is big business. Think about the entire financial reporting industry, billionaires like Mike Bloomberg made their fortune by getting market data to traders quicker than any one else.
Although less well paid, there is still a need for incident report software in facilities management to be swift. For example, if there is a major incident, decisions made in the first hour determine the next 72 hours. As a result, a report’s value diminishes over time.
Rich
Of equal importance is the need for good quality reports. Because, if a report does not include enough relevant information, it’s useless. Therefore, make reports rich, add media: images, sketches and videos.
Fortunately, SIRV makes reports quick and rich. You can create forms that use lots of easy to complete data capture tools, such as drops downs and lists. You can also send reports real-time via email to whoever requires the report.
When is your report? Before, during or after?
Typically people report:
- Before;
- during;
- after an incident.
Imagine for a moment that you’re stood in a loading bay and you see a truck reverse. It narrowly avoids someone. You may record this as a near miss incident (before). One week later someone suffers an injury when the same truck hits them. You may report this as an incident, immediately after the accident. One day after the truck hits someone you conduct an investigation into the accident and its consequences. You may record this as a post incident report, (after).
This is how industry analyses incidents. Known as the Bowtie model because of its appearance, it’s a smart way to think about how you want someone to use your incident report form, before, during or after.
Incident Vs Event
SIRV allows users to build forms for incidents or events. Both are nearly identical however, event forms do not include location and time.
Events and incidents are kept separate in SIRV because of the assumption that incidents are negative and events are neutral. If SIRV placed events and incidents together analysis would be made difficult, a chart would reflect a mixed message.
One way to think of incidents and events is to imagine the following: A light bulb has been smashed by someone. This is building damage, it is harm done to your company and therefore negative, an incident. However, if a light is not working owing to a light bulb fault, it is building maintenance. Therefore, we expect this and record it as an event.
In the main, negative occurrences are incidents, for example theft and injury etc. Whereas, events are checks and internal reports. For example. return to work forms, CCTV checks etc. A comprehensive list of commonly used forms is available here.
SIRV: Event and Incident Report Software Tutorial
Note: The below security incidents and events tutorial applies to both incidents and events. For the purpose of this article we will refer only to incidents.
Lets look at how to:
- Build incident report forms
- Add image tiles to incident report forms
- Report incidents
- Analyse reported incidents
1) Build Incident Report Forms
SIRV allows you to build as many incident reports as you like.
We strongly encourage you to build different types of reports for different types of incidents. This is because catch-all forms often include irrelevant fields and questions. For example, if you’re a security guard reporting lost property do you really want to complete a section asking about skin codes?
A form’s attribute can have advice added to accompany it. This advice appears as a icon with the letter ‘i’ next to the attribute.
Select the icon and a pop-up appears in the form of text, tables or contact details.
2) Add Image Tile
Once an incident form is made you can add a text or image tile.
Regardless of your selection once an incident form is made it will always appears on the SIRV website and the mobile app, under the tile named ‘library’.
If you want to add the incident as a specific tile on the mobile application itself then you probably want to give it an image tile.
To show a dedicated image tile on the mobile app you will need to to go ’tile configuration’ (Settings>Mobile>Tile Configuration).
The following video takes you through how to add an image tile and configure the look of the mobile application:
3) Report Incidents
Incidents are made on both the SIRV website and the SIRV mobile app.
The difference between the mobile app and SIRV website are as follows:
- Some features, such as the camera are only available on the mobile app.
- If you have no data connection you can still use the mobile app to create incidents. These are held locally and submitted when data connection is re-established.
- You can ‘store’ incomplete incidents on the mobile app. Therefore, access is possible at a later time by going to the settings menu. The below video takes you through how to report incidents:
4) Analyse Incidents
SIRV provides two options to review incidents:
- Search Incidents
- Analyse Incidents
Search Incidents
View any incident using the filter search form. From here you can take a look at any incident and perform one of the following actions:
Update History
Every incident automatically has a ‘history’ section allocated to it. This allows user of the SIRV website to add a narrative to the incident. Each entry has a history field, timestamp and the name of the user.
Edit
It’s not possible to delete an incident. However, new versions of an incident are made.
By selecting ‘Edit’ you’re able to change fields in the incident and re-submit. The new version of the incident has a version number (for example version 1, version 2 etc). The latest version of an incident will appear in any future search results. However, the old version(s) remain accessible, simply select ‘include old versions’ in the search parameters.
Allow Load
Roll forward content from an old to new incident on a mobile app via ‘Allow Load’. Designate a user and date to download onto the mobile app.
Roll Forward
Similar to the ‘Allow Load’ functionality, this feature means you can load the incident and make changes to it through the SIRV website.
Format for Print
Select this option if you want a PDF copy of an incident. It will include any history updates along with the incident report content.
Download Incidents
Once you search an incident you can download the information into a CSV file, use the ‘Download’ button.
Analyse Incidents
This feature allows you to build four different graph types:
- Pie
- Line
- Bar
- Bubble
To build a graph first select your criteria then opt for the different variables you want to show. Bear in mind a pie chart can have only one variable, line/bar chart two and a bubble graph can have up to three variables. Because the bubble graph is dynamic. It’s popular with a wide audience that are less familiar with your day-to-day activity. It’s ideal for monthly, quarterly and annual reviews.
A PDF conversion of the pie, line and bar charts is possible.
Conclusion
The content of an incident changes all the time. However, good report rules do not change. If you put effort into a good report culture, alongside incident report software, you will measure more and more will get done.
Incident report software and the daily occurrence book
A summary of an incident report automatically posts to the daily occurrence book. Because, when a user chooses a site by default they select a daily occurrence book. As a result, moments after incidents are made, they appear as a summary in a daily occurrence book.
Find out what to record in a daily occurrence book
Company
Address: SIRV Systems Limited, 85 Great Portland street, First Floor, London, UK W1W 7LT
