Release 2.8 features:

• Statistics Overhaul
• Reassigning Groups for Admins
• Hidden and GeoCoded Groups
• Location moved to Groups
• Void Reports
• Injury Trend Graphs

Details:

Statistics Overhaul

Over time the statistics area has grown to have many different graphs, sometimes very similar in nature.  We have overhauled this to make the interface much more consistent and at the same time providing more detailed time periods, right down to a daily range.

All of your graphs are still there, but they might be under slightly new headings, so take a look around.  if you need help finding one of your favorites, never hesitate to call/email.

Reassigning Groups for Admins

As report groups are entered, spelling mistakes inevitably crop up.  Previously you would need to find all of the reports with the misspelled group and then change them, then remove the group from the available choices.  We have consolidated this into 1 action – in the Admin Settings, Report Groups area, when you delete a group, you are given the option of reassigning instead of just deleting (removing) it from the reports it appears on.  In the following case, I want to ensure that “3CIS” (with capitals) is used instead of “3cis”:

Hidden Groups and GeoCoded Groups

Also new in the group area are Hidden Groups.  These groups are allowed to be entered and seen by administrators only.  Some care is needed, however, when generating PDF reports, as if you generate it with the new option of adding hidden fields, that will be put in the PDF and therefore might be seen by others.

GeoCoded Groups allow you to specify a lat and long for each group, if you would like to add the report to a map.

Location moved to Groups

Closely related to geocoded groups is the move of Office Location, previously its own stand alone field to just be another group.  This greatly simplifies things while still allowing you to use it in the same manner as before.  When we looked at Location and how it was being used, we eventually realized that it should have been in the Group section all along, so this now fixes that.

Void Reports

Many industries have the notion of a VOID report, which is a report the want to track, but which is pretty much invisible when it comes time to tally stats.  You can now mark a report as VOID and keep it in the system without fear that it will show up on TRIF or in quarterly stats.

Injury Trend Graphs

Following up on the detailed injury fields that we added a while back, we now have new graphs to show injury statistics.  This is under Statistics -> Graphs -> Injuries.  We have started with a small set, but as you have ideas for new graphs, please let us know and we can add them.

We are very excited about these changes and they lay the groundwork for even more additions in the future.  We have a long roadmap with our user suggestions and we continually strive to add features to bring more and more value to our customers.

Thanks – The IncidentCheck team

Additional functionality now available:

• Investigation Timeline
• Causal Analysis comments
• Faster corrective action updates
• Full size images
• File upload changes
• Leading / Lagging indicator summary
• Injury details – body part, nature of injury and injury cause

Investigation Timeline

Administrators can set a report to have an investigation timeline on any report type in the system through the settings.  This will then allow you to specify dates and times and a description of the investigative activity that was undertaken.  Along with this you can upload files that are relevant to that investigation step.

Once this is complete, we have a mechanism where you can step through the timeline to review each step that you will see in the sidebar beside the incident.

Causal Analysis comments

When choosing your causal analysis items, we now have an area for comments that pertain to each particular cause.

Faster corrective action updates

In the corrective action emails, we have changed things just slightly to allow people to quickly click the email link and then choose to complete or cancel the corrective action without having to log in to Incident Check.

Full page images in PDFs

In the generated PDF for a report, there is now the option to attach full size images to the end of  the report.  This is very helpful when there is fine detail on an image that the thumbnail does not show.

File upload changes

We have modernized the file upload portion of the report page to allow either images or files to be uploaded, and to have multiple uploads running at the same time.

Leading / Lagging indicator summary

A quick report, the first of many, that will start focusing on Leading Indicators.  This is an area of focus for Incident Check in general in the upcoming weeks and months, as we are seeing more and more customers really looking to leading indicators to ensure that things are being handled pro-actively.

Injury details

Now, when a report dealing with an injury is entered, you have the option of adding details on the injured body part as well as  the nature of the injury and the cause of the injury.  Note that this cause is different from the overall causal analysis in subtle ways.  With Causal Analysis, a person is trying to get at the reasons for the incident happening.  With an injury cause, we are focusing on the more specific details of the injury itself.

As always, feedback on these features is appreciated and if you would like to discuss them, feel free to email or calla t any time.

• Custom Reports – monthly, quarterly, and yearly PDF reports
• A more polished Report PDF
• Small changes to the report entry form to make reprot entry that much faster and easier
• Small bug fixes and small enhancements

Custom PDF Reports

Under the Statistics menu item, you will now see a new item called “Reports”.  From here you can pick monthly, quarterly, or yearly reports.  These reports allow you to choose graphs to display and provide titles and a narrative for those graphs to provide a beautifully presented document for showing your organization where things stand.

This is the first step of many enhancements in this area, and we are soliciting feedback on how this area can be developed to provide you with the information you need.  So, if you have any suggestions, feel free to let us know.

Report PDF Changes

We have changed the design of the PDF report for individual incidents – the previous design had too much whitespace and the new design addresses that issue as well as cleans up the typography and general layout.  We think this is a huge improvement over the previous design and would be curious to hear any feedback from our users on this.

Streamlined Report Entry

We have changed the report entry to make it easier and faster to enter the initial details of a report.  This makes better use of the space in the form and eliminates scrolling on most devices that was previously necessary.

This also sets the stage for new upcoming changes with more personalization.

We feel Incident Check is the best incident management system out there and it continues to get better with each release.

Check out the screenshots for a taste of the difference:

Before:

After:

To that end, the newest features include exports of the tabular summaries to Word, a new way to view your account organization, and a list of all outstanding corrective actions.

We use Report Groups as a “tag” for reports, leaving this generic enough for our many varied companies to use as they see fit.  Some examples are companies tagging reports with Divisions, Truck #, Crew #, Project ID, Rig #, Supervisor, and many many more.

While Incident Check always had email alerts, now administrators will have the ability to send emails based on the Report Group, allowing for increased flexibility in alerting your users.

1.  Better Group Level Statistics

Statistics now have a way to break them down by the Groups that are set up in the system.  In our use at 3CIS, we have Wireless, Cabling, and Software Divisions in the company.  You can now choose the ones you would like to see and export the graph or data to provide comprehensive, side-by-side comparisons of the performance of each division.

2.  Multi-Groups per User

Additionally, we added the ability to have users be part of more than one group under a given label.  Again, in our case this means that a user from 3CIS can be part of the Cabling Division, the Wireless, or the Software division, or any combination of the 3.  Previously we limited this to only 1 choice but the newest change reflects the reality at many of our customers’ companies – people are often part of more than one division or other group.

To do this, you set up a User Account for Group Access as per usual, but instead of a drop-down to choose the group, we have a combo box where you can Control-Click to select multiple items, as in the screenshot below:

Essentially, they argue that we should look at them as a failure, not a success, as they are leading indicators of incidents.  Citing the Process Improvement Institute, across many industries there are between 50 and 100 near misses recorded per serious incident, and about 10,000 smaller errors occur during that time.

It is also a great read.

With Incident Check, we have been focusing on that for years.  We provide the necessary tools to track near misses and provide roll-up statistics to show how many near misses are being recorded.

There has been 1 stumbling block for locations, however, and that is our mandatory latitude and longitude.  But, getting this information is as simple as firing up Google Maps.

For example, 3CIS headquarters is in Edmonton.  To get a lat/lon pair, simply zero in on the building in Google Maps, right click, and choose “What’s here?” from the menu.

You will then see the latitude and longitude in the search box at the top, like in the following screenshot:

However, we also want to track the amount of money involved in the other types of incidents.  These can be a powerful motivator for people to really understand what is happening at all levels in a company, and to realize substantial cost savings.

Many times people do not want to track these as the idea of a higher incident count is not appealing.  Lost a ladder at a job-site?  1 more incident this month.  Computer equipment stolen from head office?  Another one.  If someone looks at this and sees a large incident count, then they might draw the wrong conclusions, the thinking goes.

The industry already does a good job of this currently however.  The difference is that those incidents are not reportable, whereas classes of injuries are reportable.  We are doing our best to educate people on this, as the value of tracking losses can be a great way to have Incident Check pay for itself and more.