Tutorial 3: Report and Investigate an Incident

This tutorial walks an incident through its full lifecycle: report, investigate, raise a corrective action, and close out.

By the end you will know:

• The difference between an incident, a near-miss, and a notifiable event.
• How to attach evidence (photos, notes) to an incident.
• How to link an incident to the hazard it came from.
• How to raise a corrective action from the incident so the cause is addressed.
• How the investigation status flows.

Before you start

Continue from Tutorial 2 — we’ll link the incident to the hazard you created there.

Step 1 — Open the Incidents list

From the sidebar, open Incidents.

The list page has the standard layout. Filters are: BRAG, Status, Type, Notifiability, Site. Notice the Type filter — incidents come in three flavours, which we’ll use shortly.

Step 2 — Report a new incident

Click + Incident. The wizard opens.

Tabs you’ll fill in:

1. Basics — what happened, where, when.
2. People — who was involved, who was injured.
3. Investigation — initial root-cause notes, due date for investigation.
4. Attachments — photos and documents.

Basics tab

Building on Tutorial 2’s slip-on-wet-floor hazard, imagine an actual slip happened:

• Title — Worker slipped in kitchen during wash-down.
• Description — “Worker slipped while carrying a tray, twisted ankle, treated on-site with first aid. No hospital required.”
• Type — pick the appropriate one. Defaults usually include Injury, Near-miss, Property damage, and Notifiable.
• Notifiable — tick this if the event meets the regulator’s notifiable-event threshold for your jurisdiction. For a twisted ankle treated on-site, leave it unticked.
• Severity — pick from the lookup (e.g. Minor).
• Site — same site as the hazard.
• Location — Kitchen.
• Occurred at — pick the date and time of the event.
• Status — leave as default (Reported).

Notifiable events. If you tick Notifiable, SteadyOn turns the row red until the regulator has been notified. The dialog to record who you notified and when is on the roadmap; for now record details in the Description field. See Hazards, incidents, and near-misses for what “notifiable” means in NZ vs AU.

People tab

• Reported by — defaults to you.
• People involved — free-text or pick from People (if set up). Useful for follow-up interviews.
• Witnesses — optional, for the same reason.

Investigation tab

• Initial findings — what you know on day one. “Wash-down was underway. Wet-floor sign was placed but worker did not see it. Anti- slip mat at kitchen entry was in place.”
• Investigation due date — set 7 days out for a minor incident, longer for a serious one.

Attachments tab

• Drop in a photo of the scene. The first attached image becomes the incident’s cover image.

Click Save. You land on the incident’s detail page.

Step 3 — Link the incident to the hazard

This is the crucial step that makes your records hang together.

1. On the incident detail page, open the Related tab.
2. Click + Add related.
3. Pick Hazard as the type.
4. Search for the slip-on-wet-floor hazard from Tutorial 2 and select it.
5. Save.

Now the hazard knows about this incident, and the incident knows about the hazard. This bidirectional link is what builds your evidence trail: when an inspector asks “what hazards did you know about, and what happened next?” you can show both ends.

Step 4 — Move to “Under investigation”

1. On the detail page header, click Edit.
2. Change the Status to Under investigation.
3. Save.

The BRAG colour may change. By default, an incident under investigation with a due date inside 7 days is amber, and one whose due date has passed (or whose occurred-at is more than 30 days ago without a due date) is red. See the BRAG rules reference for the exact thresholds.

Step 5 — Raise a corrective action

A near-miss without a follow-up is a near-miss waiting to happen again. Investigations should usually produce at least one action.

1. Open the Related tab again.
2. Click + Add related → pick Action → click Create new.
3. Fill in the action wizard:
   • Title — Replace kitchen flooring with anti-slip vinyl.
   • Description — what to do and why.
   • Type — Corrective (it fixes a known problem) or Preventive (it stops a recurrence). The kitchen example is preventive.
   • Priority — High for safety-critical, Medium otherwise.
   • Due date — realistic; 4 weeks for a flooring quote, longer for the install itself.
   • Assigned to — pick a person or member.
4. Save.

The action now appears under the incident’s Related tab and inside the Actions module’s main list.

Step 6 — Close out the investigation

When the investigation is complete (root cause identified, controls reviewed, action raised):

1. Edit the incident.
2. Set status to Closed (or your org’s equivalent).
3. Add an investigation summary in the description if you haven’t already.
4. Save.

The incident’s BRAG turns blue (closed). The action you raised is still open and on its own clock.

What you learned

• Incidents capture what happened. Hazards capture what could happen. They’re linked through the Related tab.
• An incident’s lifecycle is Reported → Under investigation → Closed.
• Notifiable events get special BRAG treatment — they go red until notified.
• Actions are the bridge between an investigation and a real-world fix.

Next

Continue to Tutorial 4: Run an Inspection End-to-End.