Permits

A permit to work records what is isolated, what was tested, and who may work — and covers a job or a shutdown rather than existing on its own. A job that needs one will not start until it has been issued and accepted.

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The register

Leads with what is live right now and how long it has left, because a permit is the one record here with a clock genuinely running against it — sorted by what runs out soonest, with counts for what is live, running out (inside two hours — roughly a shift’s tail, and still time to do something about it) and expired. Active and issued are deliberately different colours: a permit nobody has accepted yet is a signed piece of paper on a desk, not cover for anyone working. An active permit that has run past its own end time is shown as expired rather than active — the status word alone never overrides the clock.

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Raising one

A permit covers a job or a shutdown — never neither — plus its kind (hot work, confined space, working at height, electrical, lock-out/tag-out, excavation, lifting, chemical, radiation, or general work, as shipped), the window it runs for, where and what it is against, the method and limits, and the hazards an assessment found. The questions themselves, and their order, are arranged in Form Studio — this page supplies the pickers and the logic, the layout is yours.

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The custody chain

A permit is not edited into different states from a form — each step is its own action, because the whole point of a permit is that two people, at two moments, each signed for something real: Before a draft can be issued, the screen says plainly what is still missing — nobody on the crew, isolations not yet on, or precautions not yet confirmed — rather than letting the attempt fail silently against a refusal. Editing is only offered on a draft: once somebody has signed for a permit, it is a record of what they signed for, not a form to correct.

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Isolations, precautions and crew

Three tabs on the permit itself:

• Isolations — what is locked off, how (lock, tag, blank, spade, valve, earthed, fuse removed, disconnected, or another method), and the lock or tag reference that lets someone match the tag on the steelwork to the line on the permit. Each is marked on when applied and off when removed.
• Precautions — conditions of issue, written so each one is either true or it is not — “gas tested below 10% LEL” rather than “check the atmosphere” — confirmed with a reading where one applies. A required precaution left unconfirmed holds up issue.
• Crew — who is covered by the permit.

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Printing it

Document on a permit produces the printable permit itself from your organisation’s own template — see producing a document. This is usually the reason somebody opens a permit at all: to hand a technician the paper to carry to the gate.