Content Libraries The shared question, theme, and training content that activities draw from. Question Composer Overview — The Shared Question Pool The question pool is the shared library every survey and interview draws from. Rather than writing questions inside each activity, you build them once here, publish them, and activity composers reuse them. Open Question Composer from the sidebar. It is Utility Admin only — a COG Admin without the Utility Admin role cannot see the entry. The page has two halves: ·        The pool browser — filters, search, and paging through existing questions. ·        The composer — the form for creating a new question or editing an unpublished one. The life of a question 1.      Draft (Unpublished) — you are still writing it. Fully editable. Not offered to composers. 2.      Published — released for use in surveys and interviews. No longer editable. 3.      Deprecated — retired. Still attached to the activities that already used it, but no longer offered for new ones. HEADS UP  Publishing is the point of no return for editing. A published question cannot be edited — the Edit button disappears. Proofread carefully before you publish, because your only options afterwards are to deprecate it and publish a corrected copy. Creating a Question Start a new question in the composer. The question composer, with an ISF classification selected. The core fields Field Required What it does Describe Question Yes The question text as respondents will read it. Grows as you type. Help Text No Optional clarification shown alongside the question. Use it for definitions or scope.   PRO TIP  Help Text is the cheapest way to improve data quality. Where a question uses a term your organization reads two ways, define it here rather than trusting respondents to agree. Choosing the category The category determines what kind of question it is and where it can be used: Category Use it for Cultural Pattern Rated survey questions feeding cultural pattern analysis and the CPRO report. Safety Culture Rated survey questions feeding safety culture analysis. Interview Open questions for interviews and focus groups. No answer options — responses are recorded as notes. Other Questions that do not fit the analytical categories above. Demographic A general multiple-choice question about the respondent. Demographic Department The respondent's department. Used to break reports down by department. Demographic Level The respondent's organizational level. Demographic Site The respondent's site or location. Demographic Tenure How long the respondent has been with the organization. Demographic Employment The respondent's employment type.   GOOD TO KNOW  The five specific Demographic  categories are not just labels. Report filtering and demographic comparison charts group respondents using them, so a site question filed under plain Demographic* will not drive the site breakdown. Use the specific category wherever one fits.   HEADS UP  Interview questions carry no answer options and are not rated, so they never appear in rated survey analysis. If a question needs to produce a score, it belongs in Cultural Pattern, Safety Culture, or Other — not Interview. Classifying against the ISF Questions that are not demographic are classified against the ISF using three cascading pickers: 4.      ISF — which framework this question belongs to. 5.      Trait — the ISF Trait, filtered to the chosen ISF. 6.      Attribute — the Attribute, filtered to the chosen Trait. Each picker only offers values valid for the one above it. The Attribute picker shows No Options Available and is disabled when the chosen Trait has no Attributes defined. GOOD TO KNOW  Demographic questions have no ISF classification — the pickers are hidden. Demographics describe the respondent, not a safety culture attribute, so there is nothing to classify.   HEADS UP  The classification is what makes a question's answers roll up into theme and attribute scores. A question misfiled against the wrong Attribute still collects answers, but it reports against the wrong part of the framework — and since a published question cannot be edited, this is worth double-checking before you publish.   PRO TIP  Seeing No Options Available for Attribute usually means the ISF is incomplete rather than that the question needs no Attribute. Add the missing Attributes in Manage ISF first — see The ISF. Answer options Categories that need answer choices show an options builder. Use Start Creating Options for the first one, then Add Option for each additional choice; Clear All empties the list. Each option's text is required, and options can be reordered or removed individually once you have more than one. PRO TIP  Keep demographic option lists short and mutually exclusive. Every extra option splits your respondent pool further, and thin groups make demographic comparison charts unreliable.   The two switches Before saving, two switches set how the question is released: Switch States What it means Published Published / Unpublished Whether composers can use it. Unpublished keeps it a private draft — and keeps it editable. Public Public / Private Whether other utilities can see and reuse it. Private keeps it to your own utility.   Save with Save to Pool, or abandon the draft with the discard button. PRO TIP  Save new questions Unpublished first. Read them back in the pool browser — in the context and formatting a respondent will see — and only then publish. It costs one extra step and it is the difference between fixing a typo and deprecating a question.   GOOD TO KNOW  Published and Public are independent. A question can be Published and Private (usable by your utility only), or Unpublished and Public (visible to others but not yet usable). Browsing the Pool Filters across the top narrow what you are looking at: Filter What it does Utility Which utility's questions to show. Category One of the categories, or All. ISF Which framework. Hidden for demographic categories. Trait Appears once a specific ISF is chosen. Attribute Appears once a Trait with Attributes is chosen. Search Free-text search across question text. Published / Unpublished / All Filters by publication state.   Questions are shown one at a time, with arrow buttons to page through the filtered set. PRO TIP  Filter to Unpublished periodically. Abandoned drafts accumulate, and they are invisible to composers — so a question someone believes they wrote may simply never have been published.   GOOD TO KNOW  The ISF, Trait, and Attribute filters disappear when the category is a Demographic one, because demographic questions carry no classification. If those filters vanish unexpectedly, check the Category filter.   The chips on a question Chip When it appears Published / Unpublished When you are the question's author. Public / Private When the question belongs to your utility. Editing a Question The Edit button appears only when both conditions hold: 7.      The question is Unpublished, and 8.      It belongs to your utility. HEADS UP  There is no way to edit a published question — not as a Utility Admin, not as a COG Admin. Published questions are frozen because activities are already built on them and editing one would silently change what past respondents were asked. To correct a published question: deprecate it, then copy it, fix the copy, and publish that.   PRO TIP  The Copy current question to create new question button duplicates the question on screen into a fresh draft. This is the intended route for fixing a published question, and for building a family of similar questions without retyping the classification each time. Deprecating a Question Deprecation retires a published question. The Set Deprecated switch appears only when all three hold: 9.      You are a Utility Admin, 10.   The question is Published, and 11.   The question belongs to your utility. Flipping it asks Deprecate this Question — "Are you sure you want to deprecate this question?" Confirm with Yes and you get: Question Deprecated — The Question was deprecated successfully and would not be available for composers! Deprecation is one-way HEADS UP  Once a question is deprecated the switch is disabled — there is no un-deprecate. Deprecating a question in wide use means every future survey has to substitute something else. Confirm you have a replacement published before you retire the original.   GOOD TO KNOW  Deprecating does not affect activities that already use the question. Existing surveys keep it, existing responses stay valid, and reports are unchanged. It only stops the question being offered for new surveys and interviews.   PRO TIP  The safe sequence for replacing a question: copy it, correct the copy, publish the copy, confirm it appears to composers, and only then deprecate the original. Doing it in the other order leaves a gap where neither version is available. Common Problems What you see What it means Question Composer missing from the sidebar It is Utility Admin only. A COG Admin without that role cannot reach it. No Edit button on a question It is published, or it belongs to another utility. Published questions cannot be edited — copy it instead. No Set Deprecated switch You are not a Utility Admin, the question is unpublished, or it is another utility's question. Set Deprecated greyed out Already deprecated. Deprecation cannot be reversed. Attribute shows No Options Available The chosen Trait has no Attributes in the ISF. Add them in Manage ISF. ISF / Trait / Attribute filters disappeared The Category filter is set to a Demographic category, which carries no classification. A question is missing from a survey composer It is unpublished, deprecated, private to another utility, or classified against a different ISF than the activity's. Demographic breakdown missing from a report The question is filed under plain Demographic rather than the specific category — Site, Level, Tenure, Department, or Employment. Save to Pool disabled A required field is empty — the question text, or an option's text in the options builder. Theme Management Overview — What Themes Do Themes are the labels used to categorize qualitative findings — interview notes, focus group discussion, observations, survey comments. Where a rated question produces a number, a theme lets you tag what people actually said so it can be counted, compared, and reported. Themes are shared across the utility. They are defined once here and then applied inside activities. Open Theme Management from the sidebar. It is Utility Admin only — a COG Admin without the Utility Admin role cannot see the entry. Four operations sit across the top of the page, each opening its own dialog: Button What it does Add New Theme Create one or several themes at once. Consolidate Themes Merge two or more themes into a single new one. Delete Themes Remove themes. Rename Theme Change one theme's name.   Every operation asks for confirmation before it runs, and a Search box filters the theme list on the page. The Theme Management page. GOOD TO KNOW  Each theme chip is coloured from its own name, so a given theme keeps the same colour everywhere it appears in NSCAT. The colour carries no meaning of its own — it is there to make themes recognizable at a glance. Naming Themes The established convention is to name a theme after the ISF element it maps to, in the form: Attribute - Trait For example: Standards - Personal Accountability. This is what makes a theme traceable back to the framework — a reader seeing the theme on a report can tell which Attribute and Trait it speaks to without a lookup table. HEADS UP  NSCAT does not currently enforce this format. The name field accepts any non-empty text, so a mistyped or free-form theme name will save without complaint. The consistency has to come from you — agree the convention with your team and apply it deliberately.   PRO TIP  Build your theme list directly from the ISF. Open Manage ISF alongside this page, work down the Attributes, and create one theme per Attribute you intend to analyse. You end up with complete coverage and names that match the framework exactly.   GOOD TO KNOW  Theme names are stored as plain text and are not linked to the ISF. Renaming an Attribute in Manage ISF does not update the themes that reference it. After any ISF rename, come back here and rename the affected themes to match — see The ISF. Adding Themes Click Add New Theme. The Add themes field is a free-text box that accepts several themes in one go — type a name, press Enter, and it becomes a chip; repeat for as many as you need. At least one theme is required. Confirm with Adding Themes — "Are you sure you want to add these themes?" PRO TIP  Because you can enter many at once, set your whole theme list up in a single sitting rather than adding them one at a time as activities need them. Analysts tagging findings mid-assessment will invent their own labels if the theme they want does not exist.   HEADS UP  Adding is capped at 20 themes per operation. Beyond that the field reports a maximum and refuses to save. For a longer list, add them in batches.   GOOD TO KNOW  Nothing stops you creating two themes with near-identical names — Standards - Accountability and Standards – Accountability with a different dash will both save as separate themes. Check the existing list with Search before adding. Renaming a Theme Click Rename Theme, pick the theme from Select a Theme to Rename, and enter the New name. Both fields are required. Confirm with Renaming Theme — "Are you sure you want to rename this theme?" The rename applies everywhere the theme is used, including in activities that have already been tagged and reported. PRO TIP  Renaming is the right tool for fixing a typo or aligning a theme with a renamed ISF Attribute. It preserves every existing tag — nothing is re-tagged and no analysis is lost.   HEADS UP  There is no history on a theme name. A report produced last quarter and reopened today shows the new name. If your organization needs the old wording preserved on past output, export those reports before renaming. Consolidating Themes Consolidate merges several themes into one. Use it when analysts have created overlapping themes that should be counted together. Click Consolidate Themes, select two or more themes in Select Themes to Consolidate, then enter the New Consolidated Name. Confirm with Consolidating Themes — "Are you sure you want to consolidate these themes?" Everything tagged with any of the selected themes ends up under the single new name. GOOD TO KNOW  Consolidate requires at least two themes selected — the button stays disabled with one. Merging one theme into a new name is a rename, which is what the Rename dialog is for.   HEADS UP  Consolidation cannot be undone. Once three themes are merged into one, NSCAT no longer records which of the three any given finding was originally tagged with — the distinction is gone from your data, not just from the list. If the separate counts might matter later, export the affected reports first.   PRO TIP  Consolidate before producing a report, not after. Merging themes changes the counts every theme-based chart is built from, so a report circulated before a consolidation will not reconcile with the same report run afterwards. Deleting Themes Click Delete Themes, select one or more themes in Select Themes to Delete, and confirm with Deleting Themes — "Are you sure you want to delete these themes?" HEADS UP  Deletion is irreversible, and it is the wrong tool for a theme that has already been used. Removing a theme that findings are tagged with discards the categorization on those findings — the notes and observations survive, but their theme is gone and the analysis that depended on it no longer adds up.   PRO TIP  Reserve Delete for themes created by mistake and never applied — a typo, a duplicate, a test entry. For a theme that has been used but is no longer wanted, Consolidate it into the theme that supersedes it. That preserves the findings' categorization instead of discarding it.   GOOD TO KNOW  Deletion is capped at 20 themes per operation, the same limit as adding. Choosing the Right Operation You want to… Use Set up the theme list for a new utility Add New Theme — several at once Fix a typo in a theme name Rename Theme Match a theme to a renamed ISF Attribute Rename Theme Merge overlapping themes analysts created Consolidate Themes Retire a theme that has been used Consolidate Themes into its replacement Remove a theme created by mistake and never used Delete Themes   PRO TIP  The general rule: Rename to correct wording, Consolidate to reduce the list, Delete only for themes with no history behind them. Rename and Consolidate both preserve your data; Delete does not. Common Problems What you see What it means Theme Management missing from the sidebar It is Utility Admin only. A COG Admin without that role cannot reach it. Save button disabled in Consolidate Fewer than two themes selected, or the New Consolidated Name is empty. Save button disabled in Add or Delete Nothing selected, or you have exceeded the 20-item limit. A theme name saved in the wrong format The Attribute - Trait format is a convention, not an enforced rule. Fix it with Rename Theme. Theme names no longer match the ISF Themes do not follow ISF renames. Rename them here to match. Two nearly identical themes in the list Duplicates are not prevented. Consolidate them into one. Theme counts changed between two runs of a report A consolidation or deletion happened in between. Consolidate before reporting, not after. Findings lost their categorization A theme in use was deleted. Deletion is irreversible — use Consolidate for themes with history. Training Management Overview — The Training Record Training Management is NSCAT's record of who has been trained, in what role, where, and when. Assessment work depends on trained people — interviewers, team leads, site coordinators — and this is where that qualification is recorded so it can be looked up rather than remembered. Open Training Management from the sidebar. It is Utility Admin only — a COG Admin without the Utility Admin role cannot see the entry. The page is a sortable, searchable table of training sessions with three actions: Add New Training, Edit this Training, and Delete this Training. The Training Management page. GOOD TO KNOW  Each row records one person in one role at one session. Training six people at the same session means six rows, not one row with six names. That is what makes the record searchable by person. What the Table Shows Column What it holds Training Location Where the training took place. Date The date of the session. Training Role The role the person was trained for. Email The trained person's NSCAT account email. Name Their name, filled in automatically from their account. Actions Edit and delete buttons for that row.   Every column except Actions is sortable, and the Search Training box filters across all of them. PRO TIP  Search matches any column, so one box answers most questions — type a person's email to see everything they are trained for, a role to see everyone qualified in it, or a location to pull up one session's whole attendance list. Adding a Training Record Click Add New Training. Confirm with Adding Training — "Are you sure you want to add Training?" The fields Field Required What to enter Location Yes Where the training happened. Training Date Yes The session date, chosen from the date picker. Training Role Yes The role trained for, from the list below. User Email Yes The trained person, selected from existing NSCAT accounts. First Name / Last Name — Filled in automatically when you pick the email. Read-only.   HEADS UP  User Email only offers people who already have an NSCAT account. Someone trained but not yet registered cannot be recorded here. Create their account first — see Registering & Managing Users.   GOOD TO KNOW  First Name and Last Name are read-only because they come from the person's account, not from this form. If a name is wrong, fix it in Manage User — correcting it there updates it everywhere, including here.   PRO TIP  Enter a session's attendees straight after it finishes, while the list is still to hand. The record's value is entirely in being complete — a half-entered session is worse than none, because it looks authoritative. The training roles Role Typically Team Lead Leads an assessment activity and its team. Interview Team Member Conducts interviews and focus groups, and records responses. Host Peer A peer from another organization taking part in the assessment. Site Coordinator Coordinates the assessment at a particular site. Executive Sponsor The senior sponsor accountable for the assessment. Fleet Lead Coordinates across a fleet of sites. Admin Support Provides administrative support to the assessment.   GOOD TO KNOW  These roles describe training, not NSCAT permissions. Recording someone as a trained Team Lead does not give them Team Lead access to any activity — that is assigned per activity in Properties. See Roles & Access Control.   PRO TIP  The role list is fixed, so use it as your vocabulary when planning an assessment team. Before assigning someone as a Team Lead on an activity, search here for their email and confirm the training exists. One person, several roles A person can hold several training records — one per role, and one per session if they are retrained. PRO TIP  Add a new row when someone is retrained rather than editing the old one. Keeping both preserves the history of when each qualification was obtained, which is exactly what you need if training currency is ever questioned. Editing a Training Record Click the edit button on a row. The dialog opens with the record loaded, field labels change to New Location and so on, and every field can be corrected. Confirm with Updating Training — "Are you sure you want to update Training?" PRO TIP  Use Edit to fix mistakes — a wrong date, a mistyped location, the wrong role picked from the list. Do not use it to record a fresh session over an old one; that overwrites history rather than adding to it. Deleting a Training Record Click the delete button on a row and confirm. HEADS UP  Deletion is permanent and there is no archive. Delete only records entered in error — a duplicate row, or the wrong person selected. A record of training that genuinely happened should stay, even for someone who has since left the organization.   GOOD TO KNOW  Deleting a training record has no effect on the person's account or on any activity they are assigned to. The two are independent — this table is a record, not a permission. Common Problems What you see What it means Training Management missing from the sidebar It is Utility Admin only. A COG Admin without that role cannot reach it. A trained person is not in the User Email list They have no NSCAT account. Register them first. First Name / Last Name cannot be typed in Correct. They come from the account — fix them in Manage User. Save button stays disabled A required field is empty — Location, Training Date, Training Role, or User Email. The wrong name appears against an email The account's name is wrong. Fix it in Manage User and it updates here. Someone is trained but has no activity access Expected. Training is a record, not a permission — assign them in the activity's Properties. Only one row for a session with several attendees Each attendee needs their own row. Add the missing ones.