Observations
Overview — Recording What You Found
An observation is a single finding: something you saw, heard, or read that says something about the safety culture being assessed. Observations are the raw material of the assessment — recommendations are written from them, and reports count them.
Open Observations from the activity's menu. Needs Observations access.
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GOOD TO KNOW This page autosaves, and offers draft recovery if a save does not complete — see Autosave & Drafts. |
What an Observation Holds
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Field |
What it captures |
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Summary |
A one-line statement of the finding. |
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Detail |
The evidence behind it — what you saw, who said it, how often, and where. |
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ISF classification |
Framework, Trait, and Attribute, from three cascading pickers. |
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Rating |
Your judgement, on the activity's rating scale. |
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Themes related to this answer |
The themes this observation speaks to. |
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PRO TIP Write the summary as a complete statement of the finding, not a topic label. "Handovers" is a filing category; "Night-shift handovers are routinely cut short because the outgoing crew leaves before the brief completes" is a finding a reader can act on. The summary is what most people will ever read. |
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PRO TIP Put the evidence in the detail — what you saw, who said it, how often, and where. An observation without evidence is an opinion, and it will be the first thing challenged when the report is discussed. |
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PRO TIP Write the detail with search in mind. Observations are one of the three sources the recommendation Search for Evidence tool looks through, and it matches on keywords. An observation that says "the handover brief" will be found by someone searching "handover"; one that says "this issue" will not. |
Classifying Against the ISF
Three cascading pickers place the observation in the framework: the framework, then the trait, then the attribute. Each is filtered by the one above.
If the chosen level has nothing beneath it, the picker shows No Data Available and is disabled.
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HEADS UP The classification is what makes an observation appear in the right part of the report. A misclassified observation still exists but reports against the wrong attribute — and it will not be found by anyone looking in the right place. |
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GOOD TO KNOW No Data Available on the attribute picker means the chosen trait has no attributes defined in the ISF. Mention it to an administrator. |
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PRO TIP If an observation genuinely spans two attributes, record the stronger one and say so in the detail. Reports group by a single classification. |
Rating and Theming
The rating follows the activity's rating scale — three options on a 3-point activity, seven on a 7-point one.
Themes tag the observation with the themes it touches, chosen from the utility's list.
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PRO TIP Theme observations with the same themes you used when coding survey comments and interview answers. That consistency is what lets the Themes Report show a finding supported from three directions rather than three unconnected items. |
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GOOD TO KNOW Themes come from the shared list an administrator maintains. If the one you need does not exist, ask for it rather than forcing the observation under an approximate match. |
Finding and Editing Observations
A Search box filters the list. Each observation offers:
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Control |
What it does |
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Edit current Observation |
Opens it for changes. |
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Delete current Observation |
Removes it from the active list. |
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PRO TIP Search the existing observations before adding a new one. On a team assessment the same finding gets recorded independently by two people surprisingly often, and duplicates inflate whatever they are counted in. |
Deleting an Observation
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HEADS UP Read this section before you delete anything. Deleting an observation is available to anyone with Observations write access. Undoing it is not. Restoring a deleted observation requires the Utility Admin role, which most assessment team members — including Team Leads — do not have. |
Deleting an observation does not destroy it. It is flagged as deleted, stamped with who deleted it, when, and why, and removed from the active list, from every report, and from the Observation Data Export.
NSCAT asks you to confirm and to give a deletion reason before it proceeds.
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PRO TIP Write a real deletion reason. "Duplicate of the handover finding recorded by MK" tells whoever reviews the deleted list whether it should come back. "Not needed" means they have to restore it to find out — and restoring changes every report it appears in. |
Who can undo it
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You are… |
Can you delete? |
Can you restore? |
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A Team Member with Observations write |
Yes |
No |
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A Team Lead |
Yes |
No |
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A Utility Admin |
Yes |
Yes |
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A COG Admin (without Utility Admin) |
Yes |
No |
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HEADS UP If you are not a Utility Admin, treat deletion as final from your side. You will need to ask an administrator to restore it, and they will need to do it before the activity is locked — a locked activity cannot be restored from at all. |
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PRO TIP When two people have recorded the same finding, edit one into the better version and delete the weaker one — but note in your deletion reason which observation supersedes it. That way the deletion documents itself. |
If Something Was Deleted by Mistake
You cannot see or restore the deleted list yourself unless you are a Utility Admin. What you can do:
1. Note what it was — the summary wording, roughly when it was recorded, and who by, if you know.
2. Ask your administrator to open the activity's Observations page, click Show Deleted Observations, and restore it.
3. Ask before the activity is locked. Once locked, nothing can be restored until a COG Admin unlocks it.
4. Re-check any report you have already circulated. A restored observation reappears in reports and exports, so figures will change.
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GOOD TO KNOW Administrators see the deleted list with the deletion date and time, who deleted it, and the reason given. Giving them the approximate date is usually enough to find it. |
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HEADS UP An observation missing from a report is not necessarily lost. Before anyone rewrites a finding from scratch, ask an administrator to check the deleted list — rewriting it creates a duplicate if the original then comes back. |
Exporting Observations to PDF
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PRO TIP Export to PDF for circulating findings to people who do not use NSCAT, and to Excel — via Observation Data Export under Reports — when you want to work the data yourself. The PDF is for reading; the export is for pivoting. |
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HEADS UP Deleted observations do not appear in the PDF, exactly as they do not appear in reports or the Excel export. |
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HEADS UP Observations frequently contain identifying detail. Set a password on any PDF leaving the assessment team, and use the Confidential watermark. |
Observations and Recommendations
Observations are what you found. Recommendations are what should be done about them — and an observation you recorded is one of the three things the recommendation Search for Evidence tool can pull in as supporting evidence.
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PRO TIP Record observations as you go, and write recommendations at the end once the picture is complete. Writing a recommendation against your first observation usually means recommending something narrower than the evidence eventually supports. |
See Recommendations and Evidence for Recommendations.
A Practical Approach
· Record observations while they are fresh — the same day as the interview or walkdown.
· One finding per observation. Two findings in one record cannot be classified or rated honestly.
· Search before adding, to avoid duplicating a colleague's entry.
· Classify and theme every one. An unclassified observation is invisible to the reports.
· Write for keyword search. You will be looking for these again when you write recommendations.
· Review the full list before writing recommendations, to see the pattern rather than the parts.
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HEADS UP Do not leave observation-writing to the end of the assessment. The detail that makes a finding persuasive — the exact wording someone used, how many people said it — is the first thing to fade, and it cannot be reconstructed from a rating. |
Common Problems
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What you see |
What it means |
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Observations missing from the activity menu |
The activity is locked, or you have no observation read access. |
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Page opens but nothing can be added or edited |
Read access without write. |
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No Data Available on a classification picker |
The level above has nothing beneath it in the ISF. |
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An observation is missing from a report |
It may have been deleted, or it is unclassified. Ask an administrator to check the deleted list. |
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Deleted something by mistake |
Ask a Utility Admin to restore it. You cannot do it yourself unless you are one. |
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No Show Deleted Observations button |
You are not a Utility Admin. Expected. |
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A colleague can see a deleted list and you cannot |
They hold the Utility Admin role. |
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Restored an observation and report figures changed |
Expected. It is back in reports and exports. |
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The theme you want is missing |
It does not exist yet. Ask an administrator. |
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Duplicate findings in the list |
Two people recorded the same thing. Merge them, then delete one — and say which supersedes it in the deletion reason. |
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Observation reports against the wrong attribute |
Its ISF classification is wrong. Edit it. |
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Autosave chip shows Save failed |
Read access without write, or the activity was locked. See Autosave & Drafts. |
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A draft banner appears when you open the page |
A previous save did not complete. Restore and check before retyping. |
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