Observations

Overview — Recording What You Found

An observation is a finding: something you noticed during the assessment, written down so it can be analysed, classified against the framework, and later turned into a recommendation.

Observations are the bridge between the raw material — survey comments, interview notes, what you saw walking the plant — and the conclusions the assessment reaches.

Open Observations from the activity's menu. It needs Observations access.

HEADS UP Observations disappears from the activity's menu when the activity is locked. Record your observations before close-out; afterwards the page is unreachable without an administrator unlocking the activity.

[ SCREENSHOT: The Observations page. ]

The Observations page.

Recording an Observation

Use Add New Observation. Each observation captures:

Field	What it holds
Team Code	The assessment team recording this observation.
Observation Summary	A short summary — this is what appears in lists and reports.
Observation detail	The full account of what you observed.
ISF classification	Three cascading pickers placing the observation in the framework.
Rating	Your judgement, on the activity's rating scale.
Themes related to this answer	The themes this observation speaks to.

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.

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.

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.

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.

GOOD TO KNOW No Data Available on the attribute picker means the chosen trait has no attributes defined in the ISF. That is a framework gap rather than something you can fix here — mention it to an administrator.

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, so splitting the finding across two observations is usually clearer than forcing one to carry both.

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.

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.

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

Control	What it does
Edit current Observation	Opens it for changes.
Delete current Observation	Removes it from the active list.

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.

Deleted Observations Can Be Restored

Deleting an observation does not destroy it. Show Deleted Observations opens the list of deleted ones, where each offers:

Control	What it does
View	Opens the observation to read it.
Restore	Returns it to the active list.

On success you get Observation Restored — "The observation has been successfully restored."

PRO TIP This makes deletion safe to use. If you are unsure whether an observation is a duplicate, delete it — you can always check Show Deleted Observations and restore it. Nothing is lost.

GOOD TO KNOW If a restore fails you will see "Failed to restore observation. Please try again." — the observation is still there; try again.

HEADS UP Deleted observations are excluded from reports and exports while deleted. If a finding has vanished from a report, check the deleted list before rewriting it.

Observations and Recommendations

Observations are what you found. Recommendations are what should be done about them.

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.

A Practical Approach

1. Record observations while they are fresh — the same day as the interview or walkdown.

2. One finding per observation. Two findings in one record cannot be classified or rated honestly.

3. Search before adding, to avoid duplicating a colleague's entry.

4. Classify and theme every one. An unclassified observation is invisible to the reports.

5. Review the full list before writing recommendations, to see the pattern rather than the parts.

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

What you see	What it means
Observations missing from the activity menu	The activity is locked, or you have no observation read access.
Page opens but nothing can be added or edited	Read access without write.
No Data Available on a classification picker	The level above has nothing beneath it in the ISF.
An observation is missing from a report	It may be deleted — check Show Deleted Observations — or unclassified.
Deleted something by mistake	Restore it from Show Deleted Observations.
Failed to restore observation	The restore did not complete. Try again.
The theme you want is missing	It does not exist yet. Ask an administrator.
Duplicate findings in the list	Two people recorded the same thing. Delete one — it stays recoverable.
Observation reports against the wrong attribute	Its ISF classification is wrong. Edit it.