Using Notifications in Incidents

05 Mar Using Notifications in Incidents

For information on the new Notifications and Printable Profiles upgrade, click here.

Using the Notifications section in Incidents is separate to the automated incident profile emails sent, if you use the Incident Email field in Control, or if you use the individual Incident Email field against a Business Level 1.  For more information on how to set up these, please click here.

When to use Notifications

The Notifications section is useful for detailing who you notified about an incident, and when.  This could be for an internal investigation, an external investigation (where WorkSafe, etc. are involved), or just to document that employees and/or management within your business have been notified about the incident.

How to set up Authorities

The Notification section relies on the Authority Master File being set up.

For more information about adding Master Files, please click here.

To do this, please click on “Master Files” in the program menu, and then scroll down to “Authority“.

Click the “Add” button on the right-hand side.

Type in an “Authority Name” – this could be WorkSafe NZ, your regional council, “Management Team”, etc.  This is a compulsory field.

Note down an “Authority Description” if necessary – just to clarify more about the authority.  E.g. if the “Authority Name” is “Management Team”, who’s in the management team?  Use the Description to note this down. This is a compulsory field.

The “Email” field is compulsory.  If you add in an email address, when you notify this authority, they will receive the current version of the incident profile to this email address.

Click “Save“, and the authority is now set up.

Repeat to set up all authorities that you would like to use.

How to use Notifications for an investigation

To do this, please set up an incident – for information on how to do this, please click here.  Add as much information into the incident as you have, and click “Save“.

Scroll down to the “Notifications” section of the incident.

Click the green “Email” button on the right hand side.

This will bring up all the authorities you have set up – whether they are internal or external.

• Email Text – type what you want to say in the body of the email.  If this person hasn’t received an email like this before, make sure to include information about what this email is.
• Click the “Selected” tickbox beside one or more authorities that you would like to be notified.  They will all see the same email text.
• Click the green “Email” button at the bottom of the screen.
• This email has now been sent.
• NOTE – a copy of the email will also be sent to any email addresses in the “Incident Email” field in Control.  This is so that you have proof that you sent this information to them.

A copy of the incident profile will be sent to the authority/s.  It will look like this:

• From: noreply@hasmate.co.nz
• Subject Line: Incident No: XX  Incident Type: XX (this will show the incident number from your Hasmate program, and the Incident Type chosen for the incident).
• The “Email Text” will show up in the body of the email.
• The printable profile will be attached as a PDF to the email.

This will now show in the “Notifications” section.

• Authority Notified – this will show the name of the authority notified.  If multiple authorities were notified at once, these will show as separate lines.
• Date Notified – this will show the date that you sent the above notification.  This is automated.
• Time Notified – this will show the time that you sent the above notification.  This is automated.

The other fields can then be added.  You can click the “Edit” button on the right hand side, and add the following information:

• Date Notified – this will be automatically set to the date that you added the notification, but can be changed to a different date if appropriate.
• Time Notified – this will be automatically set to the time that you added the notification, but can be changed to a different time if appropriate.
• Report Method – this could be “Email”, “Phone”, “Meeting”, etc.
• Confirm Reference – this is more often used in external investigations, if an authority provides you with a reference number for your case.
• Comment – this is used for documenting an offline conversation, points of action, etc.

Continue adding in notifications as they happen – you can then look back and know who the incident has been discussed with, action points, etc.

Notifications vs Incident Email

When you fill in the first information about an incident, e.g. the “Incident Details” section, and click “Save”, this generates the automated email based on the “Incident Email” field.

The difference between using Notifications and the Incident Email field, is that you control when the incident profile is emailed to somebody.  If an incident needs more information, it’s best to not use the automated Incident Email field.  However, this can still be useful, as long as the PCBUs receiving this email are aware that the incident is still unfolding, or more information is being collected.

Notifications and Printable Profiles

NOTE – the change to how the printable profile works was made in May 2023.

When you click the “Profile” button, a popup will appear.

The popup has a tick-box “Show Notifications on profile“, with another tick-box under that “Show only notified authorities“.  There is an “Export” button at the bottom right, which when clicked will generate the printable profile.

There are three scenarios:

1. “Show Notifications on profile” is not ticked.
   No Notifications/”Authorities Notified” will appear on the printable profile, even if some authorities have been notified.
2. “Show Notifications on profile” is ticked, but the “Show only notified authorities” is not ticked.
   Notifications/”Authorities Notified” will appear on the printable profile, and will display both notified (these will have “Yes” beside them) and unnotified active authorities (these will have “No” beside them).
3. “Show Notifications on profile” is ticked, and the “Show only notified authorities” is ticked.
   Notifications/”Authorities Notified” will appear on the printable profile, and will only display notified (these will have “Yes” beside them) active authorities.  It will not display any unnotified authorities.

If you have further questions, please contact Hasmate.