It gives me a huge amount of pleasure to announce that our latest app – Assure360 Audit 3.0 – has been finished! You can already download this third release of our essential health and safety auditing app to your iOS or Android device: find Assure360 Audit on the Apple AppStore, and Assure360 Audit on Google Play.

We had big ambitions for this release of the app, and we’ve spent the last year or two on a long development road, guided by the suggestions of our fellow safety professionals. This isn’t some lightly tweaked update: Assure360 Audit 3.0 is packed with new features and functionality, designed by and for auditors.

The app is now much smarter – it talks to our other solution, Assure360 Paperless. If you’re auditing a site that is being run with our industry leading Paperless solution, then the Audit App already knows all the details from the job – including the address, and who is on site. Another new feature is that you can promote a site ‘operative’ to a Deputy Supervisor. This will automatically adjust the competency questions to correctly reflect their management role.

The app’s improved intelligence has also allowed us to build in more flexibility. Assure360 Audit has always supported bespoke audits, but now the process is incredibly streamlined. A brand new audit can be designed, rolled out, and shared across the community within just an hour or two.

We’ve added specific improvements and extra functionality all-round. Some examples include:

Photographs

One of the most common requests from auditors was ‘can we take more photos?’. We’ve done away with the previous limit – take as many as you need to describe the situation.

Assigning points

We’ve revamped this system to add much more flexibility, allowing 10% increments, rather than the previous 25%. You can also double up. Imagine the example of a severe trip hazard. Obviously the supervisor should have resolved this before you got there, but say three operatives also ignored it. The app now allows you to assign the issue to all four of the site team, without overstating its overall seriousness.

Safety Tour

This isn’t a new feature, but with the improvements in the latest release, it’s well worth discovering if you don’t already use it. Activate it, and the app strikes out every question with ‘N/A’. You can then dip into the audit and record only the particular areas of interest. It’s ideal for senior managers visiting the site for a meeting, for example.

Site return

Now, if you’re returning to a site you already audited, you can copy the original audit, rather than starting from memory or scratch. This allows you to directly comment on progress, and it helps ensure more thorough follow-up.

What else is new?

All our apps are built from personal experience, but Assure360 Audit in particular is the app I use almost every day. Among its new features, our new search facility is my personal favourite: just type in a key word for what you are looking for (e.g. ‘Trip’), and the app will filter the menu to show the most relevant bits. As a quick way to find the best home for your observation it’s an obvious time-saver, but it’s also a big bonus in other situations:

• Safety Tour feature – Start off with a clean sheet as above, and Search allows a Contracts Manager to find and record the few observations they have in seconds.
• Translating ARCA and ACAD audits – Want to manage all of your external audits using the incredibly powerful analytical tools in Assure360? Start with a safety tour and add the one or two observations from the auditor. Now this is a simple process taking maybe five minutes per audit.
• HSE visits – Treat these as above to manage closeout in the most efficient way. Every observation will also contribute to your trends and training needs analyses.
• Audit Prep – I use this feature all the time now, especially in conjunction with Paperless. Before you even get to the site you can get a good idea as to what is going on, for example by reading the latest set of RAMS to understand what you might need to follow up when you get there. Studying the site paperwork stored in the cloud also shows you what the supervisor has or hasn’t recorded. And all the while you can use Search to make notes for later follow up, tagging them as a non-conformance so they’re easy to find again.

All wrapped up

The final major improvement is to the upload process. Now all you do is tap Sync when finished, and the audit will upload directly from your app to the cloud, assigning any actions within seconds of you leaving the site.

It’s been a long development road, but we’ve arrived at a redesigned health and safety auditing app that further simplifies and improves the auditing process. It’s full of expanded functionality, and enhanced to further streamline data collection and synchronisation. We’re delighted with the outcome – and we hope you will be too.

Want a demo of the new Assure360 Audit app, and how to get the most from it? Curious to see what Assure360 and its apps can do for you? Why not contact us? We’d be delighted to show you around the system.