Jobs, crews and timesheets: the Operations module

The Operations module is the step between a client's request and the reports that answer it: who goes where with which kit, the hours they work, and the client's signature on those hours. Everyday jobs come first; a shutdown or turnaround is the same things at a larger scale, with worklists, norms, demand, estimates and blockers added. With the module off, nothing of it shows and reports work exactly as before. With it on, a report can still answer a request directly: a job is never required.

Switching it on

The module is included in the Business plan and is an add-on below it (see plans and billing). Once your company has it, an owner switches it on in Settings, Operations with Switch the Operations module on. The sidebar then gains an Operations section: My day, My hours and pay, Jobs, Daily board, Readiness, Norms, and, for those allowed, Rate cards, Payroll and Exchange rates. Switching it off hides everything and deletes nothing.

The same settings page holds the module's choices: whether people tick their own readiness items, your home currency, where exchange rates come from and which day's rate counts, whether people see their own pay, and an overhead percentage. Each is explained below.

Two more kinds of member

Switching the module on brings two kinds of member to the Team page (see team and roles):

• Crew member: an assistant or helper. They see their own day and enter their own hours, and never write, sign or review a report. A crew member holds no other role and takes no seat on your plan, so there is no limit to how many you have.
• Short-term: a member of staff with Access ends on set. They keep their access through that day and are deactivated after it, in your company's own time zone; their seat is free from then. Owners have no end date.

Two roles join the usual ones: Planner (creates jobs, assigns people and kit, runs the daily board, approves hours) and Supervisor (runs the jobs they are named on: assigns people, logs blockers, approves hours).

Jobs

Jobs lists your jobs, Open or All. A job belongs to a project and is numbered JOB-0001, JOB-0002 and so on, in a sequence of its own. Owners, admins and planners create jobs and manage every one; a supervisor manages the jobs they are named on; every staff member can read them.

To start one, choose New job and the project, or open a request and choose Plan a job for this request. The form asks for:

• Title and Site: where the work is, the plant, the yard, the gate.
• First day and Last day. Leave the last day empty for an open-ended job.
• Time zone: the shifts' hours are in this zone. It is your company's unless you change it.
• Timesheets: A timesheet a day or A timesheet a week, which decides how hours are gathered later.
• Supervisor, and optionally the Asset the job is about.
• Requests to take up: each request's items become work items of the job, and the request goes in progress. A request can be on one open job at a time.

Choose Create the job. People, shifts and equipment come next, on the job's page.

A job's status is one of Planned, Scheduled, In progress, On hold, Complete and Cancelled; change it with Change status, with a note for the record. A cancelled job hands back the requests no report has answered. Complete or cancelled, nothing on the job changes any more; a job is cancelled, never deleted.

Work items

Work items are what there is to inspect: a weld, a TML, a line, a tag. On the job's page, Add a work item asks for a Reference, a Description, the Method, a Quantity with its Unit, Planned minutes and the Asset. A reference that names a joint the tracker knows is linked to it and shows as "Tracked as". A planned item never makes a joint: joints come from issued reports.

Items also arrive three other ways:

• From the requests the job took up, one item per line of the request.
• From the scope of work: tick the inspections of the project's scope of work that are still owed; each becomes a work item with its method and how much is still to do, and a report started from it answers that inspection.
• Import a worklist: the client's list as Excel (.xlsx) or CSV, with the headings in the first row. Choose the file and Read the worklist. NDT Intact guesses which column is which from the headings; where AI is on for your company, AI proposes the mapping from the headings and the first rows instead (see AI). Check the mapping against the preview, correct it, and choose Import with the number of rows. Rows without a reference are left out and listed. Nothing is written until you confirm, and who confirmed is on record. Set aside drops the list without importing.

An item's status is Not started, In progress, Blocked, Complete or Cancelled. Whoever manages the job, or is on any of its shifts, crew members included, changes it from the job's page or from their day. Start a report on an item starts a report linked to it, with the job's kit filled in; issuing the report answers the request the job took up, as any report does.

Shifts, people and equipment

Add a shift on the job's page: a Date, a Kind (Day shift, Night shift or Other hours) with its hours From and To, and a note. A shift belongs to the day it starts on, a night shift included. A shift is removed only while nobody is on it.

Add a person to a shift: the Person, their Role on the job (lead technician, technician, assistant, supervisor, trainee, or a role of your own), the Method they do, and optionally the Work item. A person is on a shift once. Move to another shift moves them to any shift of any open job in one step; Take off the shift removes them. The person is emailed each time, with a link to their day.

Add equipment puts a piece of the register on the job From one day To another. Its calibration must hold through the job's last day, or a warning says so.

Warnings that never block

When a person or kit is assigned, and again every day, NDT Intact checks the registers and raises warnings:

• No certificate for the method valid on the shift's date.
• A calibration that runs out before the job's last day, or none recorded.
• Also on another open job at the same time, for people by day and for kit by overlapping days.
• A short-term member whose access ends before the shift.

A warning never refuses an assignment. An owner, admin, planner or supervisor can choose Override and give a reason; the warning stays on record with the reason, in the activity log. A warning is cleared by itself when its cause is gone, for example once a new certificate is in the register.

The daily board

Daily board shows one day: every job with a shift that day, who is on each shift with their warnings, the equipment on the job, and Not assigned this day, the people who are free. Move puts a person on another shift of the day; Add puts a free person on a shift with a role and a method; Remove takes them off. The count of open warnings is at the top. The board is for planners and supervisors; owners and admins see it too.

My day

My day is a person's own page: their jobs for a date, with the site, the client, the shift's hours, Your role, Your method, Your work item, the work items with a status control, the equipment booked that day, and the supervisor with Call and Email. Technicians and crew members see the same page. Under Your hours a person records the day's hours and sends them for approval; under Your readiness they see what each job needs from them.

The page works offline once opened; a status changed without signal is sent when the connection returns. See working offline.

Hours

Hours are whole minutes per person, job, day and Kind of time: normal, overtime, night, weekend, holiday, standby, travel, or kinds of your own. Open Hours from the job's page, or record your own from your day.

• A person on the job records their own with Record hours (the date, the kind of time, the Minutes: 480 is eight hours, the work item, a note), then Send my hours for approval. Crew members do the same.
• Whoever manages the job records a crew's hours on one screen; those count as sent at once.
• A planner or supervisor approves with Approve everything waiting or Approve selected, or chooses Return with a reason: the hours go back to the person as a draft with the reason on them. Nobody approves their own hours.

An entry is Not sent, Waiting for approval or Approved. Approved hours change only by being returned. Once on a timesheet that has gone out, hours are locked and show the sheet's number.

Timesheets

A timesheet gathers the approved hours of one job for one period, a day or a week (Monday to Sunday) as the job says, into a numbered sheet the client signs. Open Timesheets from the job's page.

1. Gather a timesheet: pick any day of the period and choose Gather. The sheet is numbered TS-0001 in a sequence of its own and is a draft.
2. Send to the client: the approved hours are gathered again, the PDF is printed with its fingerprint and a QR code to its verification page, the hours on it are locked, and the client's users who may sign are emailed. The sheet is Sent for signature.
3. The client signs or disputes it in the portal, under Timesheets. Only a client user allowed to Sign timesheets (set on the client's page, under what they may do in the portal) can sign; others read. A signed sheet is Signed and frozen: nothing on it can change. A disputed one is Disputed, with the client's note, and you correct it with a revision.
4. Signed on paper instead? Choose Signed on paper, upload the scan, name who signed, and Attest and mark signed. The record says it was signed on paper and on whose word.

A correction is a revision: Start a revision opens a draft with the same number, the period's hours can be returned, corrected and approved again, and sending it supersedes the old sheet. A sheet signed in error is withdrawn by an owner or admin with Withdraw and a reason; it stays on record as Withdrawn, and its hours are free to be gathered again. No timesheet is ever deleted.

Anyone with the sheet's QR code or link opens its verification page: the number, revision, company, job, period, total and whether it is signed; never names, never money.

Under Exports on a sheet: Hours (Excel) and Hours (CSV) for payroll, for anyone who reads the job; Priced lines (Excel) and Priced lines (CSV) for invoicing, with the rate card that applies, for people with commercial access; and, where the card is not in your home currency, invoice lines with each amount in your home currency as well, at your own exchange rate.

Readiness: mobilisation checklists

Readiness is who and what is ready for a job before it starts. Owners, admins and planners keep the requirements under Readiness in the sidebar: Add a requirement says whether it is For people or equipment, which Requirement (site induction, client approval, fit to work, site pass, visa, travel, accommodation, dosimetry, rope access, gas safety training, or a kind of your own added to the requirement list under Templates), and what it Applies to: Every job, One client's jobs, Jobs on one site, One client's jobs on one site or One job. Tick Needs the date it runs out for a pass, a visa or a medical, and Needs a file for a scan of the card or certificate. A requirement added later applies to jobs already planned.

Each job has a board, from Open the mobilisation board on the job's page: people down, requirements across, one cell per person and requirement. The colour is worked out from what is recorded and the job's dates, never typed:

• Green: Ready, or Not applicable.
• Amber: Waiting to be confirmed (the person ticked it themself), or Runs out during the job.
• Red: Missing, or Run out before the job's first day.

An item recorded on an earlier job and still in date counts here too and says which job it came from, so a visa is recorded once. Equipment has a fixed first column, Calibration, read from the register, then your own checks.

Those who run the job (owners, admins, planners, the job's supervisor) click a cell and Record it: Done, with Valid until and the file where the requirement asks for them, or Not applicable with a reason. Where People tick their own readiness items is on in Settings, Operations (it is on unless an owner switches it off), a person ticks their own from their day with Tick it, and it waits as amber until a planner chooses Confirm. A file is seen only by the person it belongs to and those who run the job; a technician never sees another person's items. The dashboard counts Not ready for upcoming jobs, for jobs starting within two weeks.

Blockers and standby

A blocker is what held the work up on site. Staff on the job or those who run it choose Log a blocker on a work item or on the job (crew members tell their supervisor): What holds the work up (scaffolding, insulation, surface preparation, permit to work, access, client hold, weather, equipment, or a kind of your own), the Work item or The whole job, From and Until as a day and a time on the job's clock (empty means now), a note and a Photo. The item goes Blocked and returns to In progress when the last blocker on it closes.

Close the blocker when it ends. NDT Intact then proposes standby under Standby to confirm: the people on the shifts the blocker overlapped, each with the minutes it held them up. Whoever approves hours keeps, changes or drops each line and chooses Record the standby; the kept lines become standby hours sent for approval like any others, and they point back at the blocker. On the signed timesheet, a standby line names what held the crew up, so the client sees why.

Extra scope

Work found beyond the job is raised as extra scope, by staff on the job or those who run it: Raise extra scope on a work item, or from a report. Describe it as the work item it would become (Reference, Method, What the work is, where it was found) and Why it is extra, then Send to the client. Its status is With the client, Approved, Rejected or Withdrawn; you can Withdraw it while it is undecided.

The client decides in the portal under Extra scope, with Approve (and a note) or Reject (and a reason); their name and the time are recorded, and your people are emailed the decision. Only a client user allowed to Approve extra scope on the client's page may decide; others read. Approved, it becomes a work item on the job at once, and joins the asset's scope of work where the asset keeps one.

Norms

A norm is your own figure for how long a unit of work takes: under Norms, Add a norm with the Method, the Kind of item (words found in the item's description, such as "butt weld"; empty for any item of the method), Per unit (weld, m, point; empty for per item), Minutes per unit, Crew size, a size band for your records, and the Level needed. Owners, admins and planners keep norms; every staff member reads them. NDT Intact ships none: every figure is yours. The most specific norm that fits a work item applies, one naming the unit and the kind of item before one naming the method alone. Norms are archived, never removed.

Demand and estimates

Demand on the job's page shows what the work items need, from their planned minutes or the norms that fit them: hours and people-shifts per method, and by day the need spread evenly over the job's days against the people on shifts doing that method. A day with fewer people assigned than it needs is red. Items with neither planned minutes nor a norm count as nothing and are said so. Every figure is indicative.

Estimates on the job's page need commercial access. Draft an estimate prices the demand with the rate card that applies: the hours per method at the card's rate, the equipment on the job as days, and the allowance per person and day. The estimate is numbered EST-0001 in its own sequence. While it is a draft, change quantities and rates, Add a line (People, Equipment, Allowance, Mobilisation or Other) and Save the draft. Issue makes it a record that cannot change; Revise opens a revision with the same number, and issuing that supersedes the old. There is no estimate PDF yet.

Progress and close-out

Progress on the job's page shows the items done against the total, the hours Planned against Approved (and of which standby) by day and per work item, and Complete, no issued report: items marked complete whose reports are not issued yet. At the end, the close-out compares, for each norm that priced complete items, the approved minutes actually spent on them with the norm's figure, standby left out, and suggests a new minutes per unit. A planner chooses Apply to make a new norm and archive the old; nothing changes by itself. One job is one job: the suggestions are indicative.

Money

Money in the module is stored in whole minor units of one currency and is never converted silently. Each rate card is in one currency, each person is paid in theirs, and your exchange rates are used only to show an amount in your home currency as well.

Who sees money

Two grants on the Team page, given by an owner; owners always have both, and a crew member never has either:

• Commercial access is the selling side: rate cards, estimates, a job's costs, priced exports, and money in the API.
• Finance access includes commercial access and adds pay rates, payroll, exchange rates, job margins and an instrument's daily cost.

A planner without a grant plans a job and sees no rate. Hiding is done on the server, not in the page.

Rate cards

Rate cards holds what you charge: Add a rate card with a Name, one Currency, and what it Applies to: The whole organisation, One client or One project. The most specific card applies. A card carries overtime thresholds (Overtime after so many minutes a day and a week, and whether normal hours on Saturday and Sunday count as weekend hours), a Per diem per person and day, and its rates: per hour for people by Role, Method, Level and Kind of time, per day for equipment by type. A job billed in another currency than its project names its own card under Rate card for this job on the job's page. Cards are archived, never removed.

Your home currency and exchange rates

In Settings, Operations, an owner sets the Home currency your books are kept in, Where exchange rates come from (Typed in, the National Bank of Kazakhstan for a home currency of tenge, the European Central Bank for euros, or the Market rates service for any currency, which is indicative), and Which day's exchange rate counts: The day worked, The day the timesheet was signed or The invoice date.

Under Exchange rates, people with finance access type a day's rate with Save rate, or choose Take the rates from the source; with a bank or the service chosen, the rates are also taken by themselves three times a day. A rate you typed is never overwritten. A day without a rate takes the latest before it.

Pay rates and payroll

Pay rates, for finance access only: for each person, Set pay or Change gives a new set from a date, in the currency they are Paid in, per hour or per day, with a rate for any kind of time and rates for particular kinds. Earlier sets stay on record, and hours keep the rate of the day they were worked.

Payroll prices the approved hours of a period across every job at each person's own rate, totalled per currency, and exports them with Excel or CSV. Beside the hours, Add an adjustment puts a Bonus, an Allowance or a Reimbursement onto a person's pay, or an Advance paid or a Deduction against it, on a day; the amount is always above zero and the kind gives the sign. To pay is what that leaves. NDT Intact works out no tax and prints no payslips: that stays with your payroll system.

Costs and the margin

Costs on the job's page, for commercial access: Add an expense with its Kind (travel, accommodation, consumables, a subcontractor and more), what it was, the currency it was Paid in, the amount, who paid (the company, or a person out of their own pocket, whom you reimburse with an adjustment on Payroll) and the Receipt. Tick Billed on to the client to put it on the timesheet's priced export at cost. On an instrument's page, Daily cost (finance access) says what a day of it costs the company. The overhead percentage in Settings, Operations adds a share of what people are paid for what no job carries by itself.

Margin on the job's page, for finance access, sets what the job earns against what it costs: the approved hours by the job's rate card and by pay, equipment days billed against daily cost, expenses, and the overhead, each brought to your home currency at your own rates. What has no rate is listed and left out, never guessed. It is indicative and before tax.

Your own hours and pay

My hours and pay shows every member, crew members included, their own hours of a month, their pay rate and what the approved hours come to, as an estimate before tax; never a colleague's figures and never what the client is charged. An owner switches it off with People see their own hours and pay in Settings, Operations.

My work, every company, in your own menu, shows your hours and pay in every company you work or worked for on NDT Intact, after a contract has ended too, and your own log of work for companies that are not on it: Add work with the day, the hours or days and the rate you agreed. Only you see that page.

What the client sees

In the portal, with the module on, a client's users see Timesheets sent to them and signed, and Extra scope to decide on. They see hours, never money, and nothing else of the module: no jobs, shifts, readiness or blockers. Which of a client's users may sign timesheets or approve scope is set on the client's page, under what each person may do in the portal.