Safety Hub FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about Safety Hub.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
Safety Hub Overview.
Setup
Do I have to configure anything before Safety Hub starts working?
No. When you enable Safety Hub from the Apps Marketplace, the Incidents, Observations, Toolbox Talks, Certifications, Emergency Alerts, and OSHA Compliance modules are all on by default. WCB Compliance (Canada) is the only module that is off by default — enable it in Settings if you need it. Each module has its own toggle in Settings so you can turn off what you do not use.
What do the default settings look like out of the box?
Key defaults worth knowing:
- Investigation Deadline — 7 days (configurable).
- Auto-assign Investigators — on. High/critical and injury incidents automatically get an investigator.
- Require Photos for Injury Incidents — on. Injury reports must include at least one photo.
- Allow Anonymous Observations — off. Enable in Settings if you want employees to submit observations without their name attached.
- Default Talk Duration — 15 minutes.
- Require Attendance Signatures — on.
- Certification Expiry Reminder — 30 days before expiration.
- Default Alert Channels — In-app, Email, and Push. SMS, Voice, and Digital Signage must be opted in.
- Default Alert Recipient Response — Acknowledgement (the alternative is Safety check-in, which adds the muster roll-call).
- Send Weekly Safety Summary — off. Opt in under Settings to send a digest every Monday.
Permissions and access
Who can see and do what in Safety Hub?
Safety Hub uses a three-tier model:
- Members (any employee with app access) — report incidents, submit observations, view their own submissions, view their own certifications, attend toolbox talks, respond to emergency alerts, and browse the safety knowledge base.
- Managers (platform Manager role or above, or a Safety Hub app-admin) — everything a member can do, plus view and manage all incidents at their assigned locations, assign investigators, close incidents, determine OSHA and WCB recordability, manage observations and campaigns, run toolbox talks, view certification rosters and training gaps, access analytics, and bulk-export or print reports.
- Admins (platform Admin or Super Admin, or a Safety Hub app-admin) — everything a manager can do with unrestricted access across all locations, plus delete incidents, import industry templates, create and edit certification requirements, manage alert templates, and access Settings.
Why can’t a manager see incidents at another location?
Non-admin managers are scoped to the locations they manage. An incident at a location outside their assignment — or an incident with no location set — is invisible to them. Admins and Safety Hub app-admins see incidents across every location. If a manager needs broader visibility, either assign them to the additional locations or grant them the Safety Hub app-admin role.
Day-to-day
What incident types and severity levels are available?
Eight incident types: Injury, Near-miss, Property damage, Environmental, Security, Vehicle accident, Equipment failure, and Other. “Other” is a triage bucket for reports that do not fit a specific category — reclassify them once reviewed.
Four severity levels: Low, Medium, High, and Critical. High or Critical incidents, and any Injury regardless of severity, automatically enter the investigation workflow.
How does the investigation workflow work?
When an incident qualifies (high/critical severity, or any injury), Safety Hub auto-assigns an investigator — first the location’s manager, then a business admin, then a business manager — and sets a deadline based on the Investigation Deadline setting (default 7 days). The investigator records findings, root-cause analysis, recommendations, and contributing factors, then marks the investigation complete. Only after that can the incident be closed.
Managers can also manually assign any active user with a Super Admin, Admin, or Manager role as an investigator. If an investigation passes its deadline, the investigator and their manager receive an overdue alert. If you enable Require Re-authentication Before Printing or Exporting Incident Reports in Settings, managers must verify their identity before printing or exporting reports that contain personal and medical details.
How are corrective actions tracked and closed?
Corrective actions live in a unified register shared with the Inspections app. Each action has one of eight types (Immediate, Short-term, Long-term, Preventive, Training, Policy change, Equipment, Environmental), a priority (Low, Medium, High, Critical — default Medium), a due date, and an assignee. Actions move through Pending → In-progress → Completed (or Cancelled). Overdue is calculated from the due date in real time.
Two optional settings change the close rules:
- Require Effectiveness Verification Before Closing (ISO 45001) — completed actions must be verified by someone other than the assignee before the parent incident can close. The assignee cannot verify their own action.
- Escalate Overdue Corrective Actions To — choose None (default), Safety Officer, or Owner’s Manager.
Can employees submit incidents and observations anonymously?
Yes, with different rules for each:
- Incidents always allow the anonymous flag. Anonymous incidents are visible to managers and admins, not to other members.
- Observations require the Allow Anonymous Observations setting to be on (off by default). When enabled and the employee checks the anonymous box, their name is stripped from the record. Anonymous observations are visible only to managers.
- Public safety portal — a branded page at
/safetywhere anyone (employees, visitors, contractors) can submit a Hazard, Near-miss, Incident, or Safety Suggestion with no login. Anonymous is an option on every submission. The portal must be enabled in your public portal configuration.
How do observation campaigns work?
Managers create a campaign with a start date, end date (default span is 30 days), a target observation count (default 100), optional focus categories and locations, and optional reward points. Any employee with app access can contribute observations during the campaign. The campaign page shows a progress bar, a participation leaderboard of the top 8 observers, and a count of anonymous contributions. Campaigns move through Draft → Active → Completed (or Cancelled).
How do toolbox talks and attendance tracking work?
A manager creates a talk with a title, a facilitator, a scheduled date, and optionally a topic from the reusable topic library (21 built-in categories, from PPE to Workplace Violence). Expected attendees are invited by notification if Send Toolbox Talk Invitations is on (default on). The facilitator starts the meeting, records attendance, and completes it — actual duration is calculated automatically.
When Require Attendance Signatures is on (the default), each attendee signs digitally. If expected attendees are absent, their managers and the facilitator receive a notification. The attendance rate is the percentage of expected attendees who actually attended.
How do Emergency Alerts and muster roll-call work?
Emergency Alerts dispatch a message across up to six channels: In-app, Email, Push, SMS, Voice, and Digital Signage. Every alert is urgent and bypasses recipient quiet hours. Each alert uses one of two response modes:
- Acknowledgement — recipients confirm they read the alert.
- Safety check-in (muster roll-call) — recipients respond “I’m safe” or “Need help” with an optional situation note. The dashboard shows safe, needs-help, and unresponded counts in real time.
Alerts support photo and video attachments (images up to 10 MB, videos up to 50 MB, maximum 4), reusable templates, pre-send approval workflows, and an AI composer copilot that suggests severity, channels, and polished text. SMS messages are limited to 320 characters and voice messages to 700 characters. Acknowledgement reminders go out every 6 hours for up to 7 days past the deadline.
How does OSHA and WCB compliance reporting work?
OSHA (US): Safety Hub maintains the OSHA 300 Log, Form 300A (Annual Summary), and Form 301 (Individual Injury Report). It calculates TRIR and DART rate using the standard formula (cases × 200,000 ÷ total hours worked), rounded to two decimal places. Forms can be downloaded as PDFs, and you can upload your own official fillable PDF template for the 300A. Electronic submission to OSHA’s ITA portal is not yet available — download and file the forms yourself. OSHA compliance is on by default.
WCB (Canada): Enable in Settings. The WCB dashboard shows lost-time cases, days lost, modified-work days, LTIR, total injury rate, and severity rate, with province filtering. Province is set automatically from the incident’s location. WCB is off by default.
Both surfaces require Manager or above access.
How are certifications and training gaps tracked?
Admins define certification requirements scoped by role, location, department, or job title (or all employees for any dimension). Safety Hub aggregates held certifications from two sources: the Skills app (employee skills marked as certified) and external LMS records via Training Connect. It flags credentials expiring within the reminder window (default 30 days) and those already expired, and shows gap counts by employee and by requirement. Training certificates of completion are permanent and do not expire.
Managers view the full certification roster, expiring and expired lists, compliance status by requirement, and training gap analysis. Only admins can create, edit, or delete certification requirements. New requirements default to 12-month validity, a 30-day renewal reminder, and mandatory status.
When something looks wrong
“I reported an incident but my manager didn’t get notified”
Check three things: (1) Notify Managers on New Incidents must be on in Settings (default on). (2) Enable Email Notifications must be on if you expect email (default on). (3) For high or critical severity incidents, notifications route through the escalation engine — if escalation reaches someone, the standard manager notification is skipped to avoid duplicates. Also confirm the manager is assigned to the incident’s location; site-scoped managers do not receive notifications for locations outside their assignment.
“I can’t close this incident — it says actions still need verification”
This happens when Require Effectiveness Verification Before Closing (ISO 45001) is enabled in Settings. Every completed corrective action on the incident must be verified by someone other than the assignee before the incident can close. Check the corrective actions register for actions still awaiting verification. If the policy does not apply to your organization, turn the setting off. Also, if the incident required an investigation, the investigation must be marked complete before closure is allowed.
“The public safety portal says ‘not available’”
The portal at /safety requires two things: Safety Hub must be enabled for your business, and the Safety Hub Portal must be switched on in your public portal configuration. Both must be true or visitors see “Safety portal is not available.”
“The autonomous monitoring isn’t flagging stalled investigations”
Autonomous monitoring watches for two patterns: investigations with no update in the last 7 days, and high or critical severity incidents in Reported status with no investigator. Check that the Safety Hub AI agent is enabled in Settings. If the agent was auto-paused (it pauses itself when the error rate climbs too high over 24 hours, after at least 5 actions), you will need to resume it from AI Operations. The daily action limit depends on the agent’s trust tier: 10 in Probation, 50 in Standard, 200 in Trusted. Autonomous actions in Safety Hub are notification-only — they nudge managers but never change records.
Licensing and limits
Does Safety Hub require a licence?
Yes. Safety Hub requires a licence and is disabled by default. An administrator enables it from the Apps Marketplace. It is not auto-enabled for any tenant.
Are there limits I should know about?
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Incident title length | 3–255 characters |
| Incident description minimum | 10 characters |
| Incident date | cannot be in the future |
| Corrective action description | up to 2,000 characters |
| Witness / involved-person name | 2–255 characters |
| Alert photo/video attachments | up to 4 (images up to 10 MB, videos up to 50 MB) |
| Alert SMS body | 320 characters |
| Alert voice body | 700 characters |
| Alert ack reminder interval | every 6 hours, up to 7 days |
| Campaign default target | 100 observations |
| Campaign default duration | 30 days |
| Investigation deadline default | 7 days (configurable) |
| Certification expiry reminder default | 30 days (configurable) |
| Default talk duration | 15 minutes (configurable) |
| Observation categories (default set) | PPE, Housekeeping, Behavior, Equipment, Other |
| Autonomous daily action limit | 10 / 50 / 200 (by trust tier) |
| TRIR / DART / LTIR formula | cases × 200,000 ÷ total hours worked |
More help
- Safety Hub Overview
- Ask AI — the assistant answers Safety Hub questions from these articles.