Break permits down by two dimensions: the permit report and drill-down

The permit report breaks work permits down by two dimensions — for example company × plant, type × month or plant × issue-block reason — and lets you see behind every number: click it and the list of permits it is made of opens. So the question in an audit or the weekly meeting (“how many permits did which company work on in plant A?”) gets a checkable answer, not an estimate.

Before you start

Permission: the right to view Analytics analytics:view and the right to view permits ptw:view. Both the Analytics and the Permit to work module must be switched on for your organisation.
Breaking down by person: rows or columns by Person, Issuer, Approver and Coordinator, and the matching filters, need a separate right — the “Person-level permit report” ptw:report_people. Without it these options are disabled, and the page says why: “Breaking down by person, issuer, approver or coordinator requires the person-level report right.”

Steps

The permit report result: a breakdown by company and plant with permit counts and the Total row at the bottom; every number leads to the list of permits behind it. — Company × plant. The “Total” counts distinct permits, not the sum of the cells.

Open the “Permit report” tab in the Analytics tab bar (or use the “Analyze” button in the Permit list header). The page introduction: “Break permits down by two dimensions, using the report filter. Every number opens the list of the permits behind it.”
Set the shape of the report on the “Report layout” card. “Rows” and “Columns” are the two dimensions (the column can also be “None (single column)”), the “Measure” says what each cell counts (all options are in the tables below). “Sort” orders by value or by name; “Number of rows (top N)” and “Number of columns (top N)” cap the list — values beyond the cap go into an “Other” row or column, and their names are listed below the table.
Narrow it down with the filters on the “Filters” card — the same fields as on the export page: date axis (issue date, validity, close date), dates, site, plant, type, status, outcome, hazard marker, company, location, work order, issue-block reason, paper or electronic medium.
Press “Update report”. Until you do, the page says: “The settings are not applied yet — downloading is available after updating the report.” “Discard changes” brings back the last applied state.
Read the result. The heading names the measure (“Result: Number of permits”), below it you see how many permits match the filter. The coverage bar shows how complete the basis of the breakdown is: identified workers, company mentions linked to the register and permits with a plant (drafts excluded). A low share means a partial company, person or plant breakdown — the number is not wrong, it just does not cover everything.
Drill down behind a number. Click a cell or the Total: the permit list opens with the “Filtered view” bar (see the picture below the steps).
From the bar you can go on: “Back to the report”, “Open as a report”, “Export with this filter” (the filtered set goes to the export page) or “Clear filter (full list)”. In this view the list’s tabs and filters do not narrow anything: “the set comes from the filter above.”
Download the result: “Download CSV” or “Download Excel (XLSX)”. The file is the pivot table, with the settings you last updated.

The drill-down (steps 6–7) looks like this:

The drill-down bar on the permit list: the cell’s filter in plain words, the count, the Back to the report link, Export with this filter, and the filtered permits below. — The drill-down: the bar states the filter and the count, the permits are right below it.

If it worked

The number in the cell and the count of the drilled-down list match (e.g. the cell says 38, the bar says “38 permits”), and the coverage bar tells you how complete the breakdown is. If the set cannot be expressed as a filter (for example the “No marker” row), the number is not clickable and the page says so: “This set cannot be expressed with the filter (e.g. “no marker”), so it cannot be opened as a list.”

What you can break down, and what you can measure

Dimensions (rows and columns):

Dimension	What it breaks down
Site · Plant · Location (functional location)	where the permit was; a permit not tied to a location is its own row: “Not linked to a functional location”
Permit type · Hazard marker	what kind of work, what hazard
Company	the requesting company and the workers’ companies
Status · Outcome · Medium	where it stands / how it ended / electronic or paper fallback
Month	on the filter’s date axis
Issue-block reason	why an issue attempt was stopped
Risk assessment source · Assessment scope · Risk assessment	whether a risk assessment was bound (none · ad-hoc · pre-prepared), its scope (plant · whole site · whole company), and how many permits were made from each pre-prepared assessment
Person · Issuer · Approver · Coordinator	who is involved — needs ptw:report_people

Measures:

Measure	What it counts
Number of permits	the count of distinct permits
Person-hours · Active work hours	workers’ time on active permits · the permit’s active time
Suspensions · Extensions	the number of events
Failed gas tests · Risk-assessment deviations	failed tests · issues that deviated from the risk assessment’s floor, with a reason
Overnight permits · Extended permits	the flagged permits, with the share next to the cell
Permits issued over a competence warning	the issuer released the warning with a reason
Blocked issue attempts	issues stopped by the gate
Lead time: request → issue · issue → work · work → hand-back · hand-back → close (h)	the stage’s duration, as a median or P90

Reading it correctly

A permit can appear in several rows (several companies, markers, months or block reasons), so the parts can add up to more than the whole. The page says so, and the Total counts distinct permits. Person-hours on the person dimension are the exception: everyone appears with their own minutes, so the parts add up to the whole.
A share is a ratio of sums. For the flagged measures (overnight, extended, issued over a competence warning) the cell’s share is the flagged permits divided by all permits in the cell — not an average of ratios.
Lead times do not add up. The median and P90 are computed from the measured permits of the cell (linear interpolation, like Excel’s PERCENTILE.INC), so the rows’ medians do not give the Total’s median. If a permit is missing either end of the stage it is left out (not counted as zero); the “Measured permits” column says how many permits a value is based on, and an empty cell reads “No measured value”.
Broken down by issue-block reason, an attempt counts under each of its reasons (several gates can fail at once), so the parts can add up to more than the Total. The report also states that a permit’s company is the requesting company and — if the permit was later issued — the workers’ companies; which person caused a block is not recorded by the audit trail at present.
The “none” rows speak: “No plant (unknown)”, “Requesting company not in register”, “Not issued”, “Not approved”, “No issue block” — missing data is a visible row, it does not vanish from the numbers.
With a person filter, a breakdown not by person shows the permits’ whole person-hours (every worker’s minutes), not only the filtered people’s. Break down by person for per-person hours.

In the breakdown by risk assessment each pre-prepared assessment is its own row, as “number — title”; ad-hoc assessments share one row (“Ad-hoc assessments (together)”), and permits without a bound assessment are in the “No bound assessment” row — all of them can be drilled into. A company-wide assessment (valid for every site) is visible here, in the Permit report; the “Approved risk assessments” tile metric counts per site, so a company-wide approval is not in it (spread over several sites it would be counted several times). The same dimensions are also filters, and columns in the export (number, source, scope, version, expiry).

Saved views

You can save the report’s settings under a name and load them again with one click. The view lives in the “View” bar at the top of the page.

The permit report view bar: the loaded saved view, the ⋮ menu, the “modified” flag, Save and Save as — The “View” bar with a loaded shared view. The **“modified”** flag says the current settings (here a different top-N) differ from the saved ones.

What is saved: the row and column dimensions, the measure, the sort order and top-N, the whole filter and the period.
Saving: “Save” overwrites the loaded view, “Save as…” creates a new one (you give a name and a visibility). When the current settings differ from the loaded view, the bar shows “modified”. The ⋮ menu holds “Rename…”, “Share with the company…”, “Copy link” and “Delete…”; an action that is not available is disabled and the page says why.
Personal and shared: a personal view is visible only to you; a shared view is visible to everyone in the company with access to the report. You can save a personal view with the right to view Analytics analytics:view and the right to view permits ptw:view. Creating, changing or deleting a shared view, and sharing a personal one, needs analytics:manage. The selector groups views under “Personal” and “Shared”.
A view with a person-level setting can only be personal. If it breaks down by Person, Issuer, Approver or Coordinator, or has a person-level filter, it cannot be shared (neither when saving nor when sharing), and saving it needs the ptw:report_people right.
A shared view never becomes personal again. To carry on with a personal copy, use “Save as…”, as personal.
Period: in the filter bar’s “Period” selector you either give fixed days or choose a relative period: last 7, 30 or 90 days, this month, previous month, year to date, previous year. A view saved with a relative period always shows the current period — a “Monthly contractor report” shows the fresh month next month too — while a view saved with fixed days always shows the same range. The save dialog says which one it is.
Link: “Copy link” copies the link of the saved view (with no view loaded, the link of the current settings); it opens the saved view for whoever receives it, if they can see that view.
If it stops you: when two people change a view at once, the second save says: “Someone changed or deleted this view in the meantime. Reload the list, check the current state and try again.” If a saved view’s settings cannot be read, the default view is loaded and the page flags a “unreadable settings” — set it up again and save.

Adding it to a dashboard

You can place a saved view on a dashboard as a pivot tile, so the pivot is also on the Overview.

Load the saved view (the tile shows the saved view, so with unsaved changes the menu item is disabled: “Save your changes first — the tile shows the saved view.”).
In the view’s ⋮ menu choose “Add to dashboard…”, then pick the target from the My dashboards or Shared dashboards group. The tile is added at the end of the dashboard.
A dashboard that cannot be chosen shows the reason next to it: shared dashboards can be edited only with analytics:manage; the dashboard has reached its tile limit; a per-person view needs ptw:report_people; a site dashboard can only show a view whose site filter stays within that site.

The Add to dashboard dialog: shared dashboards with their scope, the site dashboards that cannot be chosen with a reason — The “Add to dashboard” dialog: company-level dashboards can be chosen; next to the site dashboards is the reason this (multi-site) view cannot go on them.

The tile is a reference, not a copy: if you change the view, the tile follows. That is why a view used by a tile cannot be deleted or changed into something that would invalidate a tile (e.g. adding a per-person dimension to a view used on a shared dashboard) — the error lists which dashboards use it (those you cannot see are given only as a number). You may add a per-person dimension to your own view used on your own dashboard. A shared view cannot be turned back into a personal one (regardless of tiles) — use “Save as…” as personal instead.

If only dashboards you cannot see use it (another user’s personal dashboard, or one on a site you cannot access), you can still delete or change a shared view with analytics:manage: a “Delete anyway” / “Save anyway” button appears under the error. On those dashboards the tile then reads “a manager deleted the referenced shared view” (or “…changed it so that it can no longer appear on this dashboard”), and the dashboard’s owner can remove the tile. The override is written to the audit log. If a visible dashboard also uses the view, there is no override: remove the tile there first.

Deleting the view is refused: a dashboard tile uses it, and the dialog names the dashboard — Deleting a view used by a tile: nothing is deleted, the dialog names the dashboard that uses it. Remove the tile there first.

A per-person view cannot go on a shared dashboard or into a scheduled report, only on your own dashboard. Whoever views the dashboard sees the tile with their own permissions; if they may not see it, they get a reason, not an empty space.

Common problems

What you see	Why	What to do
“The permit report also needs the right to view the permit register”	You have the Analytics right but not the right to view permits.	Ask your administrator for ptw:view.
“The Permit to work module is not switched on” (or the Analytics one)	The permit report needs both modules.	The module is ordered separately; contact us.
The Person, Issuer, Approver, Coordinator options are greyed out	You do not have ptw:report_people.	Ask your administrator — or pick another dimension.
“The selection was cut at the cap (partial numbers)”	The filter would match more permits than the query cap.	Narrow it to a period, site or plant.
Above the drilled-down list: “The list is truncated: … of … permits are shown.”	The on-screen list cap is smaller than the set.	The full set is available with “Export with this filter”.

Concurrently open permitsAverage, peak, by plant and by hour of day — with the same filter.

Permit metrics, permit breakdown tiles and the recipeDashboard tiles and the “Permit-to-work overview” view.

Company and person cardThe full picture of one company or one person, with drill-down.

Exporting the permit registerThe full content as a table, with saved templates.