Preparation tasks and permit conditions in the shift diary

Before hazardous work, the plant’s team often has to prepare the area first: isolate, blind, drain. On the permit you prescribe this as a preparation task: the item goes to the plant’s shift diary as a diary task, the shift does it, and its status comes back to the permit. Depending on your organisation’s policy, completing the required items can also be a condition of issuing: the “Completion of preparation tasks” gate is Off in the Lenient profile, Warn in the starting OPEREX recommended profile, and Block in the Strict profile.

Before you start

• Permission: issuing a permit — ptw:issue. No separate task right is needed.
• Prerequisite: the permit is at least Requested, and it has a plant — without a plant there is nowhere to send the diary task, and the page says so.

The template can bring items too

If the work permit template has preparation items, they are added to the permit when it is created, and they go to the diary when the request is submitted. The issuer can edit them freely.

Steps

A new item in the editor, before saving. After saving, the diary task’s status shows next to the row.

1. Open the permit and find the Preparation tasks (before issue) card.

2. Click “Add item” and type the task — one task per row, specific (for example “Isolate and blind the DN200 line”).

3. Choose the target shift (Any shift · Morning · Afternoon · Night), and decide whether the item is required. The issue gate measures the required items.

4. Click “Save preparation tasks”. Every new or changed item goes to the plant’s diary as a diary task, titled “PERMIT PREPARATION: …”.

5. The shift does it in the diary. Its status is marked among the diary’s Tasks, and a Permit preparation block in the diary also shows which permit is still waiting for preparation (“Preparation: 1/2 done” · “Remaining: …”).

6. Follow it on the permit. Next to every item stands its diary-side status: ○ Open · ◐ In progress · ✓ Done · ◔ Unfinished · ✕ Not done — or ⊘ No live diary task. The card header sums it up: “Preparation: … / … done” (for the required items).

7. Issue the permit. The bar at the top of the permit’s page lists the issue gates in advance (already on the draft), so a missing preparation shows before issuing. If the policy gate “Completion of preparation tasks” is on Warn (the default on the recommended profile), you can issue with a justification despite the missing completion, and the reason goes into the signature chain; on Block, issuing does not go through until every required item is Done.

One-person issue and required preparation

The template’s preparation items go to the diary when the request is submitted. If your organisation has One-person issue (no requester) switched on and you would issue the draft without a request, while the “Completion of preparation tasks” gate is on Block and the permit has a required preparation item, the issue does not go through: “The template’s mandatory preparation tasks go to the diary with the request step, and the policy requires them before issue — submit it as a request.” Submit it as a request, and the items go to the diary.

Changing the text means a new task

If you rewrite the text or the target shift of a saved item, saving issues a new diary task, the old one is closed, and its status does not carry over. Toggling required does not touch the existing task.

If it worked

After saving, the page says: “… preparation item(s) saved. … new diary task(s) created, … earlier one(s) closed.” In the plant’s diary the task appears with the PERMIT PREPARATION prefix, and on the permit the status badge stands next to the item. It also shows up in the shared Tasks view, with the Permit source label.

Permit conditions: the shift’s tasks under the permit

On an issued permit the issuer can also prescribe conditions — for example “Hourly O₂ measurement” or “Fire watch for 4 hours after closing”. These become diary tasks too, but they do not gate the issue: they accompany the shift during the work.

A saved condition, with a live diary task.

You enter the conditions on the Permit conditions (tasks for the shift) card, one per line, and save them with Save conditions. Unchanged lines keep their existing task; next to each line the page tells you whether it has a live diary task (Diary task issued · No live diary task). The conditions can be edited from issue until closing, and the diary shows them titled “PERMIT CONDITION: …”.

Common problems

What you see	Why	What to do
“This permit has no plant assigned, so no diary task can be created — the items are only visible on the permit.”	An old permit created without a plant.	A plant can no longer be assigned. Under a blocking gate a required item would block the issue for good — in that case do not mark it required, or start a new permit with a plant.
“Preparation tasks can be edited from request until closure.”	Preparation tasks cannot be issued from a draft yet.	Submit the request first.
“Issuing the preparation diary tasks failed — the request is submitted; saving the items will retry the issue.”	The submission worked, but issuing the diary tasks did not.	Click Save preparation tasks — it tries again.
“The template’s mandatory preparation tasks go to the diary with the request step …”	You tried a one-person issue from the draft, with a blocking preparation gate and a required item.	Submit it as a request; the items go to the diary, and once they are done the permit can be issued.
Blocked by the policy: … at issue	On the block level, a required preparation item is not Done yet.	Wait for it to be done in the diary, or (if the item is not needed after all) remove its required mark.

Related

Issuing and the permit's lifecycleIssuing and the other steps.

Policy gatesThe levels of the Completion of preparation tasks gate.

Work permit templatesPreparation items in the template.

Reporting a task's statusHow the shift marks in the diary that it is done.