Field report by QR label (no login)

Anyone on site — a contractor, a visitor, someone from another plant — can scan a QR label with their phone and, without signing in, describe what they noticed (a leak, an oil stain, an unusual noise). You decide where the report goes: into a plant’s shift diary (marked as an unverified reporter), onto a site’s event list, outside the diary — in the Reports → Events table, with status New — or to the whole organisation, where the person classifying assigns it to a site (“Awaiting classification”). The shift or the event handler then classifies it, adds to it, or archives it if it was a mistake. Sign-in-free reporting is part of the Reporter add-in: it is off by default and is switched on for your organisation by OPEREX (request it on the Control panel → Add-ins tab, or ask your contact); your organisation’s admin can switch it off.

Two tiers

This article covers the internal tier — a QR label or link for staff, contractors and visitors. The Reporter add-in’s public (resident) tier (a public page per site, switched on by your organisation administrator in the Reporter settings, who also edits the organisation’s own privacy notice) has its own article: Public (resident) reporting page.

Before you start

• Switching it on: OPEREX switches the Reporter add-in on for your organisation — while it is off, the Master data → Field reports tab says so, and no channel can be issued; existing labels answer “not found”, but the channels and the reports already received are kept. (The retention period for reporters’ details can be set even with the add-in off.)
• Permission to manage channels (and to switch it off): “Manage field reports” — field_report:manage. By default only the system administrator has it; on the Permissions page, in the Master data group, your organisation can pass it on. The same right is what lets you see the name and contact details a reporter entered — nobody else sees them, anywhere (neither in the diary nor in the event side panel) — and lets you delete them and set the retention period.
• Permission to handle a report in the diary: supplementing or archiving a report needs the “Log event” right — event:create — and the diary must be editable (a closed diary can only be supplemented by a user with the correcting right).
• Photo (optional): a reporter can attach an image only if the plant’s event photo box is switched on — see Set up photos.

Create a channel and print the QR label

1. Open the Master data → Field reports tab. If the header says “Reporter” add-in: on, carry on; if it says not switched on, OPEREX switches it on — until then every QR label answers “not found” and no new channel can be issued. With Turn off you can stop the add-in yourself (e.g. during a wave of false reports); only OPEREX can switch it back on.
2. Under New reporting channel, choose the target level:
   • Plant — the report goes into the plant’s shift diary (as before). Pick the plant.
   • Site — the report goes outside the diary, into the Reports → Events table, with status New; it never enters a shift diary or the shift PDF. Pick the site.
   • Company — one QR code / link for the whole organisation, for when the reporter does not know (or need not know) which site it concerns. The report lands in the Events table without a site, as “Awaiting classification” (see below). You see and create this level only with company-wide scope — in the Company-level channel block, with Create company-level channel; one is live per organisation, and no technical location can be assigned to it.
3. If you want a separate label for a technical location (so the report also records the location), pick the technical location too. At site level only a location not tied to a plant can be chosen — a location tied to a plant belongs to a plant-level channel. One channel lives per target (and per location) at a time. You can also request a location label from the Maintenance node page.
4. Pick a field template (below) and click Create channel. The channel row shows whether it writes Into the shift log or Outside the log, and the form’s fields.
5. Print the labels: Print QR labels (PDF) (all of them), or, after choosing a site in the Labels for site selector, Site labels (PDF). The A4 sheet gives cuttable labels with your organisation’s logo and name, the target’s (plant or site, and location) name and the QR code. Copy link puts the report link on the clipboard.
6. Put the label up on site.

What does the form ask? — fields and templates

For every channel you can set each form field to Hidden, Optional or Required (use the Fields button on the channel row, then Save fields). The description (“What did you notice?”) is always required. The fields:

Field	What it means
Name, Contact	The reporter’s name and phone / email. If either is given, the reporter must accept the privacy notice.
Photo	One image. It only appears if the plant’s event photo box is switched on.
Where (text)	The reporter describes in their own words where they saw it (“next to tank 3”). This is not the channel’s target.
Kind (suggestion)	The reporter can pick an event type. This is only a suggestion: it does not classify the event — the final classification is set by the responsible colleague through a supplement.
Time noticed	When it happened. If left empty, the time of submission counts. It cannot be in the future, and can be at most a few days back.

Three templates give a quick start: Quick (description and an optional photo only), Detailed (place and time required, the rest optional) and General (name, contact and photo optional — the default). A hidden field is not shown on the form, and the system rejects it even if someone sends it anyway.

A QR label is a secret on the wall

Anyone who photographs the label can file a report. If a label falls into the wrong hands or you want to replace it, on the channel row Pause stops it temporarily, New token makes the old label stop working immediately (you must print a new one), and Archive ends the channel for good — it cannot be restored, but the reports already received are kept. A paused channel’s label cannot be printed — resume it first.

What the reporter sees

Scanning the QR opens a “Field report” page — no login, on your organisation’s own address. One field is always required: “What did you notice?” (at least 3, at most 2000 characters); the rest depends on the channel’s field settings: Who is reporting? (Name, Contact (phone or email)), Where did you notice it?, When did you notice it?, What kind of issue is it? (suggestion) and a photo (one image, up to 8 MB; JPG, PNG, WebP or HEIC) — optional or required. If they enter a name or contact, they must accept the privacy notice — otherwise they can leave both empty. A missing required field is flagged next to the field.

Dictation. If your organisation has switched on dictation (the same switch as for the diary) and the reporter’s browser supports speech recognition, a Dictate button appears under the description: the reporter says what they saw, and the recognised text is added after what is already typed (it can be corrected; dictation stops at the 2000-character limit). Speech is turned into text by the browser or phone maker (e.g. Google, Apple) — the system receives and stores no audio, only the submitted text; a short note next to the button says so. Even without the button, a tip says the phone keyboard’s microphone key also works.

After Send report the reporter sees “Thank you, your report has arrived”. The page gives no information about the status of the report. If the label is no longer valid (the add-in is off, the channel is paused or archived), the page says “This report code cannot be found.” and points to the plant’s shift leader. If many reports arrive from one place in a short time, the page asks the reporter to try again in a few minutes.

If you scan the label yourself, signed in

If you are signed in and have the Log event right, the plant-level QR takes you to the diary’s pre-filled event form (plant and location already filled in, labelled “From QR label: …”) — you are the reporter, under your own name. If you also have maintenance read access, a Technical location data sheet → link sits next to it. If you have maintenance read access but not the right to log events, you get the (public) report form. A site-level label gives everyone the reporter form.

If no diary is open

A report from a plant-level channel goes into the open diary of the channel’s plant (one started within the last 16 hours that is still a draft). If the plant has none right now, the report stays pending and the next diary that opens picks it up — exactly once, whether someone starts the diary by hand or the system does it automatically. The card then reads “arrived while no log was open, added when this log opened”. A report is therefore not lost overnight or at a shift change. A site-level channel does not depend on a diary: its report goes straight into the Events table and never binds to a diary.

Site-level report: in the Events table

A site-level channel’s report is not a diary entry but a new row in the Reports → Events table. The event, with status New, is taken on from there by the event handler (comment, supplement, close — see Handle events from the table).

• Two badges show under its title: Field report — unverified and Recorded outside the shift log. Both are facts; the Source filter’s “Recorded outside the shift log” value finds it too.
• In the side panel you see the reporter’s Where (text) and the Kind (suggestion) if the channel asked for them. The kind is only a suggestion — you set the event’s type.
• The reporter’s name and contact are again visible only with the “Manage field reports” right; nobody else sees them in the panel either. With that right you can delete them from the panel with Delete reporter details (see below).
• A site-level report does not enter the shift diary or the shift PDF; the event’s status still shows only in the Events table, the panel and the export.

Company-level report: “Awaiting classification”

A company-level channel’s report does not belong to a site yet: it appears in Reports → Events with the Awaiting classification badge and an E-<YEAR>-CEG-<number> identifier. Only people with company-wide scope, or the right to reassign events, see it — not the shift log, the shift PDF or anyone else. The person classifying assigns it to a site (and a plant if needed) with a mandatory reason; the event then gets a new, site-based identifier, and the old one stays searchable as the “Previous ID”. Step by step: Move an event to another site.

• The form tells the reporter the report goes to the organisation’s event list, where the responsible people assign it to the right site — it promises no site.
• The company-level channel does not ask for a photo today (a photo lives in a site-bound storage row).
• There is currently no way for a signed-in user to record an “Awaiting classification” event directly — it arrives through the company-level channel.
• The public (resident) page is separate (Public (resident) reporting page): the company-level channel is internal (reached by label or link).

The report in the diary: marking, supplement, archive

This section is about plant-level reports, which appear in the diary.

You find the reports on the diary’s Field reports card (with the count). Wherever a reporter’s name would stand, every screen shows “Field report — unverified reporter” — in the diary, in the PDF and in reports.

In the event list, the report shows a compact line: the marking, the received time, a note if it arrived without an open diary, “Archived: [date] — not included in the diary PDF” for an archived report, and the number of supplements if there are any. Everything else is in the dialog that opens with Report details: the reporter’s details (only with the “Manage field reports” right), the list of supplements, and the supplement and archive actions. When you view an archived (closed) diary, the dialog is read-only — only the deletion of the reporter’s details stays available (see below).

1. Supplement: click Report details, then Supplement, write the Supplement text and, if you can, set the Type (classification) — for an HSE type the HSE severity is required — and the technical location. Save with Save supplement (Cancel takes you back to the details). After a successful save the dialog closes; if there is an error, the dialog stays open and shows the message.
2. The supplement appears with your name and a timestamp in the report details, and the classification is also written onto the event, so the diary, reports and a work-order request already see the refined data. The reporter’s original text stays unchanged; a supplement can not be edited or deleted afterwards.
3. False or spam report: in the Report details dialog, click Archive as false report, give the Reason for archiving (3–500 characters, required) and click Archive. Archiving also closes the event with the reason “False / duplicate” — besides the “Log event” right you need the event-handling right (event:handle). An archived report stays in the diary together with the reason, but is left out of the diary PDF and the technical location’s event list; in the Reports → Events table (and its export) it appears as a closed event with the reason “False / duplicate”. It cannot be deleted; you can undo it by reopening the event (Reports → Events, in the panel — reopening needs a written reason). ⚠️ If the log is already closed, the report only returns to the shift PDF (and, the other way round, only leaves it) as a log correction: with a written reason and the log-correction permission, producing a new PDF version. Without that, the event status changes but the closed log and its PDF stay as they were.

If the report needs a repair, a work-order request can be opened from the event in the usual way — see Open a work-order request from an event. The name of the “Field report” event type can be renamed under Master data → Diary elements → Events → Event types; the manual event form does not offer this type — only the QR route sets it.

Data protection — what we store about the reporter

• Required is only the description (plus the time of submission and the token’s identifier). The name and contact are optional and can only be given together with accepting the privacy notice.
• Name and contact are stored separately and are visible only with the “Manage field reports” right. They do not go into the diary PDF, reports or the audit log.
• A photo is stored in the plant’s private storage through the usual event-photo path. On upload the system re-encodes it and does not keep the image metadata (e.g. the location data recorded by the phone).
• The system receives and stores no audio: dictation happens in the browser, only the submitted text reaches the server.
• The system stores no IP address with the report (the anti-spam limit uses it only transiently, in the server memory).
• Your organisation is responsible for the reporter’s data (it is the data controller): the reporting form names the organisation as controller and links to the organisation’s privacy notice. The tools for deletion and retention are below.

Deleting the reporter’s details

If the reporter asks (or your organisation decides so), you can delete their name and contact details from a report. You need the “Manage field reports” right; the diary’s state does not matter — it works in a closed or archived diary too.

1. For a plant-level report, open Report details on the event in the diary and, below the reporter’s name and contact — for a site-level one, in the event’s side panel — click Delete reporter details.
2. The dialog switches to the deletion confirmation (Cancel takes you back to the details): enter the reason (e.g. “the reporter’s request”; 3–500 characters, required).
3. Click Delete permanently.

The name and contact details are deleted permanently; the report then shows “Reporter details deleted: [date] (on request)”. The report text, the photo and the event are kept. The audit log records who deleted, when and why — not the deleted name or contact. The deletion cannot be undone, and the same report cannot be deleted twice. If the photo must go too, delete it in the image viewer through the usual photo deletion path.

Retention period (automatic deletion)

On Master data → Field reports (even while the Reporter add-in is off), in the Retention of reporters’ details card, you can set after how many days the system automatically deletes reporters’ names and contact details (1–3650 days). It counts from the day the report was received, and the deletion runs once a day; the report text is kept here too, marked “Reporter details deleted: [date] (retention period expired)”. The setting also applies to reports already received.

By default there is no retention period — if you leave the field empty, there is no automatic deletion and the reporter’s details are kept together with the report. How long you keep these details is decided by your organisation as the data controller — the system does not suggest a value.

Common problems

What you see	Why	What to do
After scanning: “This report code cannot be found.”	The Reporter add-in is not switched on, the channel is paused or archived, the label is old (since New token), or the plant/location/site is archived.	Master data → Field reports: check the module and the channel’s state; print a new label for an old one.
“Please enter your name.” / “Please attach a photo.” / “Please choose what kind of issue it is.”	The channel sets that field to Required and it was left empty.	Fill the field in — or set it to Optional / Hidden in the channel’s Fields editor.
“The time cannot be in the future and can be at most … days ago.”	The When did you notice it? value is out of range.	Enter a recent time, or leave it empty (if the field is not required).
“A channel already lives on this destination …” / “This technical location is already used by a channel on another level.”	Only one channel lives per target (and per technical location).	Manage the existing channel below, or pick another technical location.
“To give your name or contact details, accept the privacy notice — or leave both fields empty.”	A name or contact is filled in, but consent is not ticked.	Tick consent, or clear both fields.
“Photos cannot be attached for this plant.”	The plant’s event photo box is switched off.	Switch it on in the photo settings, or send without a photo.
“A reason is required for archiving (3–500 characters).”	The reason is empty or too short.	Write a reason of at least 3 characters.
“A reason is required for the deletion (3–500 characters).”	When deleting reporter details, the reason is empty or too short.	Write a reason of at least 3 characters.
“The reporter’s details have already been deleted.”	Someone already deleted them, or the retention period expired.	Nothing to do — the marking shows when.
“The retention period must be a whole number between 1 and 3650, or left empty.”	The value is not a whole number or is out of range.	Enter a whole number between 1 and 3650, or leave it empty.
No Delete reporter details button	You lack the “Manage field reports” right, the reporter gave no details, or they are already deleted.	Ask your admin for the right.
“This report is archived — it cannot be supplemented.”	An archived report cannot take a supplement.	Reopen the event in the Reports → Events panel (this undoes the archiving), or log a new event.
“Archiving closes the event as “False / duplicate” — this needs the event-handling permission.”	You have the “Log event” right but not event handling (event:handle).	Ask your admin for the right.
“The event is already closed — reopen it first in Reports → Events.”	The event is already closed (possibly with another reason).	Reopen it in the panel, then archive.
“This report was classified as a HSE event — close it in the Reports → Events panel, following the site policy.”	With a supplement it became an incident/accident, and its closing follows the policy rules (review, investigation).	Close it in the panel, following the rules.
No Supplement / Archive button	You lack the “Log event” right, or the diary is closed (for a site-level report, handling happens in the Events table).	Ask your admin for the right; a closed diary can only be supplemented by a user with the correcting right.

Worth knowing

• The content of a report is unverified. The system says so with the marking everywhere; classification is done by a verified user (through a supplement).
• The token does not protect the content of a report, but which plant’s diary, or which site’s event list (and which location) it can write into — the reporter cannot change that, and the system recognises your organisation from the web address.
• The kind and where it was noticed are the reporter’s own judgement: a suggestion, not a classification.
• Reports are rate-limited against spam (quick repeated submissions, per label and per IP), but network-level protection is not finished yet; in case of abuse the channel can be paused, the token replaced, or the channel archived.

Related

Log an event in the diaryThe manual event form — the same event a report creates.

Open a work-order request from an eventIf the report needs a repair.

QR label, scanning and the mobile work-order listThe label on the location page, the search scanner, the “Mine” view.