One of the most requested features we have ever received from our customers for Falcony | Observe has been management of subtasks with separate assignees. Since Falcony | Platform has always had task management seamlessly integrated as part of the observations and incidents, this has been difficult in the past. We are glad to announce that the wishes have been fulfilled, and what’s more the same functionality also enables more complex workflows such as case management, investigations, sharing lessons learned, information requests and linking observations from the same events together.
Linked Observations and how it works
Quite simply it means that you can link observations in Falcony | Observe together. In Falcony | Observe when you report a new observation you first choose the category you want to report in, and then create and submit your observation report. The linked observations function then makes it possible for you to link reported observations with similar incident categories together, so that you can easily have an overview of all related cases and observations.
With this function you can also create several tasks, with different assignees and create new tasks inside the main observation.
Below are a few practical examples of how the feature can be used.
Managing subtasks with separate assignees
The more critical the incident is, the bigger need and motive there is for an
With the linked observations feature you can now link multiple observations to the original incident, assign each of them separately, and track how many of them are open, overdue or closed in the original incident.
This function makes it easier for assignees to manage their own work and tasks, and gives more control for process owners and site managers to track that all delegated actions and tasks are getting done.
Case Management and investigations
Investigating internal misconducts or potential crimes requires being careful who to share information. With linked observations, investigations can be linked directly with the original incident report, creating a unified view of the case for the investigator without compromising any confidential data or information in the process. For overall case management purposes, investigators can see all of their cases in one view.
Whistleblowing is an archetypical use case, where investigation and case management is a standard requirement. Whereas the whistleblowers report their knowledge and need to be able to provide more details confidentially, the contents of the investigation is not for the whistleblowers. By linking investigation to the original report, the two provide a clear overall view of the case but the progress, content and methods of the case would still remain confidential only open to the investigation team.
The case management functionality is not only limited to whistleblowing. It can cover multiple other areas where cases are escalated into investigations, such as security incidents, cyber threats, loss prevention and internal audits. The same principles apply, but you can also create different investigation forms for each type of incident with limited user rights for each if needed.
Sharing Lessons Learned
One of the main points of reporting incidents is to learn from them, so that they wouldn’t reoccur ever again in the future. Managing the overall lifecycle of an incident shouldn’t end with the corrective actions taken. Sharing the lessons learned with the organisation makes sure that the most important lessons are never forgotten and can be used as a training tool for new employees.
This works by creating a category in Falcony | Observe for “Lessons Learned”, which is available for sharing only for chosen people (such as safety manager or environmental managers), but the recipients are either or all the managers or even the entire workforce. The Lessons learned can then be linked to the original incident without sharing personal data of the parties involved in the incident. In the end, this helps to improve the process and communications on how to handle specific incidents.
Final thoughts
The linked observations function in incy.io has become a gateway to managing and highlighting multiple related incidents and reports at the same time. This doesn’t only give the manager or investigators of the reports a better overview, but it also helps to improve the workflow, process and lessons learned from incidents.
Read more about how to use the function in our help center.
We will be rolling out the feature to all enterprise and operations plans in the future. If you would like to have this function activated in your organisation sooner, don’t hesitate to let us know. And if you are not yet a customer of Falcony | Observe, and would like to see how the tool could potentially help you and your organisation, sign-up to test the 30-day free trial.
We are building the world's first operational involvement platform. Our mission is to make the process of finding, sharing, fixing and learning from issues and observations as easy as thinking about them and as rewarding as being remembered for them.
By doing this, we are making work more meaningful for all parties involved.
More information at falcony.io.
