How to record Observations?

In order to Record Observations at a specific site, you will need to select the Record Observations menu option in the Navigation Pane. See (1) in the image below.

Note: the number that appears in parenthesis (the number “2”) indicates the number of completed observation tours.

• Once the observation information appears in the Edit Window the user can either:
  • Start New Observation by selecting the button (2) – Also see Entering Observation Details below
  • Edit an existing observation by selecting the observation location from the Edit Site / Location drop-down list (3) 

• The table lists the results from the completed Observation tours:
  • The columns to the right list the % compliance for each location (4)
  • Below each location is listed the % compliance to a regulation for each site/location visited – see (5) and (6)
  • General auditor notes related to a specific audit question are captured on a per question basis (7)- The comments are the collective comment from all the observation tours at all sites visited
  • The Result of total compliance (8) is listed as the mathematical average of all sites visited ( (5) and (6) ). Cells that are marked as Not Applicable (N/A) are ignored during this calculation. Note: This result represents the overall % compliance with the requirement and does not represent the audit score that is assigned to the question. The Scoring of audit questions will be addressed in the Audit Results section.
  • The Export option (9) will extract the entire grid view to a comma-delimited file (.csv) which can be viewed in a spreadsheet application such as Excel. 

Entering Observation Details

The application allows one observation to be recorded per site/location. When selecting the Start New Observation button the Edit Window will display information for the Observation Details.

On this page the auditor can:

• select the site for which the observation is being recorded from the dropdown menu (1)
• Mouse over the information icon to view the Guidelines for the question (2)
• Record Collective comments from ALL sites on a per question basis based on the observation (3)
• Select an appropriate % Compliance based on the Observations (4) – Note: That not all questions have to be answered for each site and some questions can be left as “Not Applicable” (N/A).
• If comments have been recorded in the Interview or Observation verification steps for the same question then the View Comments (5) will appear to provide access to that information. Note that this option is only available when comments have been recorded and is not visible for “empty” comments
• Click Done (6) before leaving this data entry page
• To delete the current review, select the Delete button (7)

Calculating Observation Results

The calculation and aggregation of data supports two different aggregation options based on the requirements and settings of the certification body (or Certifying partner).

The two options are either Averaging or Weighted averaging and the table below explains these differences:

In the example listed above, the auditor visited three sites (Site A, Site C and Site E) and the total number of employees at the three sites are (Site A = 2000 employees, Site C = 200 employees and Site E = 10 employees).

And the results from the observation tours at the different sites for a specific question were as follow:

• Site A is 90% compliant with the requirement
• Site C is 70% compliant with the requirement
• Site E is 50% compliant with the requirement