File your first incident report

By the end of this you will have filed one real incident, and you will know which of the five steps write to the record and which do not. That second part matters, because two of the five look as if they save more than they do.

Do this once on a low-stakes event, a scraped knee or a torn book, not on the first serious thing that happens. In this walkthrough you are Denise, on the office computer at the Claymont club, and Maya Reyes, 9, has scraped her knee on the gym steps.

Before you start

• You can sign in to PTRS and see Incidents in the menu.
• Your organisation has at least one active site and at least one active staff member. Step 1 will not let you continue otherwise, and it says so.
• You know which child or children were involved, so you can find them by name.

Step 1: What Happened?

Open Incidents and start a new report. The first screen is headed What Happened?

Type what happened into Incident Description, in your own words. Put the time it happened in the text, because PTRS will stamp the incident with the time you filed it, not the time it happened. The counter under the box tells you how many more characters you need. Next Step stays greyed out until you have typed 20.

Ignore the chips under Quick Select Incident Type. One of them, Fall / Injury, replaces your description with a demonstration scenario rather than choosing a type. Useful for a practice run, wrong for a real report.

Press Next Step.

Checkpoint

The incident now exists. Pressing Next Step created it, as a draft, with your description, your site and you as the reporting staff member. Everything after this point edits a record that is already saved, even if you close the browser.

Step 2: Who Was Involved?

Search by name under Search Members. Two letters start the search. Pick Maya and she appears under Members Involved.

Each child gets a role. The first one you add is set to Primary and the rest to Witness. You can change either.

Do not choose Bystander

The third role option is labelled Bystander, and PTRS does not accept it. Choosing it makes the whole save fail with "Invalid role. Valid values: Primary, Witness, Affected." when you press Next Step, and none of your participants are saved. Use Primary or Witness.

Reporting Staff is filled in for you. Supervising Staff lists the staff on duty at your site. It is shown on screen only and not saved, so if the supervisor matters, name them in your description.

Press Next Step.

Checkpoint

Maya is now a participant on the incident, with her own timeline entry naming you. If the button showed an error instead, nothing was saved. Fix the role and press it again.

Step 3: Details

This screen is headed Details & Classification, and it is the one to understand properly.

Four switches on this screen are saved:

• First Aid Administered, and the text box under it
• EMS Contacted
• Emergency Medication Administered, and the details box under it
• BGCA Reported

Nothing else on this screen is saved. Incident Type, Severity, Location, Specific Area, Date, Time, Medical Attention Required, Equipment Involved and Environmental Factors are shown and then discarded. Anything from those fields that matters belongs in your description on step 1.

The blue AI Classification Result banner shows what PTRS stored, which for an incident filed this way is always type Other at the lowest severity, with 0% confidence.

For Maya, switch on First Aid Administered and type "ice on left knee, 10 minutes". Press Next Step.

If you switch on emergency medication, its details box must be filled in. If you switch on EMS, a time is needed, and the wizard fills in the current time for you. If you see "Emergency medication details are required when medication was administered", fill in the box and press Next Step again.

Checkpoint

The first aid text is on the record, and a timeline entry reads "Health fields updated:" followed by what you changed. If you switched nothing on, the wizard skips this save and writes nothing, which is correct.

Step 4: Report Preview

As soon as this screen opens, PTRS assembles a written report from the record you have just made, with a summary, details, participants and a timeline.

There are three tabs: Preview, Edit Markdown and Original Description. Read the preview. This is the document a director or an inspector will read.

Your edits on this screen are not saved

Edit Markdown changes what you see on screen and nothing else. Pressing Regenerate or leaving the wizard discards your edits. To change what the report says, change the record it is built from: the description, the participants or the health details. Then regenerate.

Press Review & Submit.

Checkpoint

The report is stored against the incident, and the timeline now includes "Structured report generated".

Step 5: Submit & Route

The switches under Report Routing, to notify the director, notify the guardians, begin the OCCL workflow and create follow-up actions, are not sent to PTRS. Leave them however you like. Tell the people who need to know by your usual means.

Type your full name into Digital Signature. Three letters make the button available. The name is not stored on the record. It enables the button and nothing more.

Press Submit Incident Report.

The confirmation list that appears, "Regional Director notified via email", "Parent notifications sent", "4 follow-up action items created", is fixed text. None of it happened.

Checkpoint

One thing did happen, and it is the thing that counts. The incident moved from Draft to Submitted, with a timeline entry reading "Incident submitted for review" and an audit trail entry against your account. From here the record can no longer be deleted.

What you now have

• An incident in Submitted status, at Claymont, with your description.
• Maya attached as a participant, with a role.
• The first aid you recorded.
• A written report stored against the incident.
• A timeline of about six entries, each naming you and timed.
• Matching entries in the audit trail, which cannot be edited.

Open Incidents, set the status filter to All, and open your report to see all of it in one place. The Active filter does not show submitted incidents.

Try it

Open Maya's incident and try to delete it. PTRS refuses, with a message that says submitted incidents are protected by mandatory reporting rules. That is the record doing what it is for.

Carry this to the next one

Because step 3 discards most of what it collects, several facts survive only if they are in the description you type on step 1. Keep this where you file from.

Before you leave step 1, put these in the description

• The real time it happened. PTRS stamps the incident with when you filed it.
• Where in the building or grounds it happened. The Specific Area list is not saved.
• The type of incident and how serious it was, in words. The step 3 lists are not saved.
• Any equipment involved. The Equipment Involved box is not saved.
• Conditions that contributed, such as a wet floor. The Environmental Factors chips are not saved.
• Whether professional medical attention was needed. That switch is not saved.
• Which supervising staff member was present. Shown on screen only.
• Who you told, when, and how. PTRS sends no message to anyone.

Next

• Record health and safety details, the same four fields from the incident page, after filing
• Incident fields and limits, what every field accepts
• How reporting deadlines are triggered, why this incident started no OCCL clock and what would