A permit to work in Risk Manager → Permits to Work is a written authorisation for one job on board. Permits are created and edited on board by the Captain or crew who hold the Permits to work Edit permission.
Register overview and starting a draft
At the top of Risk Manager → Permits to Work, four glance cards show live counts of open permits:
- Awaiting acceptance — authorised by the officer, not yet accepted by the permit holder.
- Active — accepted and work in progress.
- Expired — past the Valid until time and not yet handed back or withdrawn.
- Handed back — handed back by the holder and waiting for an eligible officer to inspect the site and close it.
You can search the register by permit number, work description, location, component or work type, and filter by STATUS, WORK TYPE and AUTHORISED date range (From / To).
Click New permit to work to start a draft and open the four-step wizard (Scope, People, Checklists, Review). A permit stays Draft until an authorising officer signs it, at which point it receives its sequential vessel number (PTW-0001, PTW-0002, and so on). While in Draft, you can click Save as draft (or press Ctrl+S / Cmd+S), or click Discard draft (Discard in the register table) to delete it.
Step 1 — Scope
On the Scope step, define what the job is and the rules it falls under:
- Work to be done — description of the task (up to 2,000 characters, required before authorisation).
- Location — where on board the work takes place (up to 200 characters, required).
- Component (optional) — the machinery or equipment component worked on (requires Maintenance View permission to pick).
- One open permit per component: only one open permit (Awaiting acceptance, Active, Expired or Handed back) may cover a given component at a time. Another permit for the same component cannot be authorised until the open one is closed or withdrawn. While an open permit covers a component, that component also shows a yellow notice in Maintenance and cannot be deleted.
- Work types — choose one or more company work types (such as Hot work or Enclosed space entry), or choose None — general checklist only when no specific work type covers the job.
- Selecting work types adds their checklists to the permit alongside the company's General checklist, and displays which ranks Can be authorised by.
- Validity — how long the permit will run from the moment of authorisation (8 hours, 12 hours or 24 hours).
- Validity limits: the selectable durations are capped by the lowest maximum validity across all chosen work types (for example, combining a 24-hour work type with an 8-hour work type caps the permit at 8 hours, including any later extensions).
- Risk assessment — select the signed risk assessment this work follows (requires Risk Manager View permission to pick).
- Must be in force: a permit can only be authorised against a signed risk assessment whose status is in force (Active, Review due, Changes requested or Under revision — never Incomplete, Overdue or Archived).
Step 2 — People
On the People step, assign who is responsible for the job and who is in the work party:
- Permit holder — the person in charge of the work on site, who accepts the permit before work starts and hands it back when finished. Must be the Captain or a crew member on this vessel with Permits to work Edit permission.
- Authorising officer — the officer who checks the precautions and authorises the permit.
- Who may authorise: the Captain can always authorise any permit. Other crew members are listed only if they hold Permits to work Edit permission and their crew rank is allowed to authorise every work type selected on the permit.
- Different people: the Permit holder and the Authorising officer must be two different people.
- Work party — optional Crew on the vessel (up to 50 crew members, excluding the permit holder) and external Contractors (type a name and press Enter, up to 30 contractors).
- When you save a draft after adding crew members to the Work party, Nauticare notifies them so they can open the permit and confirm their briefing.
Step 3 — Checklists
On the Checklists step, complete the General checklist and the checklist for each selected work type (if two selected work types ask for the same check, Nauticare merges it and notes Also required by ...):
- Every checklist item must be answered before authorisation: click the tick button to mark it done, or click N/A (minus icon) if it does not apply to the job.
- Required items: items configured by the company as Required have no N/A button and must be ticked.
- Items asking for a value: if an item has an entry field (such as Readings, Serial no. or Certificate no.), you must fill in the value (up to 200 characters) before you can tick the item.
- Your name and timestamp are recorded beside each check you answer.
- Use Other precautions (up to 4,000 characters) to record any additional precautions in place for the job.