Writing and approving incident reports
The four stages a report goes through, what belongs in one, and why an approved report cannot be edited.
A report moves through four stages: draft, submitted, changes requested, and accepted.
The officer writes it
On the Reports tab, the officer opens the incident and fills in what happened, when it actually happened, who was involved, any physical evidence, what they did about it, and photographs.
A draft saves as they type, so an officer who is interrupted can come back to it.
They sign it on the screen with a finger and submit. After that they cannot change it.
A supervisor reviews it
Submitted reports appear in the review queue on the Supervisor tab, and also in the phone app for supervisors.
The supervisor either sends it back with a note saying what needs fixing, or accepts it. Sending it back is not a failure; a report that is vague now is worthless in six months.
Accepting is final
Accepting requires the supervisor's signature, and it cannot be undone. There is no edit button afterwards anywhere in the product.
This is deliberate. From that moment the report is your company's official account of what happened, and it may end up with an insurer or in court. A document that can be quietly changed after approval is worth very little, and any competent lawyer would say so.
If something is wrong in an accepted report, the answer is a new document referring to it, not a change to the original.
Two signatures matter here. The officer's says this is my account of what I saw. The supervisor's says I reviewed this and the company stands behind it.
Photographs
Photographs are stored privately and are only ever shown through links that expire after a few minutes. Nobody can copy a photo link out of a report and pass it around.
One visible side effect: a report left open on screen for a long time may show broken images. Reload the page and they come back. That is the security working.
Still stuck? Email hello@apeironcad.com.