Risk Assessment Participant Signatures

Release: 2026-04-23

What's new

Risk Assessments can now carry digital signatures of the people who participated in creating or reviewing them. Each participant appears on the RA report with their name, role and (if signed) their signature and the signing date.

Signatures can be captured either

• on a Signotec Sigma signature pad (if the device is connected to the workstation), or
• uploaded as a PNG image (for workstations without a pad, e.g. on-board PCs or the demo server).

For ZeeBORN system users who have a stored signature in their user profile, signatures can be reused automatically without any scan or upload.

Turning the feature on

The feature is configured per installation in the RA configuration:

1. Go to Risk Assessment → Configuration → Risk Assessment Configuration (Global → Risk Assessment).
2. Scroll to the Participant Signatures card (at the bottom of the configuration page).
3. Tick the options you need:
   • Enable participant signature capture for Risk Assessments — required. Without this, the Participants button stays hidden.
   • Require at least one signed participant when approving — optional. Blocks RA approval until at least one participant has signed.
   • Auto-use stored user signature (um_users.SignatureImage) when adding a system user — optional. When you add a system user as participant and they have a signature saved in their ZeeBORN user profile, the signature is copied in automatically — no scan needed.
4. Close and reopen the Risk Assessment module for the button to appear.

Managing participants on an RA

1. Open a Risk Assessment.
2. Click the Participants button (action bar).
3. In the dialog, add participants one of three ways:
   • Add from Crew — pick a crew member from the drop-down. The role field is prefilled with the crew member's job title (you can override it for special roles like "Witness").
   • Add from Users — pick a ZeeBORN system user. The role field is prefilled with the user's role from the user master data. If "Auto-use stored user signature" is enabled, the signature is copied in immediately.
   • Add by Name — type any free-text name and role, useful for external participants (inspectors, contractors, visitors).
4. To capture or upload a signature for a participant, select them in the grid and click Capture Signature.

Capturing a signature — two paths

The Capture Signature button opens a dialog that supports both methods:

With a Signotec Sigma pad connected

• The "Capture on Pad" button is enabled. Hand the pad to the participant, they sign, click Accept. Signature is saved as PNG with transparent background, timestamp is recorded.

Without a pad (e.g. demo server, on-board PC)

• The "Capture on Pad" button is disabled with a tooltip explaining why ("signotec driver not installed" or "No signature pad connected").
• Use the Upload from File button instead. Pick a PNG of the signature (ideally with a transparent background — ZeeBORN detects alpha channels automatically; for solid-background images, the signature is extracted).
• The uploaded image is stored exactly the same way as a pad-captured signature.

Signature display on the report

The HTML report and the printable version show a Participants card directly next to the "Important Instructions" section. The card lists all participants with their name, role, signature preview, and signing date. Participants without a signature are shown as "not signed".

Removing participants and signatures

• Remove Participant: removes the participant entry completely (name, role, and any captured signature). ZeeBORN informs the on-board installations about the removal through the regular data transfer — the removal reaches the ship in the next sync.
• Clear Signature: keeps the participant entry but removes their signature (useful if a participant wants to re-sign).

Known limitations

• When an RA is approved via the batch "Approve after import" path, the "require at least one signed participant" rule is intentionally skipped. If you want this guardrail to apply to every approval, approve RAs individually.
• Signature pad detection happens when the capture dialog is opened. If you plug in the pad after opening the dialog, close and reopen it.

Rollout

• Risk Assessment — available now.
• Drill Plan — planned for a future release (same mechanism).
• Audit & Inspection — planned for a future release.

Task Tracking: Risk Assessment Assignment

Overview

Tasks and Corrective/Preventive Actions in the Task Tracking module can now be linked to a Risk Assessment. This allows you to directly associate safety measures with their underlying risk evaluation.

The feature is configurable per Task Category — your administrator decides which categories support RA assignment and whether a review step is required before closing.

Configuration (Category Settings)

In the Task Category editor, a new Risk Assessment section contains two options:

Setting	Effect
Risk Assessment can be assigned	Enables the "Controls" tab on Tasks and Actions of this category, where a Risk Assessment can be searched, assigned, created, or removed.
Reviewed flag mandatory before close	When enabled (Office only), the assigned Risk Assessment must be marked as "reviewed" before the Task or Action can be set to a Closed status. This option is only visible when "Risk Assessment can be assigned" is checked.

Assigning a Risk Assessment

When a Task Category has RA assignment enabled, a new Controls tab appears on the Task form and on the Corrective/Preventive Action form.

Available actions

Button	Description
Search	Opens the Risk Assessment search dialog. Select an existing RA and confirm the assignment via a preview dialog.
Select from Operation Tree	Browse the operation tree to pick an RA. On board, only RAs for the vessel's own site are shown.
Create New	Create a new Risk Assessment from scratch — select an operation group, then edit the RA. If you cancel the editor, the RA is deleted automatically.
Copy from Template	Create a new RA based on an existing template. Select the template, then edit the copy. If you cancel, the copy is deleted.
Remove	Removes the current RA assignment (the Risk Assessment itself is not deleted).

When a new RA is assigned, the Reviewed checkbox is automatically reset — a new review cycle begins.

Reviewed Checkbox

The Reviewed checkbox is visible only in the Office application and only when the category setting "Reviewed flag mandatory before close" is active.

• Check this box after you have reviewed the assigned Risk Assessment.
• If the checkbox is not checked and the Task/Action is set to a Closed status (Completed, Completed Finally, Completed on Board), a warning message is displayed and the status change is blocked.
• On board (vessel), this check is not enforced — the task can be closed without reviewing.

HTML Reports and Official Reports

When a Risk Assessment is assigned, it appears in the Task detail view and in HTML reports:

• The TAN (identifier) of the assigned RA is shown as a clickable link that opens the full Risk Assessment.
• If the category requires review: the status "reviewed" or "not reviewed" (highlighted in red) is displayed next to the TAN.
• In official reports (e.g. Audit Official Report), the RA assignment is included in the printed output.

Notes

• Each Task or Action has its own independent RA assignment — there is no automatic inheritance from a parent Task to its Actions.
• Removing an RA assignment does not delete the Risk Assessment from the system.
• The feature works in both Office and on-board environments. The review enforcement is Office-only.