Understanding Your First Report

A Valify report has two parts: a summary of the document as a whole, and the findings grouped by severity. Read them in that order the first time and it takes about ten minutes; after that, most people go straight to the findings.

The document summary

At the top you get the document type as Valify identified it, how many of the expected sections were found, and an overall assessment in plain English. If the document type looks wrong — a method statement identified as something else — that usually means the document's own structure is unclear, which is worth knowing on its own. See non-standard layouts.

The four severity groups

• Critical — the document is unsuitable for use until it is resolved. A hazard with no control, absent emergency procedures, missing risk ratings, controls that only say "take care", PPE as the sole control for a significant hazard, blank signatures.
• Needs Attention — should be improved before use, with a recommended improvement for each: a generic PPE list, plant missing from the hazard register, a copied muster point, residual risk left blank.
• Minor — smaller issues and tidying: formatting, incomplete references, wording that could be clearer. Each carries a suggestion.
• Done Well — what the document does properly. Not padding: it tells you which parts not to change, and it is useful when the document goes back to whoever wrote it.

Critical and Needs Attention are open when the report loads. Minor and Done Well start collapsed. What critical means in a report explains where the line between the groups is drawn.

A workable way through it

1. Read every Critical finding first and decide, for each, whether you agree. Some will be genuine gaps; some will be content that exists somewhere Valify did not expect to find it.
2. Work through Needs Attention. These are usually the highest-value edits — a control that exists but is too vague to enforce is a common one.
3. Skim Minor and fix what is quick.
4. Read Done Well last, and leave those sections alone.
5. Revise the document, then resubmit it — the comparison shows which findings the revision actually closed.

When you disagree with a finding

Disagreeing is a legitimate outcome and does not mean something has gone wrong. The most common reason is placement: a control that lives in an appendix, or an emergency arrangement covered in the site's construction phase plan rather than in your document. Your judgement wins — you are the one who knows the site. Where a finding is flagged because content is in an unexpected place, it is often still worth moving it, because the reviewer at the principal contractor will look in the same place Valify did. What a principal contractor looks for covers where reviewers actually look.

What the report is not

It is not an approval, a compliance certification or a professional safety assessment, and a clean report does not mean a document is compliant. Valify checks the document against a structure; it cannot see your site, judge whether your method is appropriate, or know what the survey found. Those decisions belong to your qualified personnel, and our limitations page sets out plainly what Valify will not catch.