You may have come across the term "followup" in articles about setting up checklists and questions, and may not be familiar with this feature. This article will help you to understand what followups are, and how to use them to benefit your organization.
What are followups?
Followups are action items that are used to identify deficiencies or issues that need to be addressed at a location. Using followups, you can:
- Automatically notify the right people when issues are found so they can start actioning immediately.
- Easily collaborate on and resolve issues using a real-time communication portal.
- See all open issues, and easily prioritize them based on the scope and impact on your business.
How are followups created?
Followups can be created in three ways:
- In the general checklist settings, you can check the auto followup required setting if you want a followup to be automatically created for all items that do not meet the expected standard (ie; marked 'Not-OK' on the audit).
- In the question settings, you can mark the question as a critical issue. This setting means that if the question fails, the checklist will automatically fail. When toggling this setting on, you can also choose to toggle on the functionality to automatically create a followup whenever the expected standard is not met.
- A checker can manually mark a question as requiring one or more followups if, in their judgment, there is some issue that warrants followup... regardless of whether the expected standard was met or not.
What happens after a followup is created?
After a check has been submitted/approved and a followup is created. There are two things that will happen immediately:
- If a notification group is specified in the general checklist settings, members of that group will receive an email informing them a followup has been created. Read more about followup notifications here.
- The followup(s) will be added to the list of followups in the system, and can then be viewed, assigned, etc.
Notifications are sent only to the users in the notification group who have access to the location that was checked, and followups are only visible to users who have access to the location.
What happens after a followup is assigned?
After a followup has been assigned to the user who is responsible for resolving the issue, the assignee will receive a notification so that they are aware they need to take action.
Read more about followup notifications here.
What are the different statuses for a followup, and how are they used?
There are four possible statuses for a followup:
- Open: When the followup is created it will automatically be set to open status.
- In Progress: This status indicates that the followup is currently being actioned.
- Resolved: After the assignee has taken the necessary action(s) to resolve the issue they should change the followup status to resolved.
- Canceled: If a followup was created in error or is no longer relevant, it should be canceled.