A work permit ensures that information related to a task or service request is reviewed and approved by the agreed responsibilities. The permit template defines the permit's content and approval process. An individual permit is created from a permit requirement attached to the work and is processed separately.

Before you begin

The Permits module must be enabled. These instructions apply to the browser version. You need the appropriate permissions to view the work and its permits. A user who can edit the work can generally configure its permits, select responsible people and submit a permit for approval. Separate permit permissions can grant rights to create, read, edit or delete permits for work the user can see. Managing permit templates and shared permit requirements requires a separate management permission. An approver must also belong to the responsibility concerned.

The Android and iOS apps do not have the permit processing view described here. However, permit conditions affecting work progress are also checked when a status is changed on mobile.

Create and publish a permit template

In the browser menu, open Permits → Permit management. You can select Ready-made permit templates, review the available templates and add the ones you want as drafts, or open one for editing. To create a new template, select the plus icon at the top of the page.

On the Basic settings tab, enter a name, instructions and any other required information. Select the Approval process and Validity. By default, a new template uses sequential approval and is valid for 24 hours after approval. You can add attachments to the template and require participants to confirm that they have read them.

On the Responsibilities and stages tab, define the required responsibilities and the internal or external participants allowed for each one. People are selected later for each individual permit. Mark which responsibilities must always have a person selected. Add stages, select the responsibility that fills each stage, and add questions, whether they are required, any conditions and viewing access for other responsibilities. The order of the stages determines their display order; the order of the responsibilities determines the order of sequential approval.

Save draft saves an unfinished template. Publish version makes it available for selection. The template must also be Active. Publish later changes as a new version: permits already created retain their own template version. Before adding the template to work, check its active status and published version in the management list.

Configure permit requirements for work

Open the task or service request and its Permits tab. Select Edit permits for this task or Edit permits for this service request, add the required published permit templates and choose how each permit affects work progress. Save the permit changes. Adding a permit as a requirement and creating an individual permit are separate actions.

  • Does not block the work: the permit does not block starting or completion.
  • Required before starting: the permit must be approved and valid before work starts.
  • Required before completion: work can start, but the permit conditions are checked before completion.
  • Required before starting and completion: the conditions are checked at both stages.

A missing, unfinished, rejected or withdrawn permit does not satisfy a blocking requirement. The validity of an approved permit is also checked. A start block cannot be bypassed by marking the work complete directly. A new start block cannot be added to a task that has already started.

Shared requirements can also be configured on a task template or service request category. An inherited requirement must be changed at its source. If you select custom requirements for a work item, they replace the inherited list for that item. Changes to the source apply only to work that follows the inherited requirements: tasks in planning, active or overdue status, and service requests that are open, in progress or on hold. In other statuses, the requirements saved on the work remain unchanged. Deactivating a requirement does not delete previous permit records.

Other settings for task templates and service request categories are described in Creating and editing a task template and Service request categories and additional fields.

Create a permit and submit it for approval

On the work's Permits tab, select the required permit and Select responsible people. For each required responsibility, select an internal participant or an external person as allowed by the template. For an internal responsibility, you can select potential participants; a decision is required from one of them for that responsibility. For an external person, enter a name and email address or a phone number for a text message, and select a delivery method. Select Create permit and continue.

Complete the permit details and save them. If the template uses Dates entered on each permit for validity, enter the permit's start and end times; the end must be later than the start. Select all required parties and press Submit for approval. An optional responsibility can be left without a participant, but if a participant is selected for it, that responsibility must also approve the permit.

In sequential approval, the next responsibility gets its turn after the previous one approves. In parallel approval, participating responsibilities can act at the same time. During approval, a new responsibility cannot be added and an external party's details cannot be changed. The potential users for an internal responsibility can be changed, subject to certain restrictions, before its decision; the change may clear an earlier acknowledgement.

Complete, acknowledge and approve your part

In the browser, open Permits → My actions and select a permit that needs your action. You can also open the permit from the work's Permits tab. Open My responsibilities and, if necessary, select the role you want to process. If you take a shared part using Take responsibility, only you can complete and approve it thereafter; a local system administrator can transfer the responsibility if necessary.

Complete the visible required information for your part, add the required attachments and save. If the permit requires confirmation that you have read the attachments, read them and select I have read the attachments. When your turn is active, press Acknowledge this part and then Approve. Sign any visible signature fields when approving. If the information changes after acknowledgement, acknowledge your part again before approving.

You can also select Reject and give a reason. Rejection by even one responsibility ends the round. The permit is approved only when all participating responsibilities have approved their parts.

An external participant receives a personal link by email or text message when their turn begins and completes their part in a browser without a Spotilla account. By default, the link is valid for seven days. If it expires, the person processing the permit can send an active external participant a new link from the permit details using Resend link; the previous link is invalidated.

Validity, notifications and work progress

If the template uses dates entered on the permit, an approved permit becomes valid at the selected start time and expires at the selected end time. An approved permit can therefore have a start time in the future. If Duration after approval is used, validity begins with the final approval and ends after the number of hours defined in the template.

An expired permit blocks starting if it has a start block. Its effect on completion depends on a shared setting: the default is Warn only, in which case expiry alone does not block completion. Block completion blocks completion because of an expired permit even when that permit's condition only blocks starting. A permit configured not to block the work does not cause this block. Other deficiencies may still block completion according to the permit's own requirement.

The shared settings are under Permits → Validity and work progress on the Settings page in the main menu. There you can also set the external link lifetime and how far in advance an expiry warning appears, which defaults to 24 hours. Shared event notifications are configured under Notifications in the same Permits section. On a permit template's Notifications tab, the channels and additional recipients selected for an event replace the shared defaults for that event; an empty channel selection uses the default. The delivery method for an external participant's link is selected when configuring the party.

Correct, withdraw, replace or delete a permit

Open the permit and its More actions menu. If a rejected permit, a permit awaiting approval or an approved permit needs to be corrected or approved again, select Start a new approval round and give a reason. Answers, parties and ordinary attachments are retained, but validity, acknowledgements, signatures and decisions must be completed again. The previous round remains in the history. Complete the information and submit the new round for approval.

Withdraw ends use of the permit and requires a reason; the information remains in the history. Replace permit requires a reason and creates an empty permit from a selected version of the same permit template. Answers, parties and approvals are not copied, and the old permit remains in the history as read-only. Neither action itself removes the work's permit requirement.

Delete permit draft permanently deletes only an eligible permit that has never been submitted for approval. The permit template remains, and the work's permit requirement may remain in force. If the permit is no longer needed, also remove the requirement from the work's permit settings or from the source of the inherited requirement, using the appropriate permissions. Permit information and settings for completed work are read-only. Deleting the work itself also deletes its associated permit history.

Check the permit and work status

Open the work's Permits tab and check the requirements for starting and completion, along with any missing permits and fields. Open the permit and check its Approval status, Permit condition, validity period, parties' decisions and History. Approved status alone does not mean that the permit is currently valid.

To review all permits visible to you, open Permits → My actions → Permit register. You can search by permit, work or party details and filter the list. You can export a filtered summary from the register using Export CSV and Export PDF; a single export can contain up to 5,000 permits. You can also include the history when exporting an individual permit to PDF. If an expected permit does not appear, check the filters in use and your permissions.