Released: 20 August 2024
It is important to have visibility and transparency when data about a supplier or production unit changes. Since this data is the foundation of your supplier compliance efforts, we realize that it should be possible to see when changes were made, and who made them.
With this release, all changes are showing for both production units and suppliers:
It is possible to add comments as well, for keeping discussions in Qarma, also relating to updating status of production units.
Also changes that are made through audits, or from data integrations will be recorded in the history and marked with which source the change of data comes from.
The history will include all changes made before this release is made available.
]]>Released 2 July 2024
Audits: Avoid duplication of corrective actions
When creating corrective actions in the mobile app, there is now an indication on checkpoints which have already been used for corrective actions. In the example below, the two checkpoints at the top already have a corrective action created.
If the user attempts selecting those checkpoints again, a warning message is shown:
Audits and inspections: moving images between checkpoints has become easier
When you have taken an image on a checkpoint, it is possible to move it to another checkpoint. This supports a work flow where the user takes a lot of images on one checkpoint without spending time on organizing them, and then spends some time on sorting the images later.
When moving the images, the view has been improved with new design and type-to-search for the checkpoint name:
Planned release: end of May 2024
In order to allow our users to work more effectively following up on inspections, we will be releasing a new feature to work with corrective actions for inspection reports.
We intend to host a webinar in Mid June highlighting how this new feature could be used for sample inspections and other purposes (will be announced on our LinkedIn page), but until then please find below all the details of this new feature. It will be automatically available as a replacement for follow-up tasks, so there is no action needed on your side. Users who have been using the follow-up tasks feature will get guidance in the report view when the new feature is available.
From the report page, you will be able to select defects or checkpoints which should trigger a corrective action and with a few clicks create a Corrective Action Plan (CAP) for the supplier to follow up.
Getting visual feedback into the reports
One of the key benefits from this new feature is that the images or videos provided as evidence when resolving a corrective action will be displayed directly in the report next to the images of the problem. Below is an example of a defect reported (the first two pictures) and then the evidence from the corrective action provided later (shown with the green “Evidence” marking):
This is particularly useful for sample reports where a lot of changes and updates are made based on previous findings, and suppliers will be able to easily provide images for the corrected version.
Inclusion in PDF report
It’s possible to download pdf report including corrective actions by selecting that option in the download menu:
Keep track of corrective actions per supplier
Once Corrective Actions have been created, there will be a dedicated menu for keeping track of the status of corrective actions, where you can filter on supplier, due date, status etc.
Resolve from mobile app
In many cases, you want the supplier to provide some evidence that the problem has been solved. The mobile app will have a Corrective Actions menu where the supplier can easily take pictures or video and resolve the corrective action. If an approver has been added, it will send an email to this person for approval.
Follow-up tasks
Today, the section on inspection reports called “Follow-up tasks” will be replaced by the new corrective actions. All existing follow-up tasks have been converted to corrective actions by the time of release.
Permissions
Corrective actions permissions are being split in two with this release:
1 - Corrective actions for Audits and Suppliers
This is the previous section that has just been renamed. It has been left un-touched.
Note that for the mobile app, there is only one entry for controlling visibility of the corrective actions menu, as it included both types of corrective actions.
2 - Corrective actions for Inspections
This section is new and include different scopes than the one above.
The following scopes can be used to control access:
Creator: The user who creates the corrective action. This user will always have access to editing the corrective action.
Responsible: The user who is assigned as responsible. This user will always have access to seeing the corrective action plus uploading evidence and resolving it.
Approver: The user who is assigned as approver. This user will always have access to seeing the corrective action and approving it.
Group: A corrective action can have a group (can be set on the detailed page). Members of any group that is set on the corrective action will have access through this scope.
Supplier: Users that are member of the supplier will have access to corrective actions belonging to inspections for this supplier.
Inspection: Users that have the Show Report permission for an inspection, can be granted access to corrective actions for this inspection as well. To put it short: if you want users who can see the inspection report to also have permissions for its corrective action, use this scope.
When the release is made, user roles will per default have the access that they had for follow-up tasks in the previous version: If the user role had Manage follow-up tasks permissions, it would get all permissions set in the inspection scope (as shown in the above figure). If the user role did not have Manage follow-up tasks permissions, it will only have Show permission in the Inspection scope. You can of course modify these permissions, but the default permissions should make sure that operations can carry on unaffected by this release, only with the added capabilities of the corrective actions as described in this post.
Data export
When exporting inspection data, it is now possible to include corrective actions as a separate sheet:
Furthermore, the inspections sheet will include columns for total, open and closed corrective actions.
Please note that the data format for inspections has not been changed - the addition of corrective actions was anticipated and prepared for when the data format was released.
]]>Planned release: 4 April 2024
We are preparing for the upcoming release for web-based audits. It will let you carry out audits on the website and add the option to invite external users to carry out audits/assessments, we are updating the login screen on the mobile app and the audit creation and assignment page.
If you are interested in learning more about this feature, we recommend browsing through a webinar recording showing how this new feature works.
Mobile app login screen
The new login screen will look like this:
A few notes on the changes:
The login has one more step, with the password showing in step 2.
There is an option to scan an audit QR code at the bottom which is part of the new web-based audit feature.
Everything else is the same as before
User experience improvements of audit assignment page
The new audit assignment page will look like this
Functionality-wise, nothing has changed, but the design has been updated to make the page easier to navigate visually more appealing.
]]>Planned release: May 2024
In order to allow our users to work more effectively following up on inspections, we will be releasing a new feature to work with corrective actions for inspection reports.
From the report page, you will be able to select defects or checkpoints which should trigger a corrective action and with a few clicks create a Corrective Action Plan (CAP) for the supplier to follow up.
Getting visual feedback into the reports
One of the key benefits from this new feature is that the images or videos provided as evidence when resolving a corrective action will be displayed directly in the report next to the images of the problem. Below is an example of a defect reported (the first two pictures) and then the evidence from the corrective action provided later (shown with the green “Evidence” marking):
This is particularly useful for sample reports where a lot of changes and updates are made based on previous findings, and suppliers will be able to easily provide images for the corrected version.
Keep track of corrective actions per supplier
Once Corrective Actions have been created, there will be a dedicated menu for keeping track of the status of corrective actions, where you can filter on supplier, due date, status etc.
Resolve from mobile app
In many cases, you want the supplier to provide some evidence that the problem has been solved. The mobile app will have a Corrective Actions menu where the supplier can easily take pictures or video and resolve the corrective action. If an approver has been added, it will send an email to this person for approval.
Follow-up tasks
Today, the section on inspection reports called “Follow-up tasks” will be replaced by the new corrective actions. All existing follow-up tasks will be converted to corrective actions.
]]>Planned for release April 2024
By end of Q1 2024 we expect to release a new major feature in Qarma: The ability to carry out audits on the web. This will enable users to use a proper screen and keyboard to fill in audit reports without being confined to the small screen and touch interface of a mobile device.
Does it mean you lose the ability to track audits through GPS? No, you can still include image and videos in the checklists, to be taken with the mobile app, enabling tracking of GPS location. If you make the images mandatory, the auditor has to use the Qarma mobile app for taking the images. The auditor can still fill in the rest of the audit online. There will be convenient ways for the auditor to use the mobile app for picture taking using QR codes linked to the specific audit.
Below you can find a sample mock-up of the new design.
