Hazardous Materials mobile app

Review, Edit, and Inventory Modes

To meet the needs of a variety of users, the Hazardous Materials app works in three modes.

Review mode

While in the field, safety managers, facility managers, and general staff members want details about the hazardous products they encounter in day-to-day work. For example, a move manager preparing to move a lab to new space, a craftsperson working in a room housing chemicals, an office manager showing a new employee their work space all need to know what materials they might encounter and take precautions when entering areas housing these items. Similarly, in the event of an emergency safety managers will want to provide chemical inventory information to the emergency response personnel so that they can take appropriate precautions in handling the emergency.

With Review mode of the Hazardous Materials mobile app, these users have access to the materials inventory and their corresponding SDSs directly from their smart phones. They can work from location lists or pull up floor plans to see where materials are located on the floor.

For information, see Reviewing Locations and their Materials

Edit mode

Mobile users who are not performing an official survey might notice a discrepancy between conditions as they exist in the facility and the inventory as presented on their mobile device. For example, a user might notice that a material exists in the room but is not included in the electronic inventory, or that a material has been disposed of but the system lists it as in inventory. After syncing to ensure that the mobile device does indeed contain the latest data, users with Edit access can make corrections to the data on the mobile device and then upload these changes to the Archibus server.

This mode enables users to make ad hoc additions and edits to the material data without being in Inventory mode and without changing the Date Last Inventoried field.

Inventory mode

To ensure that the materials inventory is up-to-date, field auditors periodically conduct formal inventories of the quantities of hazardous products at each location. The auditors visit a set of locations, consult the mobile app on their smart phone for a listing of the expected material inventory at this location, update the inventory information with the results they find, and then upload their changes to the Archibus SDS system. Audits such as this are particularly important for organizations that are subject to EPCRA Tier 2 reporting requirements.

For users with inventory privileges the app displays two tabs: Inventory and Review. When they first access the app, the Review tab is active and displays review-only fields. Once the user sets the app to Inventory mode by choosing the Inventory tab and setting a survey start date, the user is in Inventory mode and remains in this mode until they explicitly close the survey. Once in Inventory mode, the user does not need to access the Review tab; they can perform all inventory, edit, and review functions from the Inventory tab.

For information, see:

Note: If you enter Inventory mode unintentionally or choose the wrong inventory start date, you must immediately click the Check Mark button in the upper right corner to close the inventory. The app will say it is syncing, but if you have not made any data changes, nothing will, in fact, be synced. The app will return to the Review screen.

Summary of modes, features, and the required security groups

The following table summarizes the three modes. For information on security groups and roles, see Configuring Archibus Mobile Apps - Archibus Administrator.

Mode Purpose Required Security Group Features you Access
Review Review materials and SDS documents. RISK-MSDS-MOB Read-only fields
Edit

Review materials and SDS documents.

Edit and create material records.

RISK-MSDS-MOB
RISK-MSDS-MOB-ED

Sync button
Add New button
Editable fields

Inventory

Review materials and SDS documents.

Audit the site's materials and make corrections to electronic inventory by editing records and creating new records.

RISK-MSDS-MOB
RISK-MSDS-MOB-INV

Sync button
Add New button
Editable fields
Verify button
Close Inventory button
Two tabs:

  • Review tab is set to Review mode until you start an inventory.
  • Inventory tab. Once you choose this tab to start an inventory, you are in Inventory mode.
    When you access the Review tab, it is in Edit mode.