Creating required safety checklist before job close

Hi Keiko, happy to help with this!

Yes, you can enforce this using Required Checklists tied to work order closure. Here is the setup:

1. Navigate to Settings → Forms & Checklists → Templates
2. Create or edit your safety checklist template
3. Toggle "Required before work order completion"
4. Under Apply Automatically, select the job types that require this checklist (e.g., "Industrial Maintenance")

With this enabled, technicians will see a blocking message if they try to change status to Completed without submitting the checklist. The work order literally cannot proceed.

For audit purposes, submitted checklists are timestamped and attached to the work order permanently — even if edited later, the original submission is preserved.

Would you like me to walk through setting this up for a specific job type, or do you have questions about the audit trail?

Pro tip: Even with "required" enabled, train your techs to hit Submit Checklist before they start the final job tasks. I've seen situations where they're almost done, try to close the job, get blocked, and then have to backtrack through the checklist while standing in front of the customer.

Also if you have multiple checklist templates assigned to a job type, all of them must be submitted before closure. We learned that the hard way with a pre-job safety check AND a post-job equipment check both set to required.

This addresses our core requirement. Two follow-ups:

1. Can we require supervisor sign-off on the checklist itself, or only technician submission?

2. Is there reporting to prove compliance across all completed jobs for a given period?

Great questions, Keiko.

1. Supervisor sign-off: Not native to checklist submission, but you can add a Signature field to the checklist template itself. The technician would hand the device to their supervisor for sign-off. If you need true workflow enforcement (supervisor must approve before closure), that would require a custom status workflow — I'd recommend our Safety Form Requirements article for the advanced options.

2. Compliance reporting: Yes — Reports → Checklists → Completion by Job shows checklist status for all work orders. You can filter by date range, job type, and completion status. Export to CSV for auditor review.

Seconding Josh's point about sequencing — we actually renamed our checklists to include "STEP 1" and "STEP 2" in the titles so techs know the order. Small UX win that saves a lot of confusion.

Also worth noting: the required checklist block only applies to status changes to Completed. If your techs are using "Pending Parts" or "Needs Follow-Up" as workarounds, those don't trigger the validation. You may want to audit your status usage if compliance is critical.

From a governance perspective, it is worth noting that required checklists create a system-enforced control that may satisfy certain regulatory frameworks (OSHA recordkeeping, ISO 45001) provided you:

• Document the configuration in your quality management system
• Establish retention policies for checklist data (FieldPulse retains indefinitely by default, but verify your contract)
• Include checklist completion in your internal audit sampling

It is also advisable to restrict the "Manage Checklist Templates" permission to a small group — uncontrolled template changes could inadvertently weaken your control. See Managing User Roles and Permissions for the specific permission matrix.