A polished demo can hide the operational questions that decide whether incident reporting software works after rollout. The evaluation should follow one representative incident from field capture through review, escalation, signature, distribution and later retrieval.
Use your own hierarchy and exception cases. A vendor that can show the happy path but cannot explain scope, retries or audit history has not yet shown the system you will depend on.
Field reporting
- Can a user capture voice, photos and video in one report?
- Does an unfinished report resume safely?
- What happens when an upload or AI step fails?
- Can the user correct every generated field before submission?
- Does the workflow fit a physical phone used on shift?
Evidence and provenance
- Are original files private and access-controlled?
- Can reviewers distinguish operator-entered and AI-generated content?
- Are edits, category changes and severity decisions attributable?
- Does the final report identify the version that was signed?
Access and tenant isolation
Ask the vendor to explain how data access is enforced, then test it with users who cover different branches, clients and sites. Interface hiding is not an authorisation boundary. The data layer should independently reject an out-of-scope request.
For multi-tenant software, ask how a newly created organisation receives its default categories, severity ladder and routing configuration—and how suspended or deleted organisations are handled.
Escalation and approvals
- Can rules use severity, report type and operational scope?
- Are resolved recipients snapshotted for auditability?
- Are notification, acknowledgement and approval distinct?
- Can an active signing step be delegated without lowering its requirement?
- What happens when no eligible approver exists?
Delivery and resilience
Ask whether email is sent directly during submission or placed in a durable outbox that can retry. Verify how client contacts are selected and whether a report is distributed before or after final signature. If push notifications are important, ask for a live demonstration rather than assuming they exist.
Pilot with evidence
Run the pilot on the actual phone models and networks used by field teams. Measure report completion, missing fields, upload retries, review time and routing accuracy. Keep a paper fallback until the digital process has passed real shift conditions.