How to use Playregister

Step 1

Open the register, or start one

Go to app.playregister.co.uk. You will see two boxes side by side. Which one you use depends only on whether the council already has a register file.

The very first time

1. In the right-hand box, Start a new register, type the council's name into Council name.
2. Press Start an empty register.

Every time after that

1. In the left-hand box, Open the council’s register, press Choose file.
2. Pick the council's register file. It is the one ending in .playregister.

Step 2

Put a report in — a sealed bundle from your inspector

If your inspector uses InspectVoice, their report arrives as a sealed .zip file. This is the quickest route: nothing is retyped and the register can check the file has not been altered.

1. Drag the .zip onto the box marked Add an inspection bundle — or press Choose file and pick it.
2. A File check panel appears. It lists every document inside the bundle and whether each one matches what the issuer said should be there.
3. Below that you will see every finding, in the inspector's own words.
4. When you are happy, press Record in the register.

If the file check fails

The register will say so plainly rather than quietly carrying on. You can still press Read the contents anyway and record it — and often you should, because the fact that a report arrived on a date is itself part of the record. The register simply notes that this one could not be checked.

If the report only covers some of the faults

Some exports are filtered — only high-risk items, say, or only one site. Where the issuing system declares that, the register shows an orange block naming the filter, and carries it through to any pack you produce. Faults outside that filter were never in the export, so they are not in the register from it. That is stated rather than left for someone to work out later.

Step 3

Put a report in — typing it in by hand

Reports from any other inspector work perfectly well. They are typed in instead, and the register is honest about which reports were checked and which were typed. Use this route for a PDF, a paper report, or your own weekly walk round.

1. Press Record it by hand.
2. Choose An inspection report or A routine check.

For an inspection report

Fill in Site, What the report calls it (its own words for the kind of inspection), Inspector and Inspecting body. Then, for each fault:

• Item — the piece of equipment, as the report identifies it.
• Rating, as the report words it — copy it across exactly. Do not translate it into your own scale.
• What the report says was found — the inspector's own sentence.
• Timescale, as the report words it — again, word for word.
• The report requires this immediately — tick this only where the report says so. It sets the fault apart at the top and on any worksheet.

Press Another fault for each further item, then Record it.

For a routine check

Much shorter: the site, who Walked by, and Anything found. A weekly walk round is not an inspection, and the register keeps the two apart on purpose — but recording it means the gap between inspections does not look like a gap in attention.

Step 4

When the same fault turns up again

A fault that is still there at the next inspection should continue the same record, not start a second one. The register handles this for you.

• Sealed reports. The fault carries its own identity from the issuing system, so it is matched onto the existing record automatically. Nothing to do.
• Typed reports. There is no identity to go on, so the register asks rather than guesses. You will see Is this the same fault? with the two entries side by side. Answer Yes, the same fault or No, record it separately.

Step 5

Send the work out — issuing a worksheet

A worksheet is the sheet you hand or send to whoever will do the repairs. It prints the findings exactly as the inspector wrote them.

1. Press Issue a worksheet.
2. Choose the site. One sheet covers one site per visit.
3. Fill in Issued to if there is a named contractor. It is optional — leave it blank if there is not, and the register will say the recipient was not recorded rather than inventing one.
4. Tick the faults that go on the sheet.
5. Press Issue and print.

Issuing records it against every fault on the sheet, so the record already knows the work has gone out before anyone comes back to you about it.

Step 6

Record what happened to each fault

This is the part that turns a list of faults into evidence. Open a fault and record what happened, as it happens. There are six things you can record:

• Worksheet issued — the findings have gone to whoever will do the work.
• Work carried out — the work has been done on site.
• Reported fixed — the contractor says it is done. This is your record of what you were told, not an inspection.
• Partly done — some of the work came back complete and some did not.
• Beyond repair — it cannot be repaired and needs replacing.
• Deferred — a decision to leave it for now. Record what was decided and when it will be looked at again.

For Reported fixed and Partly done, attach the evidence — the returned worksheet photographed, or the invoice. If there is none, record why. A tick on its own reads thinly next to a photograph of the signed sheet.

Press Record this when you are done.

Step 7

Record your inspection frequencies

Optional, and worth five minutes. Press Set how often sites are inspected — it reads Inspection frequencies once you have recorded some — and record how often the council has decided each kind of inspection happens — in the council's own words and the council's own intervals.

The register then shows how long it has been since each one, against what the council itself set. It reports the number of days; whether that is acceptable stays a judgement for the council and its inspector. Nothing here is ever labelled overdue.

Step 8

Save the register — the important one

Press Save the register. A file downloads. That file is the register — there is no copy on a server anywhere, because nothing is uploaded and there is no account.

1. Save it wherever the council keeps its records.
2. Each save is numbered — save-001, save-002 and so on — so the newest is obvious at a glance.
3. Next time, open the newest one.

Step 9

Produce a pack for an insurer, an auditor or a meeting

Press Prepare a pack and choose who it is for. What you see on screen is the pack itself, not a preview of it — the bytes shown are the bytes saved.

• Insurance renewal pack — what inspectors recorded at each play area, what the council did about it, and which items a later independent inspection recorded as clear. Saves as a folder, with your inspectors' own sealed reports inside so the recipient can check them independently.
• Internal audit pack — the same chain, plus what has been spent, plus what the record does not establish. Also a folder.
• Meeting summary — the current position at each play area. Saves as a single page you can open and print for the meeting.

Every pack carries a plain covering note saying what the record does and does not establish. Playregister will not tell anyone the council is compliant, because it is not qualified or insured to make that judgement — and a register that overstated what it proved would be worse than none.

Step 10

If you serve more than one council

Common, and handled. On the opening screen press See where each of them stands and choose each council's file. You get one line per site per council — open faults, immediate items, when the last report on file was.

That view is read-only by design. To record anything you open that council's register on its own, which is what keeps one council's record from ever being edited while you believe you are looking at another's.