Valid
In date, aboard, sighted. Nothing to do.
Safety & incidents
The report has to be easier to make than to avoid.
Near-miss reporting fails for one reason, and it is never the reason given in the circular. It fails because reporting costs the reporter something — a form in the ship's office, at the end of a twelve-hour day, in a second language, describing something slightly embarrassing.
Design that follows from that
The report is made on the device already in the person's hand, where it happened, in the minute after it happened. It takes a photograph and a sentence. It does not require the reporter to categorise anything, and it does not require them to be at a desk.
Nothing about it is optional-looking. A near miss reported badly is worth far more than a near miss reported not at all, so the form accepts a rough account and lets somebody ashore tidy the wording later without changing what was said.
Why there is no severity score
Most systems ask the reporter to grade their own event on a scale of one to five. It looks rigorous and it quietly destroys the data.
You are asking somebody to rate the seriousness of something they were involved in, at the exact moment they are least inclined to make it look bad, on a scale where a high number triggers an investigation into them. The scores compress downward, every time, and the compression is invisible because a 2 looks just like a 2.
So the product does not ask. It asks the two facts that actually rank an event — was anybody hurt, and does the equipment still work — and both are recorded as answered rather than inferred from a label. Ranking is done afterwards, by people whose job it is, from facts rather than from a number the reporter chose under pressure.
Asked of the reporter
“How severe was it?”
12345
A judgement, made by the person with the strongest reason to round down.
Asked instead
“Was anybody hurt?”
“Does it still work?”
Two facts. Neither is an opinion, and neither can be shaded.
Statutory certificates
The other half of safety is proving the ship is legally allowed to be doing what she is doing. That is a question about documents, and documents have four states, not two.
Expiring
In date, but inside the window where a renewal has to be arranged now to happen in time.
Cannot be checked
Somebody has to go and physically read it. A different job from renewing one, and the state most systems collapse into “valid”.
Expired
Out of date. A commercial and legal problem, today.
Computed aboard, against her own date
Validity is computed aboard, against the ship's own date, so it stays correct while she is out of touch. A certificate that expires in the middle of an ocean crossing expires on the ship, not when shore next opens a spreadsheet.
“Cannot be checked” is the state that earns its place. It is the difference between a document you know about and one you have assumed about.