Exception reporting is available on the Standard Plan only, plan upgrades can be made at any time from the Billing Panel.
What is Reporting by Exceptions?
It’s great to hear when your day-to-day operations are smooth sailing but perhaps more vital to know when things don’t exactly go to plan.
Our reporting by exceptions feature allows you to see those tasks that aren’t completed perhaps as expected in seconds on your Task Reports page.
What counts as an exception within Trail?
See all our exceptions below:
Exception | Can the exception be removed? | Do I need to set this up? | Included in task completed emails? |
The task has a comment added to it. | Yes, if the comment is deleted | No, this is automatically logged as an exception. | Yes |
Added checklist item The task has a one-off checklist item added to it. | Yes, if all added checklist items are removed. | No, this is automatically logged as an exception. | Yes |
Flagged checklist item. The task has a checklist item flagged as a one-off. | Yes, if all checklist items are unflagged. | No, this is automatically logged as an exception. | Yes |
Out-of-range number in a Record Log. The task's record log has number fields that are out of range. | Yes, if the number is changed to be within the acceptable range. | No, as long as the number range has been set, this is automatically logged as an exception. See how to manage out-of-range numbers below. | Yes |
Wrong answer option or out of range answer in Record log. The task's record log has fields that are out of range, or options have been selected which are marked as exceptions. | Yes, if the Task is changed to not have errors. | Yes. See how to manage these exceptions below. | Yes |
Reopened task. | This exception can never be removed. | No, this is automatically logged as an exception. | No. task completed emails are only sent once when they’re first completed. You can still view this type of exception in task reports. |
How do I set up exceptions when editing tasks?
There are 2 exceptions you can set up when managing your tasks on the Task Editor page:
1) Out-of-range warning messages
Out-of-range warning messages can be set using the number option when creating a new field in your task to give a warning when numbers are out of an ideal range. It's really useful for compliance with temperatures.
You might need to have different ranges for different options e.g. for a fridge vs a freezer. In this case, you can use a combination of an options field and a number field to set bespoke ranges.
💡 Note: Any number that is recorded by your team and is out of range will automatically count towards an exception.
2) Option field with Incorrect answers
You can log an answer as an exception when creating multiple-choice questions for your team.
When setting up a task in the Task editor, select the ‘Log Exception’ button beside each wrong multiple-choice option.
If your team chooses an option with the ‘Log Exception’ toggle on, the task will be flagged as part of your exception reporting in Task Reports.
💡 Note: You will need to make sure the 'Log Exception' button is ticked next to the wrong answer for it to appear in your reports.
How can I view these exceptions?
You can see any tasks with exceptions in the Task Reports section. Use the filters to select which Exception you’d like to see - you can select any combination of exceptions to view and use filters such as tags, sites and date to narrow down your data even more.
You can also choose to receive task completed notifications if there is an exception in the task.
Task Completion Notification Emails
It’s worth noting though that Task Completed Notifications only send the first time a task is completed so if a task is re-opened, this exception would not show in the email.
You can still view all reopened task exceptions in the Task Reports page (above).