Introducing Digital Forms

Colchester, UK, 5 November 2026. CrewSmart has released Digital Forms, a new way to capture anything that used to live on a clipboard or in a separate checklist app: pre-departure checks, inspections, toolbox talks, permits to work, incident details, audits, client sign-offs, or a bespoke form for a single contract. Forms are completed on the vessel app, offline if need be, and every answer is stored against the vessel, the person and the date.

Part of the procedure, not a separate app

CrewSmart's Procedures system already makes sure crews follow the correct procedure as set out in their safety management system, step by step, with each step assigned to the right person. Digital Forms is how a procedure collects the extra information it needs along the way: the readings, the photos, the pass and fail items, the signature. The form belongs to the step, so it is completed at the right point by the right person, and the completed form sits in the procedure's record alongside everything else that happened.

What auditors see

This is what makes the difference at audit. Instead of a folder of completed sheets, there is a chain from the procedure in the safety management system, to the person who carried it out, to the date, the vessel and the evidence they collected, with nothing re-typed in between. Auditors can see not just that a procedure exists but that it was followed, every time.

Built for the way checks are actually done

Each form is assembled from the fields an operator needs: pass and fail items, photos, lookups to vessels, equipment and crew, numbers, free text and signatures. Forms are versioned, with draft and publish, so a procedure can be improved without losing the history of what was in force on the day. Records already in progress finish on the version they started on.

Findings go where the work is

A failed item on a daily check raises a defect in planned maintenance. An observation opens a corrective action. An inspection finding is logged as a non-conformity against the safety management system. Each counts toward the vessel's compliance score and appears in the KPI reports that go to the client or the board.

Workboat Code 3 is weeks away

"Every UK workboat and pilot boat needs a proportionate safety management system in place by 13 December, and the surveyor will not just ask whether you have procedures; they will want to see that you follow them. That is what Digital Forms gives our customers: the information a procedure needs, collected at the point it is needed, by the person responsible, and kept as evidence against the procedure itself. It takes a lot of the anxiety out of an audit."

Christian Adams, Managing Director, CrewSmart

Digital Forms is available now to all CrewSmart customers with the Safety module, with no per-seat charge and no limit on users. Existing customers can switch it on from their account; new customers can book a 20-minute compliance check to see it on their own fleet.