Drafting a SWMS

Brief your job, build your hazard list, collect crew sign-on. Faster than Word — and easier to find at 6am.

What a SWMS needs to cover

Under the Work Health and Safety Act, a Safe Work Method Statement for high-risk construction work must identify each high-risk activity, describe how it will be managed, and be agreed to by the workers before work starts.

RopeLogix structures the SWMS to meet these requirements. You fill in the job-specific details — the platform handles the format.

Three ways to start a SWMS

Generate with AI

On a new SWMS, tap Generate with AI and supply a job description — where, what, anchor configuration, environment. The AI fills in scope-of-work, hazards-and-controls, anchor systems, PPE, environment, equipment checks, and emergency procedures.

Review every section before saving. The AI is a head-start, not a final draft — site-specific risk is still on you.

The rescue plan is intentionally NOT generated. Rescue lives on its own form — the standalone Rescue Plan tab on the job, with its own signers and version chain. Embedding rescue in the SWMS body created two sources of truth; the AI now skips it deliberately.

Upload an existing document

Have a SWMS from a prior job, a sub's template, or a PDF the principal contractor sent through? Tap Upload SWMS and pick a file (PDF) or take a photo of the printed document with the camera.

The upload runs OCR + Vision-extracts on the page, hands the text off to the same AI, and returns a structured draft you review before saving. Faster than re-typing — and you keep the structured form for revisions and signing.

Build from scratch

Open a blank SWMS and fill in each section by hand. Available on every plan. Slowest path, but the right one when the job is unusual enough that an AI head-start would mislead more than help.

AI generation and document upload are Professional plan only. Starter plan can build a SWMS from scratch and edit it manually.

Lifecycle — from DRAFT to SIGNED

A SWMS moves through a 6-status lifecycle before it is legally binding. Each status is visible as a badge on the SWMS card. Every row links through to the SWMS detail page where you read the full form before signing.

  1. 1
    DRAFT — editable. Refine the hazard list, controls, and drop table before submitting for review.
  2. 2
    UNDER REVIEW — submitted for approval. A supervisor or org admin who did not author the SWMS reviews it. The SWMS cannot be signed yet.
  3. 3
    APPROVED — cleared by the reviewer. The SWMS can now be distributed for crew sign-on.
  4. 4
    DISTRIBUTED — sent to the team for sign-on. Crew members sign from their own devices.
  5. 5
    SIGNED — all crew have signed. The supervisor marks the SWMS as Signed when the team sign-off roster is complete.
  6. 6
    ARCHIVED — retired. Retained for the audit trail.
Segregation of duties: the person who creates (authors) a SWMS cannot approve it. A different supervisor or org admin must approve — this is an enforced control, not a guideline.
Reject / send back: if the reviewer finds issues with an UNDER REVIEW SWMS, they can reject it (send it back to DRAFT) with a reason. You will be notified and can edit before resubmitting.

Signing — every technician, own device

Once the SWMS is APPROVED, tap Distribute for sign-on. Every crew member on the job signs from their own device — same Team sign-off roster pattern as pre-starts, toolbox talks, and rescue plans: chip per member, green-checked = signed, dim/Pending = not yet.

The supervisor tracks who has signed via the Team sign-off roster. When all signatures are in, the supervisor marks the SWMS as Signed. The SWMS does not automatically transition — the supervisor confirms it is complete.

The audit detail behind every signature (timestamp, GPS, IP, device fingerprint) is the same pipeline used everywhere else in RopeLogix. The deep dive is in Signing things.

Per-drop rescue plans

A real rope-access job rarely has a single rescue method — the plan changes between drops based on access, anchor configuration, height, and what's below the technician. RopeLogix lets you attach a list of drops to a SWMS, and override the rescue method on any drop where the parent plan doesn't apply.

In the SWMS detail page, open the Drops tab. Add each drop by name (e.g. “West face — Level 22 to ground”), its height, and the anchor configuration. The drop inherits the SWMS-level rescue method by default; tap Override rescue to record a drop-specific plan with its own narrative and equipment list.

Drops appear on the printed SWMS PDF in their own section, after the main hazard table — so the principal contractor and any auditor can see exactly what the rescue plan was for each drop, not just “same as the rest of the job”.

Finding past SWMS documents

Go to SWMS in the sidebar and use the Signed / archived tab for historical records. Search by job name, date, or location. Download as PDF for your own records or to send to a principal contractor.

Signing SWMS and other documents →

Rescue plans →

Reports and exports →

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