Office 365 for fire-safety compliance

An example of how to do it…

This article provides an overview of Microsoft Office 365 and describes how Microsoft Apps and SharePoint can support the golden thread of information required by the Fire Safety bill, notably fire-risk assessments, fire-door management and fire-safety logbooks. We will also look at the requirements of the draft ‘Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 Fire Doors: Routine Checks & Information to Residents’ and place them in the context of an Office 365 solution.

What is Office 365?

Office 365 is a subscription-based service and a suite of various apps and tools. It includes traditional software programmes such as Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook plus various online services and apps. The important aspect is that by using tools such as Office 365’s Teams, SharePoint and PowerApps, a housing provider has complete control of its own data, workflows and compliance.

What about specialists?

If a housing provider uses third-party fire-safety inspection and assessment companies, they will often want to use their own software. We believe that has many downsides:

• The housing provider won’t own its own data;
• What happens to any future unsupported software;
• What happens if the housing provider changes supplier, and how do you retrieve your data?

In contrast, by using Office 365, you can switch contractors ‘on’ to your assessment and inspection PowerApps, not theirs.

In-house checks

Simple recurring checks can also be undertaken in-house using PowerApps. All material fire-safety data is in one place and can be linked to the housing provider’s own asset-management systems.

Closing-out findings

Owning the apps and data workflows directly would enable housing providers’ staff and/or external users to close-out findings and associate evidence of remedial actions. It would enable reports to be run using tools such as PowerBI, and Microsoft Outlook could be used to support workflows.

Using off-the-shelf Office applications has many advantages:

• Ownership of data – you meet the golden thread requirements because the data is in your own instance of Office 365;
• Most of your staff will have access to PowerApps using their existing Office 365 accounts (i.e. you’re already paying for the licences);
• Reporting options include Word documents, Excel reports and HTML;
• Guest access to PowerApps;
• Information governance – it’s Microsoft;
• You can align the data with your existing asset-management software;
• You don’t have to use Azure (this can be expensive when handling images) – SharePoint has significant cost advantages.

A case study – Fire doors: routine checks & information to residents

The easiest way to illustrate the use of Office 365 is to solve a forthcoming challenge. The Home Office has recently invited comment on its new draft guide, ‘Fire Doors: Routine Checks & Information to Residents’. What we will do is set out how we would address the guide’s requirements, aligned to specific sections of the regulations.

Part 1 – Communication (reg #5 – information to residents)

• A QR code is issued via a fire-safety information card given to residents.
• The QR code would be incorporated into the premises/building’s fire action notices.
• Residents would be asked to keep the fire information card in their property, and if not available, use the QR code on the nearest fire action notice.

Part 2 – Resident (reg #10 – reporting)

Regulation 10 of the draft requirements requires that residents be given information to the effect that: fire doors be kept shut when not in use; residents or their guests should not tamper with self-closing devices; and residents should report any fault or damage immediately to the responsible person.

• A Microsoft Sway webpage could be prepared, accessible via a QR code on residents’ fire safety information cards and fire action notices. This would contain guidance on the importance of fire doors, building evacuation procedures, fire safety rules and so on.
• The Sway webpage would open and render on a mobile device.
• The webpage would contain an embedded Microsoft Form; the form would enable residents to report a non-conformity via their mobile device.
• The form would move the data to Excel online.
• Microsoft PowerAutomate would trigger an automated workflow in Outlook and move the data to a SharePoint site.
• Outlook would drive internal workflows to alert a member of staff to the reported concern.
• A PowerApp associated with a group calendar would support an inspection of the relevant fire door by a responsible person.
• The door could be inspected using a PowerApp.
• Corrective action could be recorded and closed out using a ‘maintenance’ PowerApp.
• Aggregated data across SharePoint sites could be rolled up and interrogated using PowerQuery exporting to Excel or PowerBI, with the output flows via PowerAutomate.

Part 3 – Responsible person (reg #6 – routing checking of fire doors)

• Responsible persons or carers in sheltered accommodation could be trained in basic fire door inspections using a PowerApp to report concerns.
• The PowerApp would record the geo-location and require photo evidence of the defective door.
• PowerAutomate would generate outputs with workflow to HTML reports.

Gary Watts and Craig Edwards are directors of Corporatecover.com.