Permit to Work Software for Enterprise

Enterprise permit to work: delegated authority, shift handover and records that outlast the job

A permit to work is the written control that stands between a planned job and a hazard such as stored energy, a confined space or a hot process. At a single site one supervisor can know every permit on the board. In a group of 1,000 or more employees, with several sites, shift patterns and contractor firms, nobody can, so the software has to carry what people used to carry in their heads: who may issue which type of permit, which jobs overlap, which isolations are still applied and who holds the job tonight.

The regulations below do not mention software, but they describe records an electronic system has to reproduce faithfully: a signed authorisation before work starts, a stated purpose and duration, named people, recorded isolation and test results, cancellation at the end, and retention afterwards. Treat each of these as a field or a rule to test, not as a feature claimed on a web page.

The enterprise questions are different from the single-site ones. Can approval authority differ by site and permit type, and can a named deputy act when an issuer is absent? Can a corporate auditor sample permits across all sites without gaining the right to approve them? Does the permit link to the isolation record and the maintenance work order, or are three systems reconciled by hand?

Field conditions also decide the outcome. Plants, tank farms and shutdown areas often have patchy coverage, and vendors usually document offline capture for incidents and inspections rather than for permit authorisation. Ask each vendor, in writing, exactly which permit steps work without a connection, and run that test on a real device in a poor-signal area before signing.

Rules that shape this evaluation

• 29 CFR 1910.146, permit-required confined spaces (US): the entry supervisor named on the permit signs it before entry begins; the permit identifies the space, the purpose, the date and authorised duration, the entrants by name or tracking system, the attendants, the hazards, the isolation measures, test results and rescue arrangements; duration may not exceed the time the task needs; the supervisor cancels it when the task ends or prohibited conditions arise; and cancelled permits are kept for at least one year to support review of the programme.
• 29 CFR 1910.147, control of hazardous energy (US): energy control procedures are documented, and each is inspected at least annually by an authorised employee other than the one using it, with the machine, date, employees and inspector certified; a lock or tag is normally removed by the person who applied it; group lockout needs a designated primary responsibility and personal devices; and shift or personnel changes need specific procedures that keep the protection continuous.
• 29 CFR 1910.119, process safety management: hot work and safe work practices (US): a hot work permit documents that fire prevention and protection requirements have been implemented, the dates authorised and the object being worked on, and is kept until the hot work is complete; separate safe work practices must cover lockout/tagout, confined space entry, opening process equipment or piping, and control over the entrance of maintenance, contractor and other support personnel.
• Confined Spaces Regulations 1997, regulation 4 (Great Britain): no one may enter a confined space for work unless it is not reasonably practicable to do the work without entry, and entry, work and exit (other than in an emergency) must follow a system of work that makes the work safe and without risks to health, so far as is reasonably practicable.

Summarised from the linked official texts, read on 25 September 2026. This is buyer context, not legal advice: have the responsible specialists confirm which requirements apply to your sites.

Questions to settle for this combination

1. Can approval authority be set by site, role and permit type, with a named deputy when an issuer is absent, and is every delegation, including who granted it and when, kept in the audit trail?
2. Can the permit be linked to the isolation points and the maintenance work order, so that releasing the permit and releasing the isolation are checked against each other and not reconciled by hand?
3. At shift change, can an open permit be handed to the incoming supervisor with both signatures and a timestamp, without cancelling and re-issuing it?
4. Which permit steps (viewing an issued permit, signing on, suspending, closing) work without a connection, and what happens to a permit approved in the control room while the field device is still disconnected?
5. Can cancelled permits, amendments and signatures be retained unaltered and exported for the longest retention period that applies in any of your jurisdictions?
6. Can a corporate auditor sample permits across all sites with read-only access, and can contractor employees from several firms be named as entrants and checked against their qualifications?

Which documented capabilities matter most here

Signals in the researched records of the listed products:

• Matched through a sourced tag or a documented capability rather than the primary category: Intelex, Cority, Enablon, Evotix, VelocityEHS, EcoOnline, Prometheus Group and Qavach.AI.
• Offline use, as classified in the records: a documented offline workflow: Intelex, Cority, Enablon, Evotix and VelocityEHS; a partial offline workflow: EcoOnline and Qavach.AI. No classification yet for 1 of the 8.
• A published price amount is on record for Intelex; the other 7 need a quote.

Vendor-material signals, not test results; the commercial partner is not counted; no signal means not established.

A demo script for this combination

Ask each vendor to run these steps with synthetic data. They are demo requests, not observed vendor results.

1. Configure two sites with different approval chains for the same hot work permit type, and show a deputy approving while the usual issuer is marked absent.
2. Issue a synthetic confined space permit with named entrants, an attendant, recorded test results and a rescue arrangement, then show the system refusing to issue it while a required field is empty.
3. Hand the open permit to a night-shift supervisor and show both signatures and the time of the handover in the record.
4. Create an overlapping job in the same area and show what warning, if any, the system raises, and who must respond.
5. Cancel the permit, then export the full record, including amendments and the audit trail, as a corporate auditor with read-only access.