How a multi-site manufacturer replaced email-based incident reporting with a Canvas App, Power Automate, SharePoint and Power BI — cutting escalation time from days to minutes, with zero new software licences.
Incidents were reported however a shift happened to remember — a phone call, a WhatsApp message, an email sent once someone got back to the office. Detail was inconsistent: some reports had photos and a clear description, others were a single line sent hours after the event.
Because everything landed in inboxes rather than a shared system, there was no reliable way to see what had happened across sites, no automatic escalation for higher-severity incidents, and no live view of trends. Investigations were frequently delayed simply because the right manager didn't see the report until the next working day.
Rather than introduce a new piece of Health & Safety software, we built the entire workflow on the Microsoft 365 licences the business already had. Five components, each doing one job well, connected into a single automated flow:
A simple Power Apps Canvas App, installed on shared site tablets and personal phones via Teams, lets any employee report an incident in under a minute — including photos — whether they're on the shop floor or off-site.
A flow triggers the moment a report is submitted. It validates the entry, classifies severity based on the details provided, and pushes the record straight through to SharePoint — no manual re-keying, ever.
Every submission lands in a structured SharePoint list that acts as a single, permanent incident register across every site — searchable, filterable, and fully auditable.
Based on severity and location, Power Automate posts an immediate Teams notification to the relevant site manager — so high-severity incidents get eyes on them in minutes, not the next working day.
A Power BI dashboard reads directly from the SharePoint list, giving leadership a constantly up-to-date view of incident rates, trends by site, and severity mix — replacing what used to be a manual monthly report.
"We used to find out about incidents a day late, sometimes longer. Now the site manager knows within minutes, and I can see incident trends across all our sites without asking anyone to pull a report together."
Within the first month of rollout, every site was submitting incidents through the Canvas App rather than email. The impact was immediate and measurable:
The business didn't need a new platform — it needed its existing tools connected together properly. Because every component is standard Microsoft 365, the client's IT team can maintain and extend the solution themselves, and there's no separate vendor, licence or login for staff to learn.
Book a free discovery call and we'll look at whether the same approach could work for your incident reporting, audits, or inspections.
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