User Manual

⚓ Getting started

• ISMpilot keeps your vessel’s Life-Saving Appliances (LSA), Fire-Fighting Equipment (FFE/FIFI) and lifting & mooring gear in one place, with inspection and expiry tracking. Equipment is grouped into four registers: LSA, FFE, Other and Lifting & Mooring. Each item has its own number, type and size, make, serial/ID, deck and location, and the dates that drive compliance.
• Fastest way to begin: Settings → Import from Excel. Bring your existing list as it is, or tap Download blank template (one sheet per category) and fill that in. Either way you see what was found before anything is saved.
• Platforms: iPhone, iPad and Android, and any browser at app.ismpilot.com — which is how it runs on a Windows or Mac laptop or the bridge PC, with nothing to install. It is the same app and the same register everywhere; cloud sync keeps every device that has joined the vessel in step.
• One address, many vessels. What you see in the web app is decided by the vessel your browser has joined, not by the address. Each browser is its own device: it enters the vessel’s IMO and enrols with a name and PIN, and from then on it sees that ship’s register and no other.
• All data is stored on the device and the app works fully offline.

📥 Importing from Excel

• Settings → Import from Excel → choose your .xlsx workbook. A worksheet named after a category (Liferafts, Lifejackets, Fire extinguishers…) maps to that category automatically.
• Your own layout works too. A sheet that is not named after a category — typically one list of everything, deck by deck — is read by its column headings (#, Deck, Location, Description, Make, Type, Size, Serial, Exp / Inspc., Comments…), and every row is sorted into its category by what the item is. Anything that cannot be recognised goes to Other Safety Equipment.
• “#” is read as the item number when the sheet also has a Serial column, and as the serial when it has not. “Exp / Inspc.” fills whichever date the category is judged by. Section rows such as “Sun Deck” are skipped.
• Choose Update to bring an existing register in line with the file: each row finds the item it already is (by MSM ID, then serial, then number and location), changed cells are applied, new rows are added, and items keep their QR labels, photos and inspection history. Replace all overwrites the register; Add as new adds every row next to what is there.
• To work on the list gradually: Reports → export the register as Excel, edit that file (leave its “MSM ID” column as it is), then import it with Update.
• Dates as Excel serials, years (“2034”), DD/MM/YYYY or month and year (“Jun/26”) are converted automatically.

🧰 Equipment, photos & documents

• The Equipment tab shows all categories with item counts and a coloured dot for the worst status inside. Tap a category to see its items; search by number, type, make, size, serial, deck or location. Tap ＋ to add an item by hand.
• The item number is shown large on the item and inspection screens: among forty identical extinguishers it is the one thing that tells them apart.
• Set dates on many items at once after a service: long-press one item, tick the others (or All), then Set dates. A field left blank keeps each item’s own value.
• Duplicate item creates a copy with everything filled in except the serial, and with the next free item number.
• Each item holds up to 4 photos or documents (📎) and shows the certificates that cover it (📜). Long-press an attachment to download, rename, replace or delete it.
• Sort by expiry date, position, name or type. On tablets and laptops lists show two columns.
• An optional BA Compressor log (Settings → Modules) tracks running hours and servicing for up to 3 breathing-air compressors.

🪝 Lifting & Mooring

Lifting and mooring gear lives in the same app as LSA and FFE — one account, one crew list, one set of QR labels, one place the evidence is kept. It appears on the Dashboard, in the Equipment tab, in reports and in the Excel import template like any other register.

• Quarterly rounds check the gear in constant use, plus SWL/WLL marking, the test certificate and visible damage.
• The annual round is the examination the certificate rests on: item matches the lifting register (ID, SWL/WLL, location), thorough examination / proof test in date, certificate attached and readable, wear within the maker’s limits, anything doubtful withdrawn and tagged.
• Record the next examination date so the ship’s certification falls due in one annual period rather than scattered through the year.
• Nothing here is monthly by default. A vessel that works differently adds a round — including a monthly one — or re-words the checks in Settings → Checklists.

📜 Certificates

The Certificates tab holds documents that cover many items at once — for example one liferaft service certificate for several rafts. Set its number, issue and expiry dates and attached file, and link the items it covers. A certificate carries its own red / amber / green status, so it appears in your due-soon view.

📊 Dashboard & statuses

• The Dashboard lists every item that has a date, sorted soonest-first. Red = expired, amber = due soon (within 60 days), green = valid. Tap a counter to filter by that status.
• Every row carries two marks. The left bar is the date; the right bar is the current round: blue not inspected yet, green signed and clear, amber the period is closing, red a defect still outstanding.
• Red on the right is not cleared by the calendar: a defect raised in March is still a defect in June, until the rectification is signed.
• Expiry reminders (Settings → Modules) send on-device notifications 60, 30 and 7 days before each date.

🔎 Scan, labels & flags

• Scan a QR label or a serial from the QR button on the Dashboard or Categories tab. Use the in-app scanner rather than the phone’s camera — an ISMpilot QR is a private link the camera app cannot open by itself. Too damaged to scan? Type the digits.
• Print label on the item screen makes the QR sticker; print all labels at once from the tag button beside the scanner — Bluetooth label printer, thermal roll, A4 label sheet or PDF. Labels come off deck by deck, so a roll follows the walk round the ship.
• Flag an item to “come back to this” — rust, a sticky pin, a doubt — with an optional note. Flagged and Recently scanned items have quick-access strips on the Dashboard.
• In a browser the scanner asks for the camera only when you tap “Use the camera”; on a desk machine the code is usually quicker to type.

✅ Inspections — the audit trail

• Open an item and tap Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly or Annual. Only the rounds that category owes on this vessel are offered.
• Every line is PASS / FAIL / N/A. “All pass” fills the list in one tap and you downgrade what is actually wrong; nothing is pre-filled until you tap it, because an untouched checklist must never look like an inspected one.
• Choose who is signing from the vessel’s crew list. Add comments and up to four evidence photographs.
• Signing stamps the exact date and time, the crew member and the checklist version. A signed record cannot be edited or deleted by anyone, including the Master — a mistake is corrected by inspecting again, and both records stay on file.
• Any FAIL raises a defect that stays outstanding until the rectification is recorded.
• The Master can require a QR scan before signing (per category), and can make every device sign as its own account, so nobody signs in a colleague’s name. The scan is printed in the report’s Scan column.

📋 Your own categories & checklists

• The built-in categories and their checklists are a starting point. Settings → Categories adds headings of your own — Emergency Lighting, Escape Routes, whatever you walk round — each with its group, icon, QR labels, checklists, reports and import sheet.
• Any category can be renamed or hidden; nothing is deleted, and items keep their history and labels.
• Settings → Checklists words the questions and sets which rounds (weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual) each category owes. Changes reach every enrolled device.
• Editing cannot reach into the past: every signed inspection keeps its own copy of the questions it was signed against.

🛠️ Defects

• The Open defects strip lists everything still owed work, filterable by LSA / FFE, with the age of each.
• A defect is the failed inspection that raised it, so it always answers what is wrong, who found it and when — including the checklist lines that failed.
• Tap Record rectification when the work is done; it is signed and stamped in turn. Rectified defects stay reachable — at an audit, “we found it and fixed it” is a better story than silence.

📤 Reports & export

• Reports → choose categories → export PDF or XLSX (item number, type, size, serial, location, dates, status, comments), or print.
• Export ZIP bundles the PDF, every attached photo and document, and the covering certificates with an index.
• Reports → Inspections is the record of what was done, by group and by week or month. The report opens with its verdict — e.g. “September 2026 Monthly Inspection – Completed – Passed”, or “Incomplete (12 of 40 inspected)” — then lists inspections carried out, items not inspected and every open defect. “Checked by / Rank / Date” is filled in from the people who signed.
• Press and hold a category to report on it alone — the lifebuoy round filed as its own page.

💾 Backup, restore & reset

• Settings → Export backup (.msm) writes one file with everything on the device, attachments included. Restore backup recreates it on another device — it replaces all current data.
• The app also keeps the last three automatic snapshots of the records: Settings → Data → “Roll back to…”.
• Restore, roll back and Reset all data belong to the Master. On a syncing device a reset clears the vessel’s register everywhere; to empty only one device use Settings → This device → “Sign off & erase”.

🔑 Joining a vessel, accounts & roles

• The vessel is identified by its IMO number (Settings → Vessel).
• The first device joins with the bootstrap code supplied with your licence and becomes the Master. The Master issues each crew member an account in Settings → Accounts: a name, an optional rank aboard and an 8-digit PIN.
• Everyone else enters the IMO and joins with their name and PIN. The Master approves the device in Accounts → Devices, and it starts syncing within seconds.
• Three roles: Crew records inspections, Officer also clears defects and edits checklists, Master also issues accounts and sets roles. Roles are enforced on the server.
• Lost a handset? The Master switches that device off in Accounts → Devices. Nobody else is disturbed.

☁️ Cloud sync & inspection photos

• Once a device has joined, sync runs by itself: a signed record is on the vessel’s other devices in seconds, and the app stays fully usable offline and catches up when the connection returns.
• Inspection records are append-only, so two officers on two phones cannot overwrite each other.
• Evidence photographs are downscaled and queued; Settings → Inspection photos chooses Wi-Fi only (default), any connection or never — at sea the record travels at once and the pictures follow in port.
• The cloud keeps photographs for 90 days; the Master saves each month as a ZIP archive for the ship’s records. Nothing is deleted from the devices.

🛟 Inspection intervals LSA

🧯 Inspection intervals FFE

🧪 Inspection intervals Other

👑 Vessel licence

• ISMpilot Pro is licensed to the vessel by its IMO number — not per person and not per device. Every officer and every handset that has joined the vessel is covered by the one licence.
• The licence is bought once by whoever manages the vessel and activated on the ship’s account: Settings → ISMpilot Pro → Activate the vessel licence. A crew member buys nothing and needs no store account.
• A device that joins a licensed vessel picks the licence up by itself. If one still shows the activation page, tap Restore the vessel licence.
• Every vessel has 60 days to try the app before the 15-items-per-category limit applies.
• Pricing and fleet licences: mail@ismpilot.com.

ℹ️ About

ISMpilot is a record-keeping and reminder aid. It does not replace the vessel’s official safety documentation, statutory inspections or class/flag requirements. Always follow your company SMS and applicable regulations. Questions: mail@ismpilot.com.