Frequently Asked Questions

Safe Food Pro Frequently Asked Questions

Q.  What version of Simply Safe and Suitable does Safe Food Pro use?

A. Safe Food Pro is using the current Simply Safe and Suitable template - version 2 (July 2018).  This is available from the Ministry of Primary Industry (MPI) here.

Q.  My councils and/or verifiers are advising me to “use MPI's free online information as no app is up to standard”, “you can only use paper”, or that “no app meets the requirements”.

A. MPI's response (Food News Sept 2018) has been " We are completely comfortable with food businesses or third parties digitising our templates and guidance (which is permitted under our copyright licence as long as they acknowledge the source). If a digital template Food Control Plan (FCP) helps a food business meet its food safety requirements, we’re all for it!"   So yes you can use an App.  Click here to read our blog about digital Food Control Plans.

Q. Why am I getting orange circles beside my forms?

A. Some fields on a form are required. These are displayed with a * beside the question. These have come from the “Show” records from the Food Control plan. If a form is saved without some of these required fields completed it will show an orange circle beside it. You can partially complete a form in the mobile application and then open it again later and complete the form. For example, you may be interrupted when filling in a form or you are filling in a calibration or proving cooking form where you have to wait for some time between measurements. 

Q. Why can’t I edit some of the fields in the template form?

A. Some fields on a form have no “rubbish bin” beside them and show a padlock icon. These fields (either text or questions) are locked and cannot be deleted. These fields and questions are locked because they come from the “Show” records in the MPI Food Control Plan and are required for reporting purposes.

Q. What file formats can I upload as a Resource?

A. PDF, JPG, SVG, URL, MP4.

Q. How do I manage Closed Days and Seasonal Closures?

A. There are several parts to this question and answer. If you are closed every Sunday and Monday then you may want to alter your Form Schedules so that daily scheduled forms do not appear on those days of the week in the mobile application (See the Scheduling a Form article). If you only open over some summer months and want to stop form completion over the winter months (for example) then you can block out the period you are closed for. Open the 'My Business' page on your Administration console, then click 'Closed Dates'. This is where you can block out and monitor the dates you are closed. If this is a feature your business would use, click here to learn some more! 

Q. Can I fill out forms when signing in from the Administration Console (Web Browser)?

A. Forms are only completed from the mobile application, either from the Daily/Weekly/Monthly Diary screens or by adding an ad-hoc form. The 'Dashboard Activity Stream' and the 'Reports, 'Completed Forms' pages in the web-based Admin Console show you a summary and the detail of the forms that have been completed but, (at least at this point in time) you cannot complete a new form or edit a form from the web. 

Q. If I have old data that I captured on paper can I add it to Safe Food Pro?

A. Yes, there are a couple of options, depending on how much data you have to add:

• If you only have a small number of paper forms, you could enter the data into Safe Food Pro digital forms using the mobile application. You do this by choosing the correct date on the Daily/Weekly/Monthly Diary page of the mobile application and entering "History Mode" and then picking the Form you want (this can also be done with ad-hoc forms under the green 'plus' button). However, this approach would be very time-consuming if you have much data to add.

• You could photograph or scan your existing paper forms (or perhaps take them to a copy shop and see what they would charge to scan them all to file) and then upload the image or PDF file(s) into the Safe Food Pro administration console on the Resources page. See the Adding a Resource article for further details on how to do this.

Q.  Will Safe Food Pro work without a network connection or offline?

A. Yes! Safe Food Pro allows you to fill in and save your forms on your tablet without any connection. This is a feature only for the Mobile/Tablet Application. Once you are back online the forms will upload and you will be able to view and monitor them from the administration console. Click here to read more about Offline Mode!