Risk Scoring
Every risk is scored twice: initial scoring before control measures and final scoring after them. Each scoring is the same three dimensions resolved into a numeric score and a risk level.
The two scorings are what make the module worth using. A single score records a concern; a pair of scores records whether the measures actually reduced it.
The three dimensions
| Dimension | Formula token | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Probability | [P] | How likely the harm is. |
| Frequency | [F] | How often people are exposed. |
| Severity | [S] | How bad the harm would be. |
Each dimension is a definition list, and each entry carries a numeric value that the formula reads. The resulting score is available to the level formula as [RS].
Score and risk level
Two separate formulas do two separate jobs:
- The score formula turns the three dimensions into a number.
- The risk level formula turns that number — optionally together with the dimensions — into a band.
They are separate because the band is frequently not a simple range. A severe enough consequence is commonly made to force the top band regardless of the arithmetic:
IF([S]>=15 : 5 : IF([RS]>400 : 4 : 1))
A level formula may reference [P], [F], [S] and [RS]. A score formula may reference only [P], [F] and [S] — it cannot reference the [RS] it exists to produce. The system refuses to save a score formula that does.
See Risk Formulas for the editor and the available functions.
Scoring modes
How much you type by hand depends on which formulas are active:
| Situation | Effect on the screen |
|---|---|
| No active score formula | You enter the score manually. |
| No active risk level formula | You pick the risk level manually. |
Neither active formula mentions [F] | The frequency field is hidden. |
The frequency field is hidden only when neither formula uses it. This matters: if the score formula ignores frequency but the level formula needs it, hiding the field would make the level formula fail on every single risk.
Live feedback
The screen evaluates the active formulas on every dimension change and writes the result into a coloured read-only result label — initial result and final result.
The person doing the scoring therefore sees the consequence of their choices immediately, rather than discovering the band after saving. The label is drawn in the risk level's own colour.
Risk level colours
Each risk level carries a colour, used consistently on the scoring result label, in the risk list and on the record view. The default set is a green-to-red ramp across five levels, and the colours are editable.
Colour is not decoration here — it is how a supervisor scanning a register of two hundred risks finds the ones that matter.
How a risk level is matched
The risk level formula returns a number, and the level that applies is the one whose band number equals it. Every risk level definition therefore carries a band number of its own, next to its name and colour — the default five carry 1 to 5.
Two things follow from that:
- No two levels may declare the same band number. The system refuses the second one, because a formula result that matched two levels would have no answer.
- Every number the active level formula can return needs a level. If the formula can return 4 and no level declares 4, scoring a risk that lands there fails with a message rather than saving without a level. Reviewing this after changing a level formula is the one check worth doing by hand.
Codes on the definition lists
Probability, frequency, severity and risk level each number their entries from their own number template, so the four lists keep their own prefixes and their own counters. Leave the code field empty when creating an entry and the system issues the next one; type a code instead and yours is used as it stands.
Entering a scoring
- Open the risk at the assessment stage (for initial scoring) or the verification stage (for final scoring).
- Select the probability, frequency and severity.
- Watch the result label — the score and the level appear immediately.
- If a manual mode is in force, type the score or pick the level.
- Save.
Score the initial assessment as the situation genuinely was, not as it looked after the obvious quick fix. If the initial score is quietly softened, the final score has nothing to demonstrate.