---
title: "Concepts"
url: "https://docs.4hse.com/first-steps/concepts"
description: "The map of the objects 4HSE is made of, and how they fit together."
---

# Concepts

Safety management in 4HSE is represented by a small number of objects, the same ones across every area of the product. None of them means anything on its own: the relations that connect them matter just as much.

## The container

[Section titled “The container”](#the-container)

**Project** — the safety management project of a single organisation. It holds the offices, the people, the suppliers, and the configuration that applies to everything inside it. See [Company, offices and workers](/company-offices-and-workers/).

**Office** — an operational site of the organisation. Almost everything else depends on the office: work phases, prevention actions, material resources, permissions per area.

## Who and what

[Section titled “Who and what”](#who-and-what)

**Person** — someone who works there, internal or external, with their personal data and their safety position. A person is not a **user**: a user is an account that logs in, and connecting the two is optional. See [Users and people](/users-and-permissions/users-and-people).

**Material resource** — the equipment, the environments and the substances used at work. They are where hazards come from.

**Supplier** — an external company operating in your offices. Linked to the work phases it carries out. See [Suppliers](/suppliers/).

## Risk

[Section titled “Risk”](#risk)

**Work phase** — a description of an activity actually carried out. It is the unit the assessment is built around, and the place where people, resources and hazards meet.

**Hazard and risk** — a hazard exists; it becomes a risk when it is present in a phase where people work. The risk is measured twice, before and after the measures. See [Risk assessment](/risk-assessment/).

## Compliance

[Section titled “Compliance”](#compliance)

**Prevention action** — an obligation tracked over time: a course, a medical examination, a maintenance plan, a PPE assignment, a procedure. It defines the need. See [Prevention and protection actions](/prevention-and-protection/).

**Session** — one execution of an action on a date: an edition, a visit, an order, a delivery, a report.

**Certificate** — the proof that the obligation has been met, with the expiry from which the renewal is calculated. It is what makes a status turn from New to Valid.

**Status** — New, Valid, Expiring, Expired: never set by hand, always derived from the certificates and their dates. See [Statuses](/scheduler-and-notifications/statuses).

## Evidence

[Section titled “Evidence”](#evidence)

**Form** — a checklist or register attached to an action, completed during the activity and attached to the certificate. See [Forms](/forms/).

**Event** — an injury, an incident, a near miss or a non-conformity, recorded with the people and the resources involved. See [Incidents and events](/incidents/).

**File** — everything uploaded or generated, in an archive organised by folders. See [Files and attachments](/files-and-attachments/).

## How they chain together

[Section titled “How they chain together”](#how-they-chain-together)

A **work phase** uses **resources**, which carry **hazards**, which become **risks** for the **people** in that phase. The **actions** linked to the phase reduce those risks, and produce **certificates** with an expiry. Those expiries populate the **scheduler**, which is where the whole thing becomes visible.

Each step presupposes the previous one: an action with no certificate proves nothing, and a risk with no linked action reduces itself on paper only.

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