Help

You can be up and running in a few minutes. (1) Create your account on the Sign up page with your work email and a password, then open the confirmation link we email you. (2) On the “Tell us about your fleet” step, enter your company name and your first vessel and tap “Create company and continue”. (3) Add your first crew member — PivotScanner guides you there next. (4) Add that crew member’s first certificate in the Certificates section of their page: pick the type (for example STCW-II/2) and enter the expiry date. (5) Open the Dashboard to see what needs attention across your fleet. (6) Email reminders are on by default — adjust them under Settings → Notifications. Every step works offline — your entries sync when you are back online.

Open the Sign up page and tap “Create account”. Enter your work email and a password (at least 8 characters), and confirm the password. No card is required. We email you a confirmation link; open it to activate your account. You then land on a short step to name your company and add your first vessel.

Right after you confirm your account, PivotScanner shows a “Tell us about your fleet” step. Enter your company name and your first vessel name (both required); flag state and IMO number are optional. Tap “Create company and continue”. This names your fleet and creates your first vessel, then takes you on to add your first crew member. You can add more vessels later from the Vessels page.

Open the Vessels page and fill in the “Add vessel” form at the top. Only the vessel name is required; flag state, vessel type, and IMO number are optional. Tap “Add vessel” to save. Works offline — the vessel is saved on this device and syncs when you are back online. You can add crew and certificates for it afterwards.

Open the Crew page and tap “Add crew member”. Enter their first name, last name, and rank; nationality is optional. Assign them to a vessel, or choose “Unassigned (not tracked until assigned)”. Unassigned crew do not appear on the dashboard or get checked until you assign them. You can add their certificates afterwards on their page.

Certificates are added on a crew member’s page — not on the Certificates page, which only lists them. Open Crew and select the person. In the Certificates section of their page, tap “Add certificate”. Pick the certificate type — only the type is required — then add the expiry date and other details. PivotScanner then tracks it for expiry and checks it against what that person’s rank requires.

PivotScanner is a web app — there is nothing to install from an app store. Open it in your phone’s browser and sign in. For the best offline reliability, add it to your home screen and use it from that icon. On iPhone or iPad: open PivotScanner in Safari, tap the Share button, then “Add to Home Screen”. On Android: open the browser menu and choose the install or add-to-home-screen option. An installed PivotScanner protects your offline data much better.

Yes. You can add and edit data with no connection. Your changes are saved on this device and sync automatically when you are back online. The sync pill in the navigation shows your current status — tap it to see details.

Daily work runs offline: adding and editing vessels, crew, certificates, documents, maintenance, drills, and hours of rest, and making the PDF exports. This help page works offline too. A few things need a connection: loading your data onto a new device for the first time, uploading an attached file, editing expected-document templates, the records-consistency check, and account or billing changes.

Check the sync pill in the navigation bar. Red means you are offline; a count shows how many changes are waiting to sync. Amber with a count means your changes are being sent right now. Green means everything is synced. An orange warning means something needs you — tap the pill to open “Sync issues”. Each item there says what happened and what to do, with a “Retry” button to send it again. After you reconnect, sync starts by itself within about 30 seconds.

The change is saved in PivotScanner’s storage on this device, but it has not reached the server yet. That is normal while you are offline. Keep working — the change is sent automatically when you reconnect. The sync pill shows “All changes synced ✓” once everything has arrived. Queued changes survive closing the app, restarts, and a flat battery. One real risk: the operating system can clear the app’s storage when the device is very low on space, or when the app is unused for a long time. PivotScanner warns you if that happened, so you can re-check recent entries. Adding PivotScanner to your home screen protects your offline data much better.

No. Your queued changes are stored in the app’s storage on the device, which survives restarts and a flat battery. They sync the next time you open PivotScanner with a connection. For extra protection, add PivotScanner to your home screen and reconnect when you can.

Yes — and if both edit the same record before syncing, PivotScanner detects the conflict. Nothing is overwritten for you. The sync pill shows “needs review”; tap it, then tap “Resolve” to see both versions side by side. You choose which one to keep: “Keep the saved version” or “Keep my version”. If you close the dialog to decide later, the saved version stays until you decide.

Yes. PivotScanner sends an email summary of the crew certificates and vessel documents that are approaching expiry or already overdue. A daily summary with 30 days of advance notice is on by default. Choose Daily or Weekly under Settings → Notifications. Daily emails list items expiring within your “Advance notice (days)” window (up to 30 days); the Weekly email (sent Mondays, UTC) covers the next 90 days. It is a scheduled summary, not an instant per-item alert.

Open Settings → Notifications (the “Notifications” item under “More” in the navigation). Set the “Frequency” dropdown to “Daily”, “Weekly (Mondays UTC)”, or “Off — no emails”, then tap “Save notification settings”. Choosing “Off — no emails” stops all reminder emails; you can switch them back on from the same screen. Every reminder email also carries an unsubscribe link.

Reminders go to the address in the “Send summary emails to” field under Settings → Notifications. By default this is the email you signed up with. It is your company contact email, so changing it here updates it everywhere, not only for reminders. Edit the field and tap “Save notification settings” to change it.

Open Maintenance from the “More” menu (on mobile it is in the nav bar). Maintenance is tracked per vessel, so add a vessel first. Tap “Add item” and fill in the vessel, a title (for example “Replace fuel filters”), a category, and — for recurring jobs — an interval in days. Each item shows a status such as “Overdue”, “Due soon”, or “On schedule”. Tap “Mark completed” when a job is done; that logs it and resets the schedule. It works offline. Note: intervals are calendar days only (not engine hours), and there are no maintenance reminder emails — due and overdue items appear on the Maintenance page and your Dashboard.

Open Documents from the navigation. It is your fleet register — every fleet-wide and per-vessel document with its expiry date. To add one, use the “Add document” form: pick a vessel (or “Fleet-wide (no vessel)”), a document type, a title, the issue and expiry dates, and the issuer. You can attach the file too. You can filter or search by vessel, type, status, or expiry (for example “Due soon (within 30 days)”). Document details save offline; an attached file uploads when you are back online.

It is a status label on a vessel’s card in the Vessels list. It shows while that vessel has no documents on file yet — a reminder to start, not a warning. It is not a button that fills documents in for you. Selecting the card opens the vessel, where you can add documents and see which statutory certificates are suggested for it (each marked “Suggested — verify”). Once at least one document is on file, the label changes to show progress: how many are still missing, or “All suggested documents on file”.

Open Hours of Rest from the “More” menu and pick the crew member. Mark their rest and work on the day grid in half-hour blocks, using the “Rest” and “Work” buttons. Log what actually happened — PivotScanner never fills the grid in for you, because the record is the seafarer’s own account. It works fully offline; your entries sync when you are back online.

Each day, open Hours of Rest, pick the crew member, and check the date. Mark rest and work in half-hour blocks. Tap “Save draft” if the day is not finished yet. When the day is complete, the seafarer signs the record. Signing makes it the final record for that day and enters it into the rest-rule checks. The master then counter-signs it. Everything here works offline.

“Table B” is the common name for the standard IMO/ILO record of hours of rest. PivotScanner generates it as a printable PDF from the logged grids, with the seafarer and master signatures. The PDF is made on your device, so it works offline: tap “Download rest record (PDF)” on the Hours of Rest page. The signed record — not the app — is your record of authority for an inspection.

The seafarer signs to confirm the hours are their own account. The master counter-signs to endorse the record — it is not a complete record of rest without that endorsement, and an exception cannot be saved without the master’s counter-signature. For security, a coded fingerprint of each signature is stored with the record. The drawing itself is not saved.

Record the reason. STCW allows exceptions for drills, emergencies, and overriding operational conditions. An honest, annotated, master-signed record is the correct way to document the shortfall — never change the grid to hide what happened, and PivotScanner never changes it for you. Tap “Record an exception (master)” on the day, choose the reason, and have the master counter-sign it. The recorded hours are not changed — the exception records why the shortfall happened.

PivotScanner only shows a clear result once there is enough recorded time to evaluate the rules. It also never shows a green result for situations it cannot fully check — for example a young seafarer, or a flag-authorized exception scheme; those need manual review. “Not checked yet” is deliberately neither a pass nor a fail. Keep logging — the check runs once there is enough recorded time.

They are two separate things. A template is the list of documents a rank is expected to hold — for example, “a Master should have STCW-II/2, basic safety training, and our company induction.” You manage templates under Expected documents (in the “More” menu). A certificate is an actual document a specific crew member holds, with its number and expiry date — you record those on each crew member’s page, under Crew. PivotScanner compares the two: it checks each person’s certificates against their rank’s template and shows what is missing or expiring. You set the template once per rank; you add certificates per person.

Open Expected documents from the “More” menu. Each rank lists its expected documents. PivotScanner ships standard defaults (marked “Standard (STCW)”) that you can switch to “Not expected”, and you can add your own company documents to any rank. You can also create a template for a rank we do not cover. Changes apply to every crew member of that rank; their status updates the next time you open the Dashboard. Note: template editing needs a connection — unlike the rest of PivotScanner, it does not save offline.

It removes that document from the rank’s checks entirely. PivotScanner stops flagging it as missing, expired, or expiring for crew members of that rank — even if someone still holds a copy. Use it when a standard default does not apply to how your vessels trade. The document stays listed in the template (struck through), so you can switch it back to “Expected” at any time. While a document is “Not expected”, PivotScanner stays silent about it — including an expired copy that is still on file.

It means no expected-document template is set for that crew member’s rank, so there is nothing to check their documents against yet. Their certificates are still saved, and you still get expiry reminders. To turn on the missing/expiring checks, open Expected documents and add the documents that rank should hold. (“Not checked yet” also appears briefly for a brand-new crew member until you next open the Dashboard, which runs the check.)

PivotScanner labels every certificate by how close it is to its expiry date. “Expired” means the expiry date has passed. “Due soon” means it expires within 30 days. “Upcoming” means it expires within 180 days. “Valid” means the expiry is more than 180 days away. A certificate with no expiry date on file shows “No expiry date” — that means missing data, not a certificate that never expires. The 180-day view gives you time to arrange renewals early.

All STCW certificate types (II/1 through VI/6), flag-state endorsements (for example Panama, Liberia, Marshall Islands), medical fitness, and seaman’s book and passport expiry. The full list is in the “Add certificate” form on a crew member’s page. For a code we do not list, choose “Other / flag-state endorsement code…” and enter it.

PSC is Port State Control — the inspection of foreign ships in port. Open the Certificates page and filter by “Expired” or “Due soon or upcoming”. Deal with those items first: arrange renewals with the issuing authority, then enter the new expiry dates. Check that every crew member on the active roster holds the certificates their rank requires — the Dashboard shows who needs attention. You can also print a register for a vessel: open the vessel and tap “Export register (PDF)”. It lists the ship’s documents and each active crew member’s certificates, exactly as entered.

No. PivotScanner is a tracking tool, not legal or compliance advice. It compares each crew member’s documents and expiry dates against an expected-document template for their rank and surfaces what is missing or expiring. The templates are starting defaults — you remain responsible for confirming the exact requirements for your vessels, trade area, and flag state with your flag State administration or DPA (Designated Person Ashore). “Up to date” means the expected documents are on file and current, not a certification that a seafarer may legally sail.

Pricing is one flat monthly price per vessel — see the Pricing page for the current rate. Unlimited crew and certificates per vessel. No setup fees and no long-term contract. Every new account starts with a 30-day free trial, and no card is needed to start. You can cancel at any time.

Yes — every new account starts with a 30-day free trial, and no card is needed to start. During the trial you have full use of every feature. Your trial status and end date are shown under Settings → Billing (visible to the account owner).

Your account becomes read-only. Your data is safe — you can read everything, but you cannot make changes until you subscribe. To keep editing, open Settings → Billing (the “Billing” item under “More”; the account owner sees it) and tap “Add payment method”. Secure checkout is handled by Creem, our payment provider. We never charge you automatically — nothing is billed unless you choose to subscribe.

Open Settings → Billing, tap “Cancel subscription”, and confirm. Your plan runs to the end of the current period and then stops — you keep full access until then, and it does not renew. No phone call, no extra steps. After it ends, your account becomes read-only: your data stays visible and stays yours.

Add a vessel from the Vessels page. Remove one from its detail page: open the vessel and tap “Remove vessel” — its records are kept, not erased. Your subscription is billed per vessel. When your vessel count changes, your billing updates automatically to match; the new amount applies from your next renewal. You do not need to email us.

Yes. Open Export your data in Settings to download every record for your company — crew, certificates and endorsements, vessels, document details, hours of rest, and maintenance — as CSV files (a zip) or a single JSON file. Uploaded document files themselves are not included; the export lists their details only. You can also generate the signed Hours of Rest record (Table B) as a PDF from the Hours of Rest page; it is made on your device, so it works offline.