Use cases by sector
An installer working for several main contractors
The same documents, requested by five different clients, on five different portals, in five different formats.
If you are the company going on site, you live this every week: each main contractor has its portal, its checklist and its criteria, and they ask for the same thing under a different name. The temptation is to treat each client as a separate world. That is exactly what leaves an operative at the gate one morning.
What is shared and what belongs to each client
| Document | Does it change by client? | Where it should live |
|---|---|---|
| Company ones: insurance, social security, prevention | No, it is the same paper | In one place, copied out to each portal |
| Each worker's | No, but requested per site | Per person, with their expiry dates |
| Equipment ones | No, requested per machine | Per machine, with its serial number |
| The contractor's own forms | Yes, and there is no shortcut there | With that site's file |
Important
The expensive mistake is keeping documentation **by client instead of by item**. When the insurance renews, whoever files by client has to remember to update it in five places, and one always gets missed — usually the site you are entering next week. Filed by item, the insurance is one document, and what changes is which portals it goes to. The first is impossible to maintain; the second is half an hour a month.
How the real work is organised
- 1
A company file, with expiry warnings
It is the folder copied wholesale into each new portal.
- 2
A file per worker and one per machine
With training, medicals and inspections, each with its date.
- 3
And a list per site of what that contractor asked for
Because their next site will ask for the same.
- 4
With the date each item was uploaded to each portal
That is what settles the «we never received it» argument.
Watch out
What costs the most working days and nobody plans for: **each portal's validation takes time**. Even with everything uploaded correctly, someone on the other side has to approve it, and that can take days — not minutes. If the operative starts on Monday, the documents do not go up on Friday. And if one is rejected over a formatting detail, the clock restarts. That margin is the difference between getting on site and losing a crew's day.
When the criteria change halfway
Worth knowing
What documentation is required for site access, and what obligations each company has on prevention and coordination of activities, depend on the applicable rules and the type of works. **Your prevention service or adviser settles that**; the point here is not having five copies of the same paper ageing at different speeds.
›Can I upload the same file to every portal?
Nearly always yes; what differs are their own forms.
›What if a client asks for a document that does not exist?
Ask what they want to prove: something you already hold usually works.
›Is it worth keeping what I uploaded?
Yes: half the arguments are about whether it was sent.
A real case
The situation
An installer renews its insurance and one contractor blocks access over the old policy.
What you do
- Keeps the insurance once, by item, and lists which portals need it
What you get
The renewal propagates in an afternoon instead of surfacing at the site gate.
The situation
An installer works for five contractors and uploads the same six documents to five different portals.
What you do
- Keeps a single current file of your own
- Uploads to each portal from there
- Records what was uploaded to each and when
What you get
Renewal happens once and gets replicated: five portals stop meaning five jobs.
The situation
An insurance policy is renewed and updated in only three portals.
What you do
- Checks which contractors it must be replicated to
What you get
None is left holding the old version.
The situation
A technician is stopped at a site gate.
What you do
- Checks per person before assigning them
What you get
The job does not go out with a gap.
The situation
Each contractor asks for the same document under another name.
What you do
- Keeps the original and adapts on upload
What you get
The underlying work happens once.
The situation
A portal rejects the document without saying why.
What you do
- Asks the specific reason before re-uploading
What you get
The second attempt is aimed.
The situation
Nobody knows what expires in which portal.
What you do
- Records expiries in your own file
What you get
One warning covers every portal.
The situation
Equipment goes on site and its documentation is missing.
What you do
- Stores it with the equipment
What you get
The machine does not sit at the bay.
This article answers
- uploading documents to several contractor portals
- asked for the same thing on every site
- subcontractor documents for site access
- refused site access over paperwork