Resource
Control room log template
The columns an event control room day book needs so the record still makes sense a month later, with the rules that keep it evidential.
Details
- Last revised
- 10/02/2026
- Reading time
- 6 min
- Cost
- Free, no email required
A day book is only evidence if someone else can read it cold and follow what happened. Most cannot, because the columns were chosen by whoever bought the pad.
This is the column set we use, and the three rules that matter more than the columns.
The columns
- Reference — sequential, never reused, never skipped.
- Time it happened — as reported, in 24-hour clock.
- Time it was logged — separately, always.
- Priority — P1 to P4, defined before the event, not argued about during it.
- Category — a fixed list. Free text here destroys every later count.
- Zone or location — from the site plan, not a description.
- Call sign — who reported it.
- What happened — plain narrative, no abbreviations invented on the night.
- Action taken — including who was tasked and when.
- Status — open, monitoring, closed.
- Logged by — the controller, named.
Rule one: two times, always
Record the time it happened and the time you wrote it as separate values. When they differ by forty minutes, the record says so. A gap you have explained is evidence. A gap you have papered over is the thing the inquiry looks at.
Rule two: never overwrite
A correction is a new line that references the entry it corrects, timed and signed. Striking through, tippexing, or rewriting a page later is how a good log becomes worthless.
Rule three: decisions are entries
If someone varied the plan — held the doors, stopped the show, moved a barrier line — that is a log entry naming who decided it and on what information. Most post-event questions are about decisions, not incidents.
Read next
Or see it running
Vantra Control Room does all of this as a by-product of the shift, rather than as a document written afterwards.