Manuals

Section drafts move through a structured approval pipeline: authors create and edit drafts, then submit for approval. Designated reviewers evaluate the content and either approve it for release or reject it with feedback.

Approved content is released to the fleet; rejected content returns to the author for revision.

Each manual names its approvers and whether all of them or any one must approve, and only they can approve and release its sections. Approval and rejection actions record the reviewer's identity, timestamp, and comments.

The approval queue dashboard widget shows reviewers how many sections await their attention, preventing bottlenecks in the publication pipeline.

Schedule a review for each published manual: first due on a date, then every set number of months after each review, with an optional notice before each due date. Reviews sit on the office calendar, and the manual's approvers get a notice when one is due soon and again when it is overdue.

Record what each review found: no change, revision needed, or withdraw, which deprecates the manual. Each manual keeps its review history, with every due date, who reviewed it and when, what they found, or the new version that closed it.

Ask Navatom AI what your manuals say, and it answers from your own manuals and circulars, naming the document each answer comes from. It answers only from the documents you are allowed to read.

It also tells you who on a vessel has not read a section, compares two released versions, lists the sections waiting for your approval and the reviews coming due, and drafts a release, a comment or a review outcome for you to confirm. On board, it tells each crew member which sections they still have to read.

When a circular changes how the fleet works, record which manuals or sections it requires to change. The manual's owners see the pending update, and the section's next release completes it, recording the version that made the change.

Navatom AI lists the changes circulars still require, and records them from the circular you are viewing.

When a section is released, Navatom compares it with the version before and marks every change by kind: insertions, deletions, format changes, style definition changes and moved text. This gives auditors and DPAs a precise record of what changed between versions.

Track changes markup highlights insertions, deletions, and modifications with user attribution and timestamps. Accept or reject individual changes during the review process.

Each version's change log opens that marked-up comparison beside its release notes, so classification societies see exactly what changed in each version and why.

Every section maintains a complete version history with numbered versions, release timestamps, author attribution, and release notes. Browse any previous version, compare changes between versions, and understand the evolution of every document in your safety management system.

Release notes document the rationale behind each revision: not just what changed, but why. Version numbers increment automatically on each release, unless a correction keeps the number.

The full history chain from first draft to current release is preserved permanently, providing the documentary evidence that ISM auditors require.

Every section version follows a controlled lifecycle through seven stages — Draft, Waiting for Approval, Completed, Rejected, Released, Revised, and Deprecated. Only Released content is visible to crews on vessels.

The lifecycle enforces that every change goes through review before reaching ship personnel.

Draft versions can be edited freely by authors. When ready, the draft is sent for approval, moving to Waiting for Approval status.

Reviewers can approve (Completed → Released) or reject (back to Draft with feedback). Released content can be revised, creating a new draft while the current version remains active. Deprecated versions are archived but never deleted.

Organize complex manuals with a four-level hierarchy — Manual, Chapter, Section, and Subsection. Each chapter contains ordered sections; each section can nest subsections.

Custom ordering labels let you follow your organization's numbering scheme (1.2.3.a) rather than forcing a flat structure.

Chapters and sections can be created, moved, and reordered without disrupting the version history of their content. The table of contents is generated automatically and updates in real time as sections are added, moved, or deprecated.

Print the table of contents or the revision list as a PDF, with your legal entity's details and a watermark if you need one.

Edit manual sections directly in the browser with a full-featured document editor — no desktop software required. The editor supports rich formatting, tables, images, headers, lists, and page layout controls with the same fidelity as desktop word processors. Documents are saved automatically and continuously.

Start a section in the editor, or from a Word (DOCX) file you already have. The editor checks spelling as you type and saves continuously, and a forced save keeps the draft even if the browser closes. No file downloads, no version confusion.

Not all documents have the same complexity. Navatom supports three distinct manual types — Simple (PDF) for single-file uploads like third-party reference documents, Comprehensive (Company) for structured multi-chapter manuals with section-level version control, and Third Party for external document libraries that need tracking without internal editing.

Simple manuals are uploaded as a single PDF and distributed as-is. Comprehensive manuals unlock the full hierarchical editor with chapters, sections, subsections, approval workflows, and collaborative editing.

Third Party manuals provide a controlled repository for vendor documentation, classification society guidelines, and regulatory publications.

Export a company manual as PDF or DOCX, with headers and footers carrying your legal entity's details, for every released section or only those one ship receives. Navatom builds the file in the background and emails you a link, ready for printing, archival, or submission to classification societies and regulatory authorities.

The One-PDF feature consolidates an entire manual into a single PDF per ship, including only the sections visible to that specific vessel. Once the office builds them, they are rebuilt whenever what a vessel receives changes, and crew open theirs from the manual on board, ready for bridge use or a port State control inspection.

Audit and inspection findings become deficiencies or non-conformities in Navatom, and each of those records can reference the manual or section involved, so a finding against a procedure leads straight to it. Navatom AI reads the root cause and proposes the change the section needs, as a comment for its owner.

For the auditor, each manual shows its periodic reviews and what they found, each section its versions with the marked-up changes and release notes, and each reading assignment who has read the current version.

When a circular requires a manual to change, the change stays listed against the manual until the section's next release completes it.

Navatom Search finds manual sections by any words in them, with suggestions as you type, in the office and on board. Find specific procedures, policy references, or regulatory citations across your entire document library in seconds, regardless of how many manuals and sections your organization maintains.

To ask a question instead of searching for words, Navatom AI answers from the same manuals and names the document it took the answer from.

Link related sections across different manuals and chapters with formal internal references. A reference names the manual, the section and its version, and opens the section it points to. Cross-references create a navigable web of interconnected documentation.

Cross-references are particularly valuable for ISM manual structures where safety procedures reference operational manuals, emergency plans reference crew training documents, and maintenance procedures reference equipment specifications.

27 KPIs follow how your manuals are kept under control: revisions released and withdrawn, days from section draft to release, how long approvers hold a section and how often they reject it, and whether scheduled reviews are done on time. Release quality KPIs show how many releases carry release notes and how many kept the previous version number.

On board they follow whether crew read what is assigned to them, by vessel: the share of assigned sections read, reads made by each person's deadline and re-reads after a revision. They also time the Master's reading of a new revision and check whether new joiners read their sections in their first week. Distribution KPIs show how soon a released section reaches a vessel and which sections were never assigned.

Add threaded comments to any section for collaborative review and feedback. Comments support replies, edits, and deletion — creating a structured discussion thread attached to the specific content being discussed. Comments sit on the manual, on the section and on its open draft.

Use comments during the approval process to provide specific feedback on content, request clarifications, or document review decisions. Comment history is preserved as part of the section's audit trail, providing evidence of the review process for compliance auditors.

Monitor your document management program with three dashboard widgets: the average read share of your published company manuals on the ships you choose, the sections waiting for approval, and the sections released.

Place them on any dashboard beside other modules' widgets. A section's reading assignments then show which ships and crew members have not read it, and Navatom AI tells you who on a vessel is still to read it.

Access rights decide who may create manuals, who may write sections, and who may approve and release them, and each manual names its own approvers. Ships see only the manuals and sections made visible to them, and crew read released versions only.

Every editing session is opened with a signed token for that user and that document, a released version opens read-only, and every action is recorded with who did it and when.

Start a section from a Word (DOCX) file, or upload a simple manual as one PDF. Tables, images, headers and formatting come through, so existing manuals move into Navatom without retyping.

Edit in the browser, then export the manual as PDF or DOCX without ever installing desktop software.