The Near Miss Summary dashboard helps you see how well your near-miss reporting program is working — how many near misses are being reported, what potential consequences they would have had, and whether the volume of near misses is keeping pace with actual injuries. Use it to monitor reporting culture, identify hazard categories that need program attention, and spot facilities where near-miss reporting may be under-developed.
This dashboard is designed for Regional and Site leaders, EHS managers, and safety professionals who want to use near-miss data as a leading indicator of safety performance — and identify gaps in the reporting program itself.
The dashboard pulls primarily from near-miss records in Dakota Scout, with comparison series drawn from recordable injury and illness records on the same dashboard. Records without a site-level parent folder are excluded from every visualization.
A few terms used throughout this article:
Near Miss. A reported event where something could have gone wrong but did not. Near misses are leading indicators — they reveal hazards before harm occurs.
Potential Consequence. A user-assigned classification on each near-miss record describing what might have happened: Potential Injury, Potential Property Damage, Potential Security Incident, Potential Damage to Company Image, or Potential Environmental Incident. A single near-miss record can carry more than one potential-consequence flag.
Potential Severity. A user-assigned classification on each near-miss record describing how severe the consequence might have been: Minor, Medium, Major, Marginal, or Not Selected.
Heinrich's pyramid. The premise that a healthy safety program produces many reported near misses, tapering down to fewer recordable injuries, even fewer DART cases, and very few fatalities. A flat or inverted pyramid (proportionally few near misses relative to injuries or severe outcomes) is a strong indicator that near misses are going unreported.
OSHA Recordable / DART / Fatality. Classifications drawn from injury and illness records, used for the comparison series and the Safety Pyramid on this dashboard. See Injury and Illness Incident Summary for full definitions.
For information on how data is synchronized from ProActivity into Insights, see Getting Started with Dakota Insights.
The Near Miss Summary dashboard supports the following filter slicers on both pages:
Date Range (defaults to the past 12 months)
Region
Business Unit
Facility
For general guidance on using filters, see Filtering Dashboards in Dakota Insights.
Page 1 gives you the organization-wide read on the near-miss program: the Safety Pyramid, six KPI tiles, four trend and comparison charts, and three breakdowns by Type and Potential Severity.
Safety Pyramid. A Heinrich-style stacked-pyramid visualization with four tiers (top to bottom in descending expected frequency): Near Misses, Any Injury/Illness, OSHA Recordable injuries and illnesses, DART cases, and Fatalities. Tier counts are drawn from different record sources — near-miss records for the top tier, and the injury/illness, recordable, DART, and fatality classifications from injury/illness records for the lower tiers. A pyramid with a low Near Miss count relative to other types indicates that near misses are going unreported. Currently, the injury/illness counts are also including Recordable and DART incidents, and the Recordable counts are also including the DART counts.
Six KPI tiles count near-miss records in the selected period.
Total # Near Misses. Count of near-miss records in the selected Date Range. Includes a trend arrow comparing to the same window one year ago — and on this tile more is treated as better, because near-miss volume is a leading indicator of reporting health. Sustained low counts combined with actual injuries suggest under-reporting. Trend arrow compares to the same window one year ago, regardless of the Date Range slicer selection.
Potential Injury. Count of near misses flagged with Potential Injury. Isolates the hazard category that most directly threatens employees; a high or rising count may warrant targeted safety interventions.
Potential Property Damage. Count of near misses flagged with Potential Property Damage. Highlights exposure to physical-asset loss; useful for risk-management and insurance discussions.
Potential Security Incident. Count of near misses flagged with Potential Security Incident. Surfaces near misses with potential security implications (e.g. unauthorized access, theft, violence) that may require different response programs than physical-safety near misses.
Potential Damage to Company Image. Count of near misses flagged with Potential Damage to Company Image. Highlights brand or public-relations exposure, relevant to communications and executive risk management.
Potential Environmental Incident. Count of near misses flagged with Potential Environmental Incident. Ties near-miss reporting into environmental compliance and sustainability concerns.
Near Misses by Month. A vertical column chart of near-miss counts by month over the selected Date Range. Reveals seasonality or trends in reporting; sustained dips may indicate lapses in program engagement that warrant follow-up.
Near Misses vs Injury/Illnesses by Month. A vertical stacked column chart comparing near-miss counts and injury/illness counts month by month. Supports the same Heinrich story as the Safety Pyramid, but over time — if near misses decline while injuries hold steady or rise, near misses are likely going unreported.
Incident Rates vs Near Misses Reported. A combo chart with annual near-miss counts as bars and TRIR and DART rates as lines, plotted for the current year and the prior five years. The Heinrich premise predicts that strong near-miss reporting drives down TRIR and DART; a visible inverse correlation validates the reporting culture, while a flat or parallel pattern suggests reporting is not translating into injury prevention (or not happening at all).
Note: Incident Rates vs Near Misses Reported uses a fixed five-year window that is not affected by the Date Range slicer.
Near Misses by Type. A vertical column chart of near-miss counts grouped by Type (e.g. Injury, Property Damage, Environmental Damage, Not Selected), Pareto sorted descending. Directs training and program focus where activity is most concentrated. A Not Selected bar indicates records where Type was not completed — worth investigating as a data-quality improvement.
Near Misses by Status (pie). Share of near-miss records by Status (New, Open, Closed). A large Open or New share may indicate investigation backlog or delayed follow-up, which undermines the value of the reporting program.
Near Misses by Type and Potential Severity. A vertical stacked column chart of near-miss counts by Type, stacked by Potential Severity (Minor, Medium, Major, Marginal, Not Selected), Pareto sorted descending. Helps prioritize interventions — a Type with many Major or Medium severity near misses needs more urgent attention than one dominated by Minor or Marginal.
Near Misses by Potential Severity, and Onsite vs Offsite. A horizontal stacked bar chart of near-miss counts split by Onsite vs Offsite, stacked by Potential Severity. On-site and off-site exposures tend to have different hazard profiles — process hazards versus driving or field work — so separating them supports tailored programs. Offsite covers near misses that occurred away from a facility location, such as while traveling or at customer sites.
Page 2 takes the same near-miss data and slices it by Facility, so you can see which sites are reporting strongly, which may be under-reporting relative to actual injuries, and where severe-potential near misses are concentrated.
Note: For organizations with very many (e.g. 50+) facilities, the per-facility charts may be crowded; use Region or Business Unit filters to focus on a subset.
Near Misses vs Injury/Illnesses by Facility. A vertical stacked column chart per Facility comparing near-miss counts and injury/illness counts, Pareto sorted descending by Facility total. Facilities with few near misses but many injuries may be under-reporting — use this chart to identify sites that need reporting-culture or training support.
Near Misses by Facility and Type. A vertical stacked column chart of near-miss counts per Facility, stacked by Type, Pareto sorted descending. Reveals facility-specific patterns so training and interventions can be tailored by site.
Near Misses by Facility and Onsite vs Offsite. A horizontal bar chart of near-miss counts per Facility showing the Onsite vs Offsite split, Pareto sorted descending. Facilities with field operations, logistics, or traveling staff may show higher offsite counts — useful for tailoring safety programs by work type.
Note: The Offsite series is hidden for facilities with zero offsite near misses, so some facility bars may show Onsite only.
Near Misses by Facility and Potential Severity. A horizontal stacked bar chart of near-miss counts per Facility, stacked by Potential Severity, Pareto sorted descending. Identifies the facilities with the highest concentration of Major or Medium severity near misses — the sites most at risk of a serious incident if the underlying hazards are not addressed.
The data in this dashboard refreshes every four hours. For details on synchronization timing and what's included from each ProActivity product, see Getting Started with Dakota Insights.