Commissioning checklist
Search "commissioning checklist" and you get a template: a list of line items with boxes. The list is the easy part — every discipline's checklist has been written a hundred times. The hard part is what happens after somebody checks a box. A checklist is a plan. What proves the plan was followed is a different question, and it is the one that matters when an owner asks for the record.
What a commissioning checklist has to include
One list per discipline, not one list for the job. Electrical owes torque readings, relay settings and a witnessed transfer test. Mechanical owes refrigerant charge, alignment and a functional performance test. Controls owes point-to-point verification and a sequence-of-operations test. A generic checklist that tries to cover all three ends up specific to none.
The evidence type next to each line, not just the line. "Verify torque on ATS terminations" is an instruction. "Verify torque on ATS terminations — reading, in range, photo of the wrench" is a checklist somebody can actually fail.
The level it belongs to. Factory witness, delivery, install, start-up, functional, integrated — CSI 01 91 00 calls these L0 through L5. A checklist that does not say which level a line belongs to cannot tell you whether a machine is ready to energize or just ready to be looked at.
Who signs, and whether that person is allowed to be the one who did the work. Independent acceptance is a real requirement on some lines, not a formality — and a checklist that does not name the signer separately from the installer is missing the line an auditor will ask about first.
What to look for in a checklist tool
- 1Is the checklist a document or a gate?A PDF checklist gets filled in after the fact from memory. Look for a tool where the step will not close until its evidence is actually attached — not where somebody ticks a box and uploads a photo separately, hoping they match.
- 2Does it split by discipline automatically?One machine, one set of required steps, drawn from its equipment type — not a shared master list every team edits by hand and drifts from.
- 3Can a level be claimed without its evidence?Ask the vendor to advance a commissioning level with a reading missing. If it lets you, the level is a label, not a fact.
- 4Does the checklist know it is talking about a specific machine?A line item that says "verify nameplate" should already know which nameplate — pulled from the asset's own record, not retyped by the technician.
- 5What happens to a failed test?A functional test that fails should open a retest automatically, not rely on someone remembering to schedule one.
How Veristep does it
Hold-point templates are written per equipment type — electrical, mechanical, controls — and every machine of that type inherits them. Write the checklist once; it runs on every unit.
A step asks for a photo, a reading in range, a signature or a document by name, and stays open until that exact thing is recorded — for the technician, the office or an import alike.
L0 through L5 gates the lines: a level opens only when the evidence the one before it demands is in hand, and passing one earns a colour tag a technician can read across the room.
The level waits for the retest to close before it advances, so a failure cannot quietly disappear from the sequence.
Independent acceptance — where your template demands it — records a name that is not the installer's. The record shows who signed, not just that something was signed.
Honest limits: there is no built-in library of manufacturer-specific functional test scripts — you write your discipline's checklist once as a template and reuse it, rather than pulling a vendor's pre-built script — and there is no native trend-log ingestion from a building management system for the controls checklist. If your specification demands the checklist as a signed PDF with a cover sheet, you produce it from the template and the export; the register itself is the working document. A starting checklist is on the templates page.
Questions people ask
Can I write my own checklist instead of using a default?
Yes. Platform templates cover the common cases; your own templates are written once, per discipline, and every asset of that equipment type inherits them from then on.
Does the checklist differ between electrical, mechanical and controls?
It should, and in Veristep it does — each equipment type carries its own required steps, so a UPS and a CRAH do not share a checklist just because they are both on the same floor.
Is there a printable commissioning checklist template?
A free document register template is here today, listing what every machine owes by phase. A dedicated per-discipline hold-point checklist download is on the list — check the templates page for what is live.
What if a line item genuinely does not apply to this job?
Mark it waived, on the record, with who decided and why — not deleted. A waived requirement is still visible; a deleted one is a gap nobody can see.