In one sentence
Trace Map takes one record number — or one shared reference / serial / job number — and walks outward across NCRs, MOCs, Audits, Meetings, Risk, Exemptions, JHAs, and FMEAs, drawing a single tree of everything that record links to: other records, the products / suppliers / clients it touches, and the actions raised against it.
- Two ways in, one tree out. Search a record number (
NCR-…,MOC-…) to start from that one record, or search a reference / serial / job number to gather every record across all modules that shares it — then follow the links from there. - The trace follows outgoing links only. It walks the links created from the records it visits. A link created from the other record's side won't appear unless that side also has its own link. Products, suppliers, clients, and documents are shown as leaves — endpoints you click through to, not branches the trace keeps exploding.
- You only ever see what you can already see. Trace Map is read-only and access-controlled. Records you don't have permission to open simply don't appear in the tree — the trace never reveals anything you couldn't reach on its own detail page.
What it's for
When an auditor asks "show me everything connected to serial number 4471-B" — or an investigator needs the full thread behind a non-conformance — Trace Map is the one place to answer it. Instead of opening a record, reading its Links tab, opening each linked record, and repeating, you type the number once and get the whole connected web rendered as an expandable tree, with a print export sized for an inspection pack.
Trace Map is an optional module. An admin can turn it off at Admin → Organization → Modules. If you don't see it in the sidebar, it's disabled for your organization. It also honors the same access rules as the rest of the app — see What it shows / doesn't below.
Two ways to search
The search box accepts either kind of input; Trace Map decides which based on what you type.
Anything starting with a known prefix — NCR-, MOC-, AUD-, MTG-, RISK-, OPP-, EX-, JHA-, FMEA- — resolves to that one record and starts the trace there.
Anything else is treated as a shared reference number — the org-configurable field labelled Reference Number, Job Number, Serial, VIN, or similar in your Settings. It's matched exactly across every module that carries it, gathering the whole seed set.
From the seed record (or set), the trace follows the links outward and draws the connected tree.
A record number resolves to one record; a reference / serial / job number gathers every record that carries it.
The reference / serial match is exact — a serial number has to match in full, not as a fragment. If nothing matches, you get a "no records found" state prompting you to try a full record number or an exact reference.
Reading the tree
The result is a tree of records grouped by module. Under each record you'll find the things it connects to, organized into labelled groups:
- Record groups (Non-Conformances, Management of Change, Audits, Meetings, Risk Register, Exemptions, Job Hazard Analyses, FMEAs) — the other records this one links out to. These are expandable: open one to see its links, and so on down the thread.
- Products / Suppliers / Clients — the products tagged on the record and the single supplier / client it's associated with. These are leaves — hyperlinks you click through to, not branches the trace re-explodes.
- Actions — every action raised against the record, each a link to the action. Actions carry a due date; an overdue open action is flagged with a warning icon so it stands out in the thread.
Every node is a hyperlink to its own detail page, so the tree doubles as a launchpad — click any record, product, supplier, client, or action to jump straight to it.
Expand behavior
Small traces open fully so you see everything at once; larger traces open the module groups but leave individual records collapsed, so the page stays legible. You can expand and collapse any node by hand.
Repeated records
If a record is already shown higher up in the tree (because the links form a loop), it appears again as a "shown above" reference rather than re-expanding — so the tree stays finite and you're never chasing the same cycle twice.
The cards and the date filter
Above the tree, four cards summarize the trace at a glance:
| Card | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Open actions | Actions still open or in progress across every record in the trace. |
| Closed actions | Actions completed or verified. |
| Overdue actions | Open actions past their due date — highlighted when non-zero. |
| Records in trace | Total records reached, with a per-module breakdown (e.g. NCR 3 · MOC 2 · Audit 1). |
The date filter bounds records by when they were created. Presets sit above the tree — 3 mo, 6 mo, Last 12 months, 24 mo, All time — plus a custom From / To range. The default window is the last 12 months, so an unbounded trace stays manageable; widen it to All time to reach older records. Only records created inside the window are pulled into the tree.
If a trace is large, Trace Map shows the first batch of records and displays a truncated banner suggesting you narrow the date range to see the rest. This keeps a sprawling web from running away — tighten the window and re-run.
Export for auditors
The Export button (shown once you have a result) prints the trace as a fully-expanded thread — every node open regardless of how you've collapsed things on screen — via your browser's Print → Save as PDF. The printed page carries a header identifying the query, the search mode, the created-date window, who ran the trace, when, and the record / action counts, so the exported thread is self-describing for an inspection pack.
The on-ramp from search
You don't have to visit the Trace Map page to start a trace. The global search box in the sidebar offers a "Trace '…' →" shortcut whenever what you've typed looks traceable — a record-number prefix, or any non-trivial token that could be a shared reference. Clicking it drops you straight into Trace Map with that query already run. (The shortcut only appears when the Trace Map module is enabled for you.)
What it shows — and what it doesn't
Trace Map is deliberately scoped. Knowing its edges keeps you from mis-reading a thread:
- Outgoing links only. The trace follows the links created from each record it visits. A link that exists only on the other record's side won't show up here unless that side independently links back. If a connection you expect is missing, check whether the link was created from the record you started on.
- Leaves don't re-explode. Products, suppliers, clients, and linked documents are shown as endpoints. To see a supplier's full web of records, click through to the supplier's own page — Trace Map won't branch outward through them.
- You see only what you can access. The tree is filtered to records you have permission to open. A record you can't reach is silently omitted, so two people tracing the same number may see different trees depending on their access. Trace Map never surfaces anything you couldn't already open directly.
- Records only expand; other entities are terminal. The eight record modules (NCR, MOC, Audit, Meeting, Risk, Exemption, JHA, FMEA) are the expandable nodes. Documents and other non-record link targets appear as labelled leaves.
JHAs are traceable like the other seven modules — but a JHA can only be linked to (and therefore appear as a branch) once the record-linking schema migration that permits JHA links has been applied to your database. Until then, JHAs still resolve as seed records but may not show up as link targets.
Related
- Record history — the audit trail on any single record's detail page
- Actions — the unified action register the trace rolls up
- Products — the catalog the trace links out to as leaves
- Suppliers · Clients
- Modules admin — where an admin enables or disables Trace Map