Article Contents
- Introduction
- What Is an Archive Escalation?
- What Triggers the Questionnaire Requirement?
- Why Am I Being Asked?
- Why Does Hiro Keep Prompting Me?
- How To Resolve an Archive Escalation
- What Happens to the Questionnaire Responses?
Introduction
When you attempt to archive a job in Hiro and are prompted to complete a questionnaire, this is known as an archive escalation. It is a safeguard designed to strengthen financial awareness and continuous improvement across your business.
Why This Feature Exists
Archive escalation reinforces Hiro’s operating principle: connect financial outcomes to the people closest to the work.
Without this checkpoint, jobs can be archived even when they have materially underperformed, and the opportunity to learn from them is lost once the context fades.
When a job’s billing ratio falls below the defined threshold at the time of archiving, Hiro requires a short reflective questionnaire before the job is closed. This ensures:
Financial outcomes are acknowledged
Accountability remains with the Project Captain role
Lessons are captured while the details are still current
This is not about assigning fault. It is a learning safeguard designed to reduce repeated estimating gaps, scope drift, or billing misalignment over time.
In practical terms, it creates a deliberate pause before a low-performing job is finalised.
What Is an Archive Escalation?
An archive escalation occurs when:
Someone attempts to archive a job, and
The job requires a questionnaire, but
The person attempting the archive is not the relevant Project Captain or department captain.
In that case, Hiro:
Prevents the archive from being completed
Records a pending questionnaire requirement
Notifies the relevant captain
The responsibility sits with the captain role.
What Triggers the Questionnaire Requirement?
When archiving is attempted, Hiro checks the job’s billing ratio.
Billing Ratio Definition
Billing ratio = Total invoicing (ex tax) ÷ total time and costs (timesheets)
A billing ratio of:
1.0 means invoicing matches time and costs
If your charge rates include margin, 1.0 typically indicates the job met the intended profit outcome
Threshold For Escalation
A questionnaire is required when both conditions are met at the time of the archive attempt:
Billing ratio is less than 0.8, and
More than $100 of time and costs have been accrued
This avoids triggering questionnaires on trivial jobs while still capturing materially underperforming outcomes.
Why Am I Being Asked?
There are three common reasons you may see an escalation.
The Billing Ratio Check Is Point In Time
The threshold result is based on the job’s position when archiving was attempted. Later timesheets, invoices or changes do not automatically remove an existing escalation.
Responsibility Follows the Captain Role
If the captain changes after an escalation is created, the requirement transfers to the current captain. The escalation is attached to the role, not the individual who previously held it.
Multi-Department Jobs
On jobs with multiple departments (for example, Surveying and Town Planning), escalation is triggered based on the overall job billing ratio.
However, who must complete a questionnaire depends on the performance of each department.
For example:
If the overall job billing ratio is below 0.8, escalation is triggered.
-
If Surveying has a billing ratio of 0.7 and Town Planning has a billing ratio of 1.01:
Surveying = 0.7 captain → Surveying captain completes questionnaire,
Town Planning = 1.01 → no questionnaire required.
Each department is assessed individually for questionnaire purposes, even though the escalation is triggered at the overall job level.
Why Does Hiro Keep Prompting Me?
Hiro includes a reminder mechanism so escalated archives do not get forgotten.
A reminder popup appears when all of the following are true:
The escalation is more than 1 week old
The questionnaire is still not completed
The job is still active
The job has no outstanding invoices
You have not been reminded too recently
Each escalated job allows two “Remind me later” deferrals per user.
If you select “Remind me later”, the popup will stop appearing for a period of time. After you have used both deferrals, the popup will display:
No more “remind me laters” left, sorry
At that point, the escalation can no longer be deferred. The questionnaire must be completed, or the escalation must be formally removed.
The intent is to prevent escalations from being postponed indefinitely while still giving you short-term flexibility.
How To Resolve an Archive Escalation
There are two common outcomes.
Option A: The Job Is Still Ongoing
If the job is still progressing, it should not be archived.
In that case:
Do not proceed with archiving
Raise a ticket and request removal of the pending archive escalation
Hiro cannot automatically assume the job is ongoing just because activity has occurred since the original archive attempt. The escalation remains until explicitly resolved or removed.
Option B: The Job Is Complete
If the job is genuinely finished:
Go to Projects
Select Change Status → Archive Job
Select the project to archive
Complete the short questionnaire
Finalise the archive
If multiple departments are involved and more than one fell below the threshold, each relevant department captain will need to complete their questionnaire.
What Happens to the Questionnaire Responses?
When a Project Captain completes the questionnaire, the responses are saved against the job’s escalation record.
At this stage, the responses are not shown anywhere inside Hiro’s user interface. The primary way they are shared is via email.
After submission, Hiro sends an email containing the billing ratio context and the questionnaire responses to your company’s directors.
Who Counts as a Director in Hiro?
In Hiro, “directors” are user accounts with the Director flag enabled.
This is configured in:
Settings → User Accounts → Organisation tab
Enable: This person is a company director
Only active director accounts receive the questionnaire email.