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Waiver Register (Pro)

The Waiver Register is where you record approved exceptions to acknowledgement. A waiver releases a specific person — or everyone in a role — from having to acknowledge one document, for a set period or indefinitely, and keeps a tamper-evident record of who approved the exception and why. Auditors can see that an outstanding acknowledgement is a documented, authorised exception rather than a gap.

🔒 Pro feature — requires the Pro plugin.

What the Waiver Register is for

Not everyone in a document’s audience always needs to acknowledge it. Typical reasons include:

A staff member is on extended leave and can’t read the policy until they return.
A contractor or volunteer group is covered by an equivalent policy from their own organisation.
A role technically falls inside a document’s audience but the document doesn’t apply to its work.
A temporary exemption has been agreed while a person completes alternative training.

Without a waiver, these people show up as non-compliant on every report. With a waiver, the plugin treats them as not required to acknowledge that document while the waiver is in force, and your records show the documented reason.

The register is designed for compliance managers, practice managers and quality leads who are responsible for acknowledgement compliance and need to justify exceptions to an auditor or accreditor.

Who can use it

Only users who can manage acknowledgements can open, create, edit or delete waivers. By default that is the Administrator role only. Editors, Authors, Contributors, Subscribers and the Policy Auditor role can’t see the register — waivers can describe health, performance or personal circumstances, so access is deliberately tight.

If you open a waiver without the right permission, the details box reads “You do not have permission to edit waiver rules.”

Where to find the Waiver Register

Go to Policy Management → Waiver Register in the WordPress admin. The menu item sits in the operational group of the Policy Management menu, after the acknowledgement and compliance screens.

The register opens on a list of all waivers. Use Add New Waiver at the top to create one. If you haven’t created any yet, the list shows: “No waivers yet. A waiver records an approved exception that releases a specific user or role from acknowledging a document.”

Creating a waiver

Go to Policy Management → Waiver Register and click Add New Waiver.
Enter a title — for example “J. Smith — Manual Handling — parental leave”. The title is for your own reference in the list.
In the Waiver Details box, choose the Document the waiver applies to.
Choose the Scope: Specific user or Role. The form shows the matching field for the option you pick.
Pick the User (for a specific user) or the Role.
Write the Reason. Be factual and keep it short — this text is personal data (see Privacy, exports and uninstall below).
Pick who Approved by — the person who authorised the exception.
Optionally set a Start date and an End date.
Tick Enabled.
Click Publish (or Update).

A waiver takes effect only when it’s published, Enabled, and today’s date falls inside its date range.

Waiver fields

Field	What it does	Default	Allowed values
Document	The document the person or role is released from acknowledging.	Select document (none)	Any published document. The list is alphabetical and shows up to 500 documents.
Scope	Whether the waiver covers one person or a whole role.	Specific user	Specific user or Role
User	The person released (when Scope is Specific user).	Empty	One user, chosen by searching (see Picking users)
Role	The role released (when Scope is Role). Everyone who holds that role is covered.	Select role (none)	Any role on your site
Reason	Why the exception was granted. Recorded for the audit trail.	Empty	Free text
Approved by	Who authorised the exemption. Required before the waiver can be enabled.	Empty	One user, chosen by searching
Start date	First day the waiver applies. Leave blank to apply immediately.	Blank	A date
End date	Last day the waiver applies. Leave blank for an open-ended waiver.	Blank	A date on or after the start date
Enabled	Switches the waiver on or off without deleting it.	Off	Ticked or unticked

Some rules apply when you save:

Approved by is mandatory for an enabled waiver. If you tick Enabled but leave Approved by empty, the waiver saves with Enabled switched back off and a warning explains why.
End date before start date. If the end date is earlier than the start date, the end date is cleared and the waiver becomes open-ended from the start date. Check your dates after saving.
Dates are inclusive. A waiver ending on 30 June still applies on 30 June and stops applying from 1 July.

Picking users

The User and Approved by fields are search boxes rather than long drop-down lists, so they work on sites with thousands of accounts.

Click in the field and type at least 2 characters of the person’s name, username or email address.
Choose the person from the results. Up to 20 matches are shown, sorted by display name.

Email addresses appear in the results only for users who can list users (Administrators, by default). If you search very quickly many times in a row, you may see “Too many searches. Please slow down.” — wait a minute and try again. If you see “Session expired. Reload the page and try again.”, reload the edit screen.

What happens when a waiver is in force

While a waiver applies, the plugin treats the covered person as not required to acknowledge that document. In practice:

The acknowledgement prompt doesn’t appear for them on the document. If they try to acknowledge anyway, they’re told “You are not required to acknowledge this document.”
The document drops off their own list of documents to acknowledge.
Page gating doesn’t hold them back for that document.
They’re left out of the outstanding list in compliance reports for that document.
They’re left out of the exception list (people who haven’t acknowledged) in an evidence pack.
On the Coverage & Gaps screen (Regulatory Frameworks), the number of active waivers is shown against the documents mapped to each control.

When the waiver ends — its end date passes, you untick Enabled, or you trash it — the person is required to acknowledge the document again from the next page load.

Reviewing the register

The Waiver Register list shows one row per waiver with these columns:

Waiver Title
Document — links to the document’s edit screen
Scope — User or Role
User / Role — the person’s display name, or the role name
Approved By — shows Not set in red when no approver has been recorded
Integrity — Verified or Modified (see below)
Valid Dates — Open-ended, From: …, Until: …, or a start → end range
Enabled — Yes or No
Date — when the waiver was published

Use Search Waivers to find a waiver by title. A good habit is to review the register quarterly and untick or trash waivers that are no longer needed.

Audit integrity check

Each time you save a waiver, the plugin computes a fingerprint over the audit-trail fields — document, scope, user, role, reason, approver and dates — and records when it was computed. The Audit integrity section at the bottom of the details box, and the Integrity column in the list, compare the current values against that fingerprint:

Record integrity verified / Verified — nothing has changed since the last save. Hover over Verified in the list to see “Hash computed at … UTC”.
Record has been modified outside the save flow / Modified — the stored details no longer match the fingerprint, meaning they were changed some other way than through this screen (for example directly in the database). Investigate before relying on that record.
No integrity hash yet — save the waiver to generate one. — the waiver hasn’t been saved through the form yet.

Switching a waiver on or off with Enabled doesn’t affect the fingerprint. That’s an administrative action, not a change to the approval decision.

Notices you might see

After saving, the edit screen can show a one-off warning:

“This waiver was saved but is incomplete:” followed by the missing fields (Document, User or Role, Reason, or Approved by). A waiver that’s missing these can’t reliably identify who or what it exempts. Fill them in and save again.
“This waiver is not enabled.” Everything is filled in but Enabled is off, so the waiver is not in force. Tick Enabled and save again.

The warning appears once, straight after the save that caused it, and only to the person who saved.

Privacy, exports and uninstall

A waiver stores the waived person’s user account and the free-text reason. A reason can describe health, performance or personal circumstances, so treat the register as sensitive.

Personal data export. When you run Tools → Export Personal Data for a person, their waivers are included under “Dantian Policy Management Pro — Acknowledgement Waivers”.
Personal data erasure. When you run Tools → Erase Personal Data for a person, every waiver that names them as the waived user is deleted, with the message “Acknowledgement waiver records targeting this user have been deleted.” Role-scoped waivers don’t name a person and aren’t affected.
Privacy policy text. Pro adds a paragraph describing waivers to the suggested privacy policy text under Settings → Privacy.
Access through other channels. Waiver records are only readable by users who can manage acknowledgements, whichever way they’re requested.
Uninstall. Waivers are kept when you deactivate or delete Pro unless you tick Remove Pro data on uninstall under Policy Management → Settings → System Configuration before deleting the plugin. With that ticked, deleting Pro also permanently deletes all waivers.

Without an active Pro licence

On a Free-only site there’s no Waiver Register and no way to record exceptions — everyone in a document’s audience must acknowledge it.

If your Pro licence lapses and the 7-day grace period ends (see Licence and Updates):

The Waiver Register menu item disappears.
Waivers stop applying. Everyone they covered is required to acknowledge the document again, and shows as outstanding in reports.
Your waiver records are kept. When you reactivate the licence, they apply again with no re-entry.

Limits and edge cases

One document per waiver. To release someone from three documents, create three waivers.
Role waivers follow current roles. A role waiver covers whoever holds the role today. A new starter given that role is covered immediately, and someone who leaves the role stops being covered.
Dates use UTC. A start or end date takes effect at midnight UTC, which may be mid-morning in Australia or New Zealand. Allow a day either side for time-critical exceptions.
Drafts don’t apply. A waiver left in Draft, or moved to the Trash, has no effect even if Enabled is ticked.
Reminders and escalations. A waiver changes whether someone is required to acknowledge. Renewal reminder emails and Pro’s overdue escalations work from acknowledgement records that have an expiry date, and they don’t check the Waiver Register. If a waived person already had an acknowledgement on file that later expires, they can still be included in those emails.
Large registers. The plugin reads up to 500 enabled waivers when deciding who must acknowledge. Most sites will never get close; if yours does, consolidate individual waivers into role waivers.

Troubleshooting

I enabled a waiver but the person still sees the acknowledgement prompt. Check that the waiver is Published (not Draft), Enabled reads Yes in the list, Approved By isn’t Not set (a waiver without an approver can’t be enabled), and today falls inside the Valid Dates. Remember that dates switch over at midnight UTC.

Enabled keeps turning itself off. You’re saving without an Approved by user. Choose an approver and save again.

I can’t find a person in the User field. Type at least two characters, and try the username or email address as well as the display name. Only the first 20 matches are shown, so make your search more specific.

The Integrity column says Modified. The waiver’s details were changed outside the waiver edit screen. Compare the record against your own approval paperwork, correct it if needed, and save it through the form to record a new fingerprint. Keep a note of why it changed for your auditors.

Worked example: an aged-care provider

Banksia Grove Aged Care requires all care staff to acknowledge its Manual Handling Procedure every year. Two situations come up before the March accreditation visit.

A carer on parental leave. Priya, a personal care worker, is on leave from 1 February to 31 July. The Director of Nursing approves an exemption.

The quality coordinator, an Administrator, opens Policy Management → Waiver Register → Add New Waiver.
Title: “Priya N — Manual Handling — parental leave”.
Document: Manual Handling Procedure. Scope: Specific user. User: searches “pri” and picks Priya.
Reason: “On approved parental leave. To acknowledge within two weeks of return.”
Approved by: the Director of Nursing. Start date: 1 February. End date: 31 July. Enabled: ticked. Publish.

Priya no longer shows as outstanding. On 1 August the waiver lapses automatically and the procedure reappears on her acknowledgement list when she returns.

Kitchen staff. The facility’s catering staff hold a custom “Catering” role that sits inside the procedure’s audience, but they follow a separate food-service manual-handling procedure. The coordinator creates a second waiver with Scope: Role, Role: Catering, no end date, and a reason referencing the food-service procedure.

At the accreditation visit, the evidence pack’s exception list shows only staff who genuinely haven’t acknowledged. The coordinator opens the Waiver Register to show the assessor each exception, who approved it, and the Verified integrity status.

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