DQ File Checklist—Getting Started

The DQ File Checklist feature puts you in complete control of your driver qualification files.

The DQ Checklist is a helpful tool designed to assist users in preparing for audits by the FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration). It's important to note that while this tool is designed to make it easy to identify and track the many different aspects of regulatory compliance involved in hiring and employing CDL drivers, it isn't a replacement for sound legal counsel or an assumption of your liability in ensuring that your organization operates in a state of compliance to the regulations. Throughout this guide and in the tool itself, we'll use the terms "complete" and "incomplete" to discuss the readiness of an application for an audit, instead of "compliant" and "non-compliant."

Index: 

Why a DQ File Checklist? 
Getting Started: Accessing the Checklist
Parts of the DQ Checklist
Understanding the Checklist Requirements
Completing a Requirement 
Providing Required Documents and Confirmations
Confirming Requirements and Tracking Compliance Events
Overriding a Requirement
Enabling Document Purge Errors
How to fix a Checklist Requirement

Reporting Bugs and Feedback

Why did we build this checklist?

The DQ Checklist is your trusty sidekick for preparing for FMCSA audits and avoiding costly legal headaches. It keeps all your important compliance stuff in one handy spot, making your work easier.  We designed it to solve three big problems for you:

1. Keeping track of all the documents and tasks associated with Driver Qualification Files is a significant source of tedium and confusion among safety and recruiting teams.  The Checklist will help you get and stay organized!

2. The DQ Checklist is your teacher, too! It connects each checklist requirement to the actual corresponding regulations, helping you understand the "why" behind the tasks.  Regulatory knowledge among teams is often sporadic and passed down through hearsay and games of telephone.  Our checklist, on the other hand, lets you build knowledge and awareness of the regulatory landscape across your teams.

3. When you and your team are organized and knowledgeable, DOT Audits are smooth-sailing checkpoints on the road to growth and success.  When you're not, they are anxiety-inducing and costly.  The Checklist helps you avoid audit fees or, even worse, catastrophic lawsuits and settlements by building peace of mind and confidence that your processes are accomplishing the goal of keeping your drivers and organization safe.

 

Getting Started

Accessing the DQ Checklist: 
The DQ Checklist is specifically for DOT (Department of Transportation) applications. You'll see a "DQ Checklist" tab next to the  "DQ File" tab for DOT applicants. This tab will also be available for existing DOT applications. 

Parts of the DQ Checklist

In the DQ Checklist, the hire date and termination date are always visible at the top of the checklist. You can also see the number of completed requirements.

The "Summary" tab provides a list of all the requirements, indicating whether they are complete (shown with a green checkmark) or showing the number of issues that require attention.



Each requirement can be clicked on to access more information, including an explanation of the requirement, details about any issues found, and a list of uploaded documents associated with the requirement.

Additionally, you'll see two fields have been added to the "Applicants & Personnel" table: "DQ Checklist Completed" and "DQ Checklist Progress" so you can see applicant DQ file progress at a glance: 

Understanding the checklist requirements

In the DQ Checklist, requirements can be in one of two states: complete or incomplete. Complete requirements are marked with green checkmarks in the Summary tab, while incomplete requirements are indicated by a red error count and a warning icon. When all requirements are green, the DQ checklist is considered complete.

There are a total of 13 requirements listed for each DQ checklist, with 12 of them being evaluated as part of the DQ Checklist feature. The final one, "Multiple Employer Drivers," serves to provide information to users and is always marked as complete.

Completing a Requirement 

Incomplete requirements will prompt you to provide a specific type of document to fulfill the requirement. Some requirements may require multiple documents to be considered complete. The documents associated with an application are regularly checked to see if they meet the checklist's requirements. This means that existing documents already stored in the applicant's profile will be considered.

You can complete a requirement in two ways: either by providing the required document(s) and confirmations or by performing a requirement override.

Providing Required Documents and Confirmations

Manually Providing Documents:
Each requirement comes with a built-in document uploader to make it simple for you to submit the necessary document(s). You can also continue to upload documents through an applicant's DQ File or Documents tabs.

When using the built-in document uploader, you'll only be able to upload document types that match the specific requirement. For example, if you're uploading a document directly to the Certified Medical Examiner requirement, the only available Document Type will be "National Registry Verification," which is the type of document required by that particular requirement.

Automatically Recognized Documents
Some requirements will automatically recognize documents that are generated within DriverReach. For example, if an applicant completes and signs an application through DriverReach, the resulting application document will appear under the Driver Application requirement. See the Requirement Breakdown section below for more information about which documents are automatically recognized by the checklist.

 

Confirming Requirements and Tracking Compliance Events

Three of the requirements (Pre Employment MVR Inquiry, Annual MVR Inquiry, and Medical Examination) will also require you to confirm via a checkbox that the requirements have been completed. This is in addition to providing the relevant documents.

Checkboxes for each of these requirements can be found on the individual requirement pages. See the individual requirement sections below for more information.
 

The DQ Checklist keeps a record of the user who checks each box and the date it was checked. This information is displayed in an Events section at the bottom of the requirements. Each event includes details about the action that was performed (currently, only the confirmation of checkboxes is tracked), the user who performed the action, and the date the action was taken.

NOTE: The Events section will only appear once there is an event to track. If a user has not checked the associated checkbox, this section will remain hidden from view.

Overriding a Requirement
Not all requirements will apply to every company account. Some requirements, therefore, can be overridden so that the checklist automatically marks them as complete. These overrides can either be performed per application or globally for all applications in a company account.

 

Overriding Requirements on a Per-Application Basis
Three requirements include toggles that enable users to perform overrides at the application level: Safety Records Correction, LCV Certificate, and Skill Performance Certificate. In order to perform the override, users must click the checkbox marked I will not be providing a document, and then enter a reason explaining why they are overriding the requirement. Once they save the reason, the requirement for that applicant will be marked as complete.

Globally Overriding Requirements

Some requirements can be overridden at the company level. When these global overrides are applied, they affect all relevant requirements in all DQ Checklists within a company's account.

You can access these global overrides on the Compliance Configuration page within your company's settings.

Here are the available global overrides:

• Continuous License Monitoring: Checking this box will globally override the Annual MVR Inquiry and Annual MVR Review requirements.

• Driver Correction or Rebuttal: Unchecking this box will globally override the Safety Records Correction requirement.

• LCV Certificate: Unchecking this box will globally override the LCV Certificate requirement.

• Multiple Employer Driver: Currently inactive.

• Skill Performance Evaluation: Unchecking this box will globally override the Skill Performance Certificate requirement.

In summary, these global overrides allow you to control and customize certain requirements at the company level, affecting all relevant requirements in your account.

Enabling Document Purge Errors

The last toggle on this page, Document Purge Error, doesn't directly override a specific requirement. Instead, it controls whether a particular error message is displayed.

When you enable this setting, it will check each requirement in a checklist to see if any associated documents are older than three years. If it finds such documents, you will be prompted to delete these documents from your account.

In other words, when Document Purge Error is turned on, it helps you manage document expiration. If you prefer not to receive prompts to delete old documents, you should keep this setting unchecked.

This setting gives you control over how the system handles documents that are more than three years old, making it easier to keep your records up to date.

How to fix a DQ Checklist Requirement

Clicking on an incomplete requirement will walk you through what information is required to complete that requirement. Let’s look at an example using Annual MVR Inquiry.

EXAMPLE: 
To address the incomplete requirement, simply click on its name. You will then see a message instructing you to provide the required document, which in this case, is the MVR. To fully complete this requirement, you will also need to check the checkbox labeled "I verify that all required MVRs have been returned and reviewed," which is marked with a red asterisk.

In this example, we’re going to pretend like we have copies of this applicant’s MVR stored elsewhere (not already on file in DriverReach), and so we’ll need to provide that document manually by uploading it to the platform.

We click on the Upload Document button right in the requirement and select the only available document type: MVR. Notice that selecting this document type adds two new fields: Report Date and Next Review Date. We'll set the Report Date to the date this MVR was collected, the Next Review Date to the next time an MVR needs to be collected for this applicant, and save the document.



 
After uploading the document, a new message will appear requesting MVRs for each required year. From this screen, you can see that one document has been uploaded, which fulfills this requirement, with a collection date of 10/01/2023. According to the requirement details, this document should be collected annually. Since the applicant's hire date is 01/01/2021, a second document is needed for the previous year, 2022.

Note that an annual MVR only becomes relevant once an applicant has been hired for at least a year. Prior to that, no annual MVR is needed. So we won’t need to collect one for 2021.


 

Next, we will click on the "Upload Document" button again and upload a second document, this time it will be an MVR. Let's imagine that we collected this document on January 12, 2022, and we will set the Next Review Date to sometime in 2023 since that's when we collected the most recent MVR document.

Once the document has been uploaded, we can now see that the requirement no longer reports any errors, but does still display a red warning icon next to its name. We haven’t yet clicked the checkbox to fully verify the requirement yet.

Check the box and save, and now the requirement is finally complete! 🎉

Reporting Feedback

If you come across anything that's missing, not working as expected, or if you have suggestions to improve the DQ Checklist beta test, we encourage you to report it. Your feedback is invaluable in helping us fine-tune the product.

How to Report Issues:

To report any issues or provide feedback, please send an email to help@driverreach.com. Our dedicated team will swiftly review your report, investigate the matter, and escalate it to our engineering team as necessary. Throughout the process, our team will keep you updated on the progress and any resolutions.

 

Known Errors and Hurdles:

Occasionally, you may encounter known errors or face certain challenges during the beta test. Rest assured, we're actively working to address these issues and appreciate your patience and understanding.

 

Example of a Good Bug Report/Product Request:

To help you get started, here's an example of what constitutes a good bug report or product improvement request: