AV and IT survey forms

What is an AV and IT site survey?

An AV or IT site survey is the visit before a quote or an install where you record what is actually in the building: room sizes and layouts, wall construction and fixing surfaces, ceiling voids, existing containment and cable routes, power and data points, comms room space, network and internet connections, and anything that will slow the install, such as asbestos registers, access hours or listed building limits.

Most of the cost overruns on AV and IT jobs trace back to a survey that missed something: a plasterboard wall where a 75 inch display was quoted, no spare port on the switch, a ceiling that cannot take a projector, a cable route through a fire compartment wall. The AV site survey template and IT site survey checklist walk the surveyor room by room so the same questions are asked on every job, with photos and measurements attached to each answer. The Wi-Fi site survey checklist and CCTV site survey checklist add the coverage and camera position detail those designs need.

Which AV and IT checks are a legal requirement in the UK?

There is no single law for AV or IT installs, but several general duties apply to the work and to the systems once they are running:

Electrical systems

The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 require electrical systems to be maintained so as to prevent danger, so far as is reasonably practicable. That covers racks, power distribution and the equipment you install.

Portable appliances

HSE is clear that the law does not require portable appliance testing every year. The frequency depends on the type of equipment and where it is used, and much office IT is low risk.

Work at height

Mounting displays, projectors, speakers and cameras is often work at height, which must be properly planned, supervised and carried out safely.

Data security

UK GDPR requires appropriate technical and organisational measures to keep personal data secure. That applies to the servers and devices you audit and to the data left on equipment at disposal.

CCTV

CCTV that captures identifiable people is processing personal data. Police and local authorities must have regard to the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice, and its principles are a sound basis for any system.

Sources: Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, regulation 4, HSE: Portable appliance testing FAQs, Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 4, UK GDPR, Article 32, Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, section 33 and GOV.UK: Surveillance camera code of practice.

Installation, cable testing and commissioning records

On install, the display installation checklist records the wall type, the bracket and fixings used and the load they are rated for, cable management and the final position. For fixings into concrete and masonry, BS 8539 is the code of practice for selecting and installing post-installed anchors, and the record should show the fixing matches the substrate you found, not the one you assumed.

Structured cabling is only proven once it is tested. A cable test report records the category or fibre type, the tester model and its calibration date, whether you tested the permanent link or the channel, each link's result and any failures with the retest. Clients and manufacturers offering a system warranty will usually want the tester's own results as well, so note where those files are kept.

The commissioning sheet brings it together at handover: each display, codec, microphone, speaker and access point tested, serial numbers, IP addresses, outstanding snags and the documents and passwords handed over, signed by the client. For snags and wider project handover, see construction and handover forms.

Source: BSI: BS 8539 Code of practice for post-installed anchors.

How often should AV, IT and CCTV systems be maintained?

No regulation sets a fixed interval for AV or IT maintenance; it comes from the manufacturer, the support contract and how critical the system is. These are the patterns most teams follow:

Daily or before use

Room checks in busy meeting and boardroom spaces: display, camera, microphones, room booking panel and a test call. The meeting room checklist is built for this.

Quarterly or six monthly

Planned AV visits under a support contract, covering firmware, cleaning filters and vents, audio levels and user faults, using the AV maintenance checklist.

Per contract, often twice a year

CCTV maintenance: camera image quality day and night, focus and field of view, housings and lenses cleaned, recorder health, retention period and time sync, recorded on the CCTV maintenance checklist.

Monthly to annually

Server room and network checks: UPS, backups, patching, temperatures and labelling, with the IT maintenance checklist and a rack audit of what is in each cabinet.

What an IT audit and security audit should cover

An IT audit looks at the estate as a whole: what hardware and software is in use, who supports it, licences, backups, documentation and the physical state of comms rooms. An IT security audit goes deeper on the controls that stop common attacks.

For UK organisations the practical baseline is Cyber Essentials, the government backed scheme built on 5 technical controls: firewalls, secure configuration, user access control, malware protection and security update management. A growing number of organisations ask their suppliers to hold it. The NCSC 10 Steps to Cyber Security takes a wider view, covering risk management, asset management, logging and monitoring and incident management, and the NCSC small business guide is a short starting point for smaller sites.

Record each finding against the control it relates to, with evidence (a screenshot of the patch level, a photo of an unlocked comms cabinet) and an owner. A finding without an owner and a date will be the same finding next year.

Sources: NCSC: Cyber Essentials overview, NCSC: 10 Steps to Cyber Security and NCSC: Small business guide.

Asset registers, handover and data destruction

An IT asset inventory is the record every other check depends on: make, model, serial number, asset tag, location, user, purchase and warranty dates and status. Asset management is one of the NCSC's 10 Steps for a reason, because you cannot patch or secure a device you do not know about.

When a laptop, phone or tablet is issued, the IT equipment handover form records the condition, accessories and serial number with the user's signature, and the same form works in reverse when they leave. At end of life, the data must be removed before the device is reused or disposed of. NCSC guidance on secure sanitisation explains when overwriting is enough and when media should be destroyed, and a data destruction certificate records which devices were sanitised or destroyed, by what method and by whom. Waste electrical equipment then has to go to an appropriate route under the WEEE rules.

Sources: NCSC: 10 Steps to Cyber Security, NCSC: Secure sanitisation and disposal of storage media, UK GDPR, Article 5 and GOV.UK: Regulations, waste electrical and electronic equipment.

Running surveys and commissioning on a phone or tablet

AV and IT engineers spend their day in ceiling voids, plant rooms and basements with no signal. SiteSurvey runs on iPhone, iPad and Android and works offline on site, so the surveyor can record each room, take photos and mark them up with annotation, add measurements, readings and notes, and collect the client's signature at handover. Each completed form becomes a branded PDF report you can send with the quote or the handover pack.

You can edit any form here to add your own rooms, equipment lists or test steps, or build your own in the form builder. Open any form page to see every question and try it live.