Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions on DEVB compliance, data standards, platform features, and iCWP integration — all in one place.
Category 1
All DEVB capital works contracts — both GCC and NEC forms — tendered on or after 1 April 2026 must use a DWSS that satisfies every provision of DEVB TC(W) No. 8/2025.
This replaces the previous regime under TC(W) No. 2/2004 (General Conditions of Contract projects) and TC(W) No. 6/2015 (NEC projects). Contracts tendered before 1 April 2026 continue under the pre-existing circulars.
TC(W) 8/2025 §§ 1–3DWSS implements all mandatory requirements across the three core components defined by TC(W) 8/2025:
Every state transition writes an append-only audit record. All data is exportable to iCWP within 24 hours of capture.
TC(W) 8/2025 §§ 7–9TC(W) 8/2025 defines three mandatory DWSS components:
Yes. DWSS handles both GCC and NEC contracts natively:
DEVB TC(W) No. 8/2025 applies to all capital works contracts tendered on or after 1 April 2026. It supersedes both TC(W) 2/2004 and TC(W) 6/2015. The requirement for SSSS to be amalgamated into DWSS (previously optional under TC(W) 3/2023) also became mandatory from this date.
TC(W) 8/2025 § 3; TC(W) 3/2023 footnoteDWSS is built to HKSARG IT Security requirements, including:
Category 2
The Data Standardisation Report (DSR), currently at Version 1.2 (December 2025), is the DEVB technical specification that defines:
DWSS is fully architected against DSR v1.2, covering all 8 standardised data modules.
DSR v1.2, December 2025DWSS uses XML as the primary format for iCWP export (DSR § 4.1.1), delivered via SFTP. A RESTful JSON API and SOAP interface are also supported.
All data is encoded in UTF-8 with HKSCS (ISO/IEC 10646 + Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set) to ensure full support for Traditional Chinese characters used in project documentation.
DSR v1.2 § 4.1.1–4.1.3DSR v1.2 § 4.1.2 specifies the following file naming convention:
ProjectNo-ContractNo-DatasetID-Timestamp.xml
For example: 461TH-HY_2014_09-DWSS-RISC-01-20260524T083210.xml
Note that forward slashes in contract numbers are replaced with underscores (e.g. HY/2014/09 becomes HY_2014_09). Timestamps use ISO 8601 format in UTC+8.
All data captured in DWSS is exported to iCWP within 24 hours of capture (DSR § 1.4). DWSS supports incremental sync — only records modified since the last successful sync are exported, using a last_sync_time parameter.
For SCM telemetry, events are available via the GET /scm/api/events/ endpoint in paginated form for near-real-time iCWP pull.
DSR v1.2 standardises 8 data modules, expanding from the 6 modules in the previous version:
DSR Version 1.2 (December 2025) introduced three major additions:
These additions expanded the iCWP interface from 6 to 8 standardised data modules.
DSR v1.2 December 2025 — Release NotesDSR v1.2 § 3 defines a baseline set of statistical dashboards that every DWSS must provide — one per workflow module. DWSS fulfils these requirements with fully drill-down interactive charts:
All dashboards support daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly views via mouse-wheel zoom, with drill-down to individual project and record level.
DSR v1.2 § 3.2–3.7Category 3
TC(W) 8/2025 § 7.5.1 requires all six of the following modules:
The RISC (Request for Inspection & Survey Check) form follows a three-party workflow:
Form types supported: SI (Structural Inspection), SUR (Survey), and EM (Emergency). Pass/fail rate and outstanding RISC dashboards are updated in real time.
TC(W) 8/2025 § 7.5.1.i; PAH 2024 Appendix 7.82A/BThe Smart Site Safety System (SSSS), governed by TC(W) No. 3/2023, encompasses IoT-based safety monitoring devices deployed on construction sites — AI cameras, worker wearables, e-locks, mobile plant zone alert systems, PTW systems, and a Centralised Management Platform (CMP).
From 1 April 2026, TC(W) 8/2025 mandates ("shall", upgraded from the previously optional "may" in TC(W) 3/2023) that SSSS be amalgamated into DWSS as its Smart Construction Management hub. Any SSSS vendor can connect by obtaining a vendor token and using the DWSS ingest API (POST /scm/api/ingest/events/).
The SCM alert engine classifies inbound telemetry into three severity levels:
Monitoring categories include: Progress, Safety, Deformation, Material, Machinery, and Environmental monitoring.
TC(W) 8/2025 § 8; TC(W) 3/2023DWSS SCM supports all 10 SSSS device categories defined in TC(W) 3/2023:
DWSS SDM uses Tesseract-powered OCR on every uploaded document (TC(W) 8/2025 § 9.4.5). The extracted text is stored in PostgreSQL for full-text search across the entire document archive.
Image-based PDFs (scanned documents) are automatically converted to searchable PDFs. The original file is preserved alongside the OCR-processed version, and both are versioned together under the same DocumentVersion record.
TC(W) 8/2025 § 9.7 requires SDM to allow external reviewers (non-DWSS users) to access specific documents without creating a full platform account. DWSS implements this via an OTP portal:
WBTC No. 19/93 defines a four-level file reference system. DWSS SDM implements this as a strict four-level hierarchy:
R9K/2003/09)M30)200/12)00001)A full document reference reads: R9K/2003/09/M30/200/12/00001. All SDM-managed documents carry this reference and are included in the DSR v1.2 § 4.11 Raw Document Metadata iCWP export.
First standardised in DSR v1.2 (December 2025), the NEC Health Check is a six-dimension structured performance assessment transmitted to iCWP for portfolio-level contract governance:
Every file upload in DWSS SDM creates a new DocumentVersion record containing:
Documents can be frozen (§ 9.8.9) — frozen documents reject further uploads until an administrator explicitly unfreezes them. The complete version history is preserved and immutable, meeting the append-only audit requirements of TC(W) 8/2025.
TC(W) 8/2025 § 9.8.9Category 4
DWSS integrates with iCWP (integrated Construction Works Platform) through two primary channels:
All 8 standardised modules (§§ 4.3–4.11) are available through both channels.
DSR v1.2 §§ 1.4, 4.1; TC(W) 8/2025 § 10The DWSS API supports two authentication methods:
Authorization header.All API traffic is encrypted with TLS 1.2+. Timestamps in API responses use ISO 8601 format in UTC+8.
HKSARG IT Security Policy; DSR v1.2 § 4.1Key DWSS API endpoints include:
GET /api/v1/{module}/records — Incremental sync; filter by contract, status, and date range.GET /api/v1/attachments/{file_id} — Pre-signed attachment URL (30-minute expiry).POST /scm/api/ingest/events/ — SSSS vendor telemetry ingest (vendor token authenticated).GET /scm/api/events/ — Paginated telemetry event list for iCWP pull.GET /scm/api/alerts/ — Paginated safety alert list.Module identifiers for {module}: RISC, SITE_DIARY, SAFETY_INSP, CLEAN_INSP, LABOUR_RETURN, CONTRACT, CONTRACTOR_SUB, DOC_METADATA.
Yes. DWSS SCM is vendor-agnostic. Any SSSS vendor — regardless of device brand or proprietary platform — can connect by obtaining a DWSS vendor token and using the standard ingest API (POST /scm/api/ingest/events/).
Each vendor token is scoped to specific device categories and the contracted project. Telemetry from multiple vendors is consolidated into the unified DWSS SCM dashboard and alert engine, with clear source attribution per event.
TC(W) 8/2025 § 8 footnote; TC(W) 3/2023DWSS uses a last_sync_time parameter for incremental exports. On each sync cycle:
This design ensures iCWP always receives a complete, non-duplicated, ordered dataset without requiring full re-exports.
DSR v1.2 § 1.4; DSR v1.2 § 4.1.2Yes. Photo attachments — including GPS-tagged RISC inspection photos with HK80 coordinate metadata, and before/after safety inspection photos — are included in iCWP exports.
For API access, attachments are served via pre-signed URLs (GET /api/v1/attachments/{file_id}) with a 30-minute expiry. For SFTP XML exports, attachment metadata (filename, size, MIME type, checksum) is embedded in the XML record, and the binary files are uploaded to the designated SFTP path alongside the XML.