How to Create a Better Daily Drilling Report

A drilling shift can produce a lot of information before the day is over. Metres are drilled, equipment is moved, samples are collected, delays occur, decisions are made, safety observations are recorded, and plans change as the work progresses. By the end of the shift, all this information needs to become one daily drilling report.

That sounds straightforward until the report has to capture everything that happened accurately.

A delay that seemed minor at 10 a.m. can become important when the Project Manager is reviewing the day's progress. A piece of equipment that stopped working for an hour can affect the drilling schedule, while a missing sample record can create questions later when technical teams are reviewing results. If these details are not captured properly, the report may show that something happened without giving anyone enough information to understand what happened, why it happened, or what needs to happen next.

This is why creating a better daily drilling report is not simply about filling in more fields. It is about making sure the information coming from the field can be understood and used by the people responsible for managing the wider programme.

A Good Daily Report Starts with What Happened in the Field

The best daily drilling reports begin with the work itself.

During a normal shift, a Drill Supervisor is already paying attention to a long list of activities. The rig may be drilling, moving between locations, waiting for materials, undergoing maintenance, or dealing with an unexpected problem. The crew may complete a planned section of a hole while also dealing with changes that were not part of the original schedule.

The report needs to bring these pieces together.

At a minimum, this includes the project and site, date and shift, rig and crew, hole identification, metres drilled, activities completed, equipment used, delays and downtime, samples and relevant geological observations, HSE information, materials or consumables, and issues that require follow-up.

The important thing is not to collect information simply because it is available. The report should capture information that helps someone understand what happened during the shift and how it affects the work going forward.

This is particularly important because drilling information does not stay with the person who records it. A Project Manager may use it to review progress, a geologist may need technical information, a finance team may need cost-related details, and management may need to understand whether the programme is moving according to plan.

A report that gives each of these people a clear picture of the day's work becomes much more useful than a report that simply confirms that a shift took place.

Clear Reporting Makes the Next Decision Easier

Imagine opening a daily report and seeing: “Drilling was slow because of equipment problems.”

There is information there, but not enough to understand the situation.

What equipment caused the problem? When did the issue begin? How long was the rig affected? Was the problem resolved? Did the delay affect the planned metres for the day? Does someone need to take further action?

Now consider a report that explains that drilling stopped from 11:20 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. because of a pump failure, that the pump was repaired, and that drilling resumed shortly afterwards.

The difference is not the length of the report. It is the quality of the information.

Clear reporting gives the person reading the report enough context to understand the situation without having to call the field team for clarification. It also makes it easier to compare one shift with another because the same information is being described in a consistent way.

This matters beyond drilling. As Harvard Business Review has discussed in its work on data-driven decision-making, having information available does not automatically lead to good decisions; the information still needs to be relevant and interpreted properly. (Source: Harvard Business Review, “Where Data-Driven Decision-Making Can Go Wrong”.)

For a daily drilling report, that means focusing on information that helps people understand the operation rather than filling the report with unnecessary detail.

Do Not Leave the Important Details Until the End of the Shift

A busy shift can make it tempting to complete the report once the day's work is finished. The problem is that the details that matter most are often the easiest to forget.

A breakdown happens, the crew deals with it, drilling resumes, and the team moves on. Later, someone has to remember the exact time the breakdown occurred, how long the rig was down, what caused it, and what was done to resolve it.

The longer the gap between an event and its documentation, the more difficult it can become to reconstruct what happened.

Recording important information as it happens helps reduce this problem. Delays, equipment issues, incidents, changes in plans, sample movements, and other significant events should be captured while the details are still clear.

This does not mean that the Drill Supervisor needs to stop work every few minutes to write a report. It means that the reporting process should make it easy to record important information during the shift, so the final report reflects the day's work rather than someone's memory of it.

Forbes has similarly highlighted the importance of accurate, accessible and well-managed data for business decisions, particularly when information is coming from different sources. (Source: Forbes, “How to Get Your Business Data Ready for AI Agents”.)

The same principle applies in drilling: information is much more useful when it is captured properly at the point where the work happens.

When Something Goes Wrong, Explain the Full Picture

Problems are part of drilling operations. The value of a daily report is not in pretending that everything went according to plan, but in showing what happened when it did not.

A useful record of a delay should answer a few basic questions:

What happened? When did it happen? Why did it happen? How long did it last? What was the impact? What was done about it? Is anything still outstanding?

Consider equipment downtime. Recording “rig breakdown” tells the reader very little. Recording the equipment involved, the time it stopped, the cause, the duration of the downtime, the corrective action taken, and whether further maintenance is required gives the report a much clearer purpose.

The same approach can be applied to other problems, including delayed materials, difficult ground conditions, sample issues, safety events, changes to the drilling plan, or interruptions caused by site conditions.

Specific information also becomes valuable later when teams need to understand patterns.

If one rig repeatedly loses time because of the same type of equipment issue, consistent daily reports can help reveal that pattern. If a particular stage of a programme regularly takes longer than planned, the records can provide useful evidence for future planning.

The report therefore becomes more than a description of one shift. Over time, it can help build a clearer picture of how the operation is performing.

Think About the Person Reading the Report

A Drill Supervisor sees the operation from the field. A Project Manager often sees it from a much wider perspective.

The Project Manager needs to know whether the drilling programme is progressing as planned, where delays are occurring, whether equipment is available, what issues need attention, and whether anything could affect upcoming work.

This is why a good daily drilling report should make progress easy to understand.

Planned metres and actual metres should be clear, and significant delays should not be hidden inside long descriptions. Equipment issues should be identifiable, and HSE events and outstanding actions should be visible. Important technical information should be recorded in a way that allows the relevant team to find and review it.

The goal is not to create a report that tells the Project Manager everything that happened in unnecessary detail. The goal is to give them enough reliable information to understand the position of the project and decide where attention is needed.

Keep the Format Consistent

A report becomes easier to use when people know where to find the information they need.

If one supervisor records downtime in one section, another puts it in the comments, and another simply writes “delay,” comparing reports becomes difficult. The same applies when teams use different terms, measurements, formats, or levels of detail.

Consistency does not mean every report needs to look complicated. It means the basic structure should remain familiar from one shift to the next.

The same project information should be recorded in the same way. Metres should be presented consistently. Equipment issues should be described using clear terms. Delays should include the information needed to understand their duration and impact.

This becomes even more important when several rigs, crews, or projects are operating at the same time.

When reports follow a consistent structure, Project Managers can spend less time working out what the information means and more time using it.

The Report Should Not End When It Is Submitted

One of the biggest problems with daily reporting is that the report can become an isolated document.

It is completed, sent to someone, saved somewhere, and then forgotten until somebody needs it again.

That creates another problem because the information in the report is connected to much more than the day's drilling activity. Drilling progress affects schedules, and equipment downtime can affect costs. HSE events can require follow-up, and procurement issues can delay work. Technical information can influence future decisions.

The more connected these pieces of information are, the easier it becomes to understand what is happening across the programme.

This is where the reporting process starts to move beyond simply creating documents.

For example, MDO is designed to bring drilling programme information into one structured operational environment, connecting areas such as drilling activity, technical data, costs, procurement, equipment, workforce, maintenance, HSE, analytics, and management reporting.

Its daily drilling report functionality is built around the reality of field operations, including mobile-optimised reporting and offline entry for situations where internet connectivity is limited. Instead of treating the daily report as a document that exists separately from the rest of the operation, the information can form part of the wider operational record.

That difference can matter when a Project Manager needs to understand not just what happened during a shift, but how that event connects to the wider programme.

Make the Report Useful for More Than One Day

A well-written daily report should help someone understand today's work, but its value should not disappear tomorrow.

Over time, daily reports create a record of how the programme has progressed. They can show changes in drilling performance, recurring equipment problems, delays, safety issues, productivity patterns, and other operational trends.

This is one reason accurate reporting matters even when a particular shift appears uneventful.

A report that says the rig completed the planned work may seem ordinary at the end of the day. Months later, however, a series of consistent reports can help a team understand how the project progressed, identify where time was lost, and compare performance across different periods or rigs.

Reuters has reported on the growing use of digital technologies across drilling and mining operations, including the use of data, automation, and digital systems to improve operational performance and decision-making. (Source: Reuters, “AI leading to faster, cheaper oil production”.)

The lesson for daily drilling reports is simple: the information being captured today can become part of the evidence used to understand the operation tomorrow.

A Better Daily Report Starts with Better Habits

Creating a better daily drilling report does not require turning every report into a long document.

It starts with a few practical habits: record information while it is fresh, be specific when describing problems, include the details that matter to the people using the report, keep the format consistent, and make sure important actions and follow-ups do not disappear after submission.

Most importantly, the report should reflect what happened in the field clearly enough that someone who was not there can understand the situation.

That is the real purpose of daily drilling reporting.

For Drill Supervisors, it means spending less time trying to reconstruct the day from memory. For Project Managers, it means having information they can use to understand progress, identify problems, and decide what needs attention.

And when the reporting process is connected to the wider operation, the value goes further.

Instead of having drilling information scattered across paper records, spreadsheets, emails, and messages, teams can work towards a shared operational record where the information is easier to access, review, and trace.

MDO helps bring that approach into the daily work of drilling teams by connecting daily drilling reports with the wider operational information needed to manage a programme.