A multi-site IT checklist is a short sheet with one column for each office, branch or site. The IT lead writes the same ten lines into each column, and they cover which devices are there, how they were set up, how staff sign in, where staff get help, and what is written down about the site. Then the central IT lead and a colleague at each site mark the lines at that site. The finished sheet shows where sites differ from the firm’s own setup, as well as from each other. A separate use case also covers the wider work of making each branch’s IT match the rest.
Last reviewed 2026-11-02 by Manish Sharma.
Multi-Site IT Checklist: One Column per Site
Under this Signisys working method, which is not a standard, each location the firm runs gets a column. That includes offices, branches, outlets and any small site, such as one with only a few computers. The IT lead marks all of them against the same ten lines.
Two words come up throughout. First, the firm’s setup means the devices, settings and routes the firm has chosen for its sites, written down. Second, a site record is the written note of what is at a site and who to call there.
Agreeing the setup comes before the sheet, and some firms call that work IT infrastructure standardization. The sheet then shows how far each site is from the setup. How a firm arrives at that setup and moves its sites onto it is set out in a dated record of each site and the moves that follow.
The ten lines fall into five groups:
- Devices on site (lines 1 and 2): what is there?
- How they were set up (lines 3 and 4): set up the firm’s way?
- Sign-ins (lines 5 and 6): whose accounts, and who answers for them?
- Getting help (lines 7 and 8): where do staff ask?
- Site record and last change (lines 9 and 10): is it written down?
A firm with no written setup yet can also mark the sheet. In that case, it marks against the setup shared by the larger number of its sites, and notes that it did so.
Multi-Site IT Checklist Marks, Given at the Site
As a second part of the same Signisys working method, each line gets one of three words in each site’s column.
Matches: the person marking has looked and found the site the same as the firm’s setup, or different only through an exception someone approved in writing. Differs: they looked and found it different, with no written approval. Unchecked: the person marking has not looked at the line yet.
The two people marking give a mark only when the device, screen or paper is in front of them. That can happen at the site, or on a video call while the site manager shows it. If the site did not show a line, the line stays Unchecked, not Matches.
Some lines have no meaning at a site. For example, line 2’s network boxes mean nothing at a site that has none. In that case, the marker strikes the line through in that column and notes why beside it. The marks are words, not numbers, and the IT lead adds up no total.
Leave the word Unchecked in place until someone has looked. A Matches given from memory records something nobody saw.
Key Takeaway Before a call with a site, ask the manager to have each device and screen ready to show.
The Devices Each Site Runs
To begin with, the first group looks at what is physically at the site. For both lines, the marker needs the site itself, or a call where the site manager can walk the camera round.
| Line | Look at | Matches when |
|---|---|---|
| 1. The site manager keeps a dated list of each device used for work at the site. | The list, and the site itself. | The central IT lead can match each device in the room to a line on the list. |
| 2. Each listed device is a model the firm chose, or carries an approved exception. | The list beside the firm’s setup. | Each line on the list is one or the other. |
By devices, the sheet means computers, printers, card machines, network boxes and wireless points. Count anything switched on for work, such as the box in the back room that someone plugged in earlier.
How Each Device Was Set Up
After that, the second group looks inside the devices. Here the central IT lead compares settings, then checks the record of changes made at the site.
| Line | Look at | Matches when |
|---|---|---|
| 3. The central IT lead picks two computers at the site and compares their settings with the firm’s setup. | The settings on both screens. | Both match the setup, or differ only where the IT lead has written an exception. |
| 4. Each change made at the site since the last marking is on the firm’s change record, with a date and a name. | The change record for this site. | The IT lead finds no setting changed at the site without a line on the record. |
A public guide makes a similar comparison. In a NIST guide’s section on configuration monitoring, section 3.4 describes monitoring that checks the existing configuration is “identical to the current approved baseline configuration” and that the components on its inventory can be identified. Its example is an employee who installs a wireless access point at a remote office without management consent. NIST aimed the guide at US federal systems, but here it shows why the IT lead compares a site with the agreed setup; the reader is not bound by it.
Who Gets Access, and Who Removes It
After that, the third group covers sign-ins. The IT lead looks at the accounts on site devices, then at the logins that several people share.
| Line | Look at | Matches when |
|---|---|---|
| 5. Staff at the site sign in with accounts that the central IT team made. | The accounts on two devices at the site, beside the central account list. | Each account found is on the central list. |
| 6. Each shared login at the site, such as a front-desk login, has a named person who answers for it. | The shared logins and the names beside them. | Each shared login has a name, and that person still works at the site. |
How strong those sign-ins are, though, is a separate piece of security work. For now, these two lines ask only whose accounts are in use and who answers for the shared ones.
Where Site Staff Go for Help
Then the fourth group asks how staff at the site report a problem, and whether the central team can see what came from each site.
| Line | Look at | Matches when |
|---|---|---|
| 7. Staff at the site use the same route to ask for IT help as the other sites, and can name it. | Two staff at the site, asked where they would report a printer that has stopped. | Both name the firm’s route. |
| 8. The central team records each help request with the name of the site it came from. | The requests from this site over recent weeks. | The central IT lead can pull up this site’s requests on their own. |
The person who unlocks the site in the morning may know which device gets switched off and on to make it work. Ask them for lines 1 and 7 before anyone else.
The Site Record and the Next Change
Last, the fifth group checks what is written down about the site, and whether the last change at the site followed the firm’s own list.
| Line | Look at | Matches when |
|---|---|---|
| 9. The site has a written record of where each device sits, who supplies the internet link, and who holds the cabinet keys. | The record. | A colleague who has not visited the site can find the network cabinet and the supplier’s contact from it alone. |
| 10. The site’s last move, refit or opening used the firm’s current written setup list. | The setup list used, and its date. | The list used is the firm’s current one. |
The links themselves are also a separate job, which the use case on the connections each location relies on sets out. Here, line 9 asks only whether the supplier’s details are written down.
Multi-Site IT Checklist, Read Across and Down
Once both people have marked the columns, the IT lead reads the sheet two ways. This reading is the third part of the Signisys working method.
Across a line, when a line is marked Differs at several sites, the IT lead looks first at the firm’s setup itself, or at how it reached the sites, before any one site. That is work on the setup, not on a branch. Where those differences start is traced in four moments in the life of a branch from the day it opens.
Down a column, a site with several Differs or Unchecked lines is the next one to visit.
Before either, though, any line still Unchecked anywhere comes before any fix: first find out what is there.
There is no count, band, target or comparison with other firms. The sheet shows where sites differed on the day it was marked. It does not show whether a site is secure, whether its links are reliable or whether the firm meets any law.
Key Takeaway When one line shows Differs at several sites, take that line to whoever owns the firm’s setup instead of to the branches.
Salon Branches on the Same Sheet
Take an invented hair and beauty salon chain in India that grew from one city into others, run from a small central office. Nothing about the chain is real, and it is not a Signisys client. Here, the scene follows lines 5 and 6, the sign-ins, across three of its branches.
At the first branch, both lines are Matches. For example, each stylist signs in to the booking screen with an account the central office made. The front-desk login has the branch manager’s name beside it.
At the second branch, line 5 is Differs. A stylist set up a separate account on the reception computer to print appointment cards, but the central office did not approve it in writing.
At a newly opened third branch, both lines stay Unchecked until the call with its manager takes place.
Read together, the three columns tell the operations lead two things. Line 5 is a branch matter at one site, while the new branch needs a call before anything else.
Keeping the Sheet Beside the Standard
The IT lead keeps the marked sheet in the same place as the firm’s written setup. Whoever changes the setup can see which sites a change will touch. A new site also gets its own column before it opens.
The marks cover what the IT lead and the site saw on the day. Security testing, the speed and reliability of links between sites, and the choice of who runs IT are separate work. That last choice, between staff on the payroll and a provider, is weighed in the six jobs every site needs and who in the firm answers for each.
Where a firm wants someone from outside to mark some of its columns, Signisys can take on whichever columns the firm hands over.
Signisys offers IT consulting and managed cloud services and an IT service management and operations automation solution, and has a commercial interest in how firms run their sites.
Multi-Site IT Checklist FAQ: Before Marking Begins
Does the multi-site IT checklist need a visit to each site?
Can the multi-site IT checklist be marked before a written setup exists?
Where does a new site go on the multi-site IT checklist?
Is a site with a written reason to differ marked down on the multi-site IT checklist?
Security Insights, Delivered.
Practical, vendor-neutral analysis of threats, tools, and architecture decisions.