Create and revise requirement templates

Maintain reusable, revisioned calibration policies without changing requirements already assigned to equipment.

Calibration planning For Owner, Administrator, Quality manager, Calibration manager About 7 minutes to read

Calibration requirement templates hold reusable policy for recurring work. Use them when several equipment items need the same calibration type, interval, warning period, risk level, exact approved procedure revision, or acceptance criteria.

A template is not an equipment requirement. Assigning it copies a controlled snapshot to each selected equipment item.

For an external calibration template, retain the provider's uploaded certificate and use provider-reported uncertainty when required. Metra certificate generation and mandatory internal uncertainty calculation are disabled for that work type. Existing saved choices remain visible for correction; changing an organisation's setup answers does not silently replace template policies.

Before you begin

Open the correct organisation and select Calibration, then Requirement templates.

Owners, quality managers and calibration managers normally create and maintain templates. Organisation administrators and calibration engineers normally have read-only access. The available actions follow your stored effective permissions; template creation does not grant independent technical approval authority.

Decide the policy values before creating the template. You can revise them later, but revisions do not update requirements that have already been assigned.

Create a draft template

New drafts include Proposed draft defaults, based on the explicit work type and reviewed operating model. Review the explanation and warnings before selecting Apply proposed defaults. This changes only untouched policy values. Choose the certificate route yourself; the model never selects generation or grants accreditation claims. Existing templates retain their saved choices. Changing a draft's work type keeps entered values; incompatible output choices remain explained until you explicitly correct them.

A second entry point is available while creating a custom equipment requirement. Select Save this policy as a reusable template and provide the template name. The Metra creates the draft template and independent draft requirement atomically, so a duplicate template name or other failure creates neither record.

The equipment requirement intentionally has no template link. Its initial due date remains equipment-specific and is not copied into the draft template. Future changes to either record do not update the other.

Select New template.
Enter the required Name.
Select the Calibration type. For Accreditation profile, choose Not required or an approved profile from this organisation. The label shows its accreditation body, laboratory number and exact revision.
Enter the Interval and Interval unit.
Enter the Warning period (days).
Select the Risk level.
Select an optional Responsible member.
Review the explicit procedure policy selected from the calibration type. Internal calibration requires one exact approved controlled procedure revision. Verification and functional checks can use a controlled revision, or justified defined acceptance criteria where applicable. External calibration requires a nonblank provider method or specification reference unless an independently reviewed provider is linked. It does not require an internal controlled revision or Metra uncertainty budget merely to retain provider evidence. For checks, the certificate route can retain results without a certificate. Select applicable uncertainty and conformity controls for the actual method, accreditation claim and intended use.
Add Acceptance criteria where needed.
Review the measurement, uncertainty, reference-standard, and conformity policies and the evidence they require for every calibration.
Resolve prerequisite combinations. Calculated uncertainty requires an approved uncertainty-budget revision; uncertainty calculations, reference-standard evidence, and automatic conformity decisions require structured measurements.
Confirm recognizable controlled-record labels such as CAL-TEMP-004 · Revision 7, UB-TEMP-001 · Revision 4, and DR-TEMP-002 · Revision 2 rather than relying on UUIDs.
Select Create draft.

The template is created in draft status with its first fixed revision. It cannot be assigned until it is active.

Choose an accreditation profile

Approve the profile in Accreditation profiles before selecting it. Draft and withdrawn profiles cannot be selected for new templates. Manage accreditation profiles opens in a new tab so your entered template settings remain available. After approving a profile in the other tab, select Refresh profiles to load it without clearing the form. If the list fails, use Retry profiles; if you cannot view profiles, ask an owner or quality manager for access.

The selected profile revision is copied to assigned requirements and calibration events. Later profile revisions do not replace that selection. Selecting a profile does not itself authorise an accredited certificate. Metra-generated certificates check the selected profile scopes, validity and calibration and measurement capability (CMC) against the work. Uploaded external certificates still require supplier accreditation and evidence review; linking a profile does not automatically verify their contents.

Existing templates without a linked profile retain their previous accreditation policy until you explicitly select a profile or Not required. A saved profile that is no longer available is retained visibly rather than silently cleared.

The creation form groups template details, scheduling and evidence settings, with fields stacking on narrow screens. Use the ? beside technical labels for explanations; these can also be reached with the keyboard.

Review and activate the template

Open View details for the draft.
Review every policy value.
Select Activate.

Activation makes the template available for bulk assignment. It records another controlled revision; it does not create equipment requirements by itself.

Revise a draft or active template

Open the template details.
Select Edit template.
Make the controlled policy changes.
Select Save changes.

Each successful update advances the template revision. Existing equipment requirements retain the template values and revision number captured when they were assigned. To change an existing requirement, review and update that requirement separately; do not assume a template edit has propagated.

Retire or archive a template

Use Retire when an active template should no longer be available for new assignments. Enter the required Reason and confirm the action.

Use Archive for a draft or retired template that should be retained as historical policy. Archived templates:

remain available through the Status filter;
are omitted by the default Current templates filter;
cannot be edited, activated, or assigned through the normal workflow; and
do not alter requirements previously created from them.

Retirement and archival are controlled lifecycle actions. They do not remove revisions or restore capacity to rewrite assigned requirements.

Find a template

The template list supports Search templates, Status, Type, and Risk filters. Select Apply filters after changing them.

If the list is empty, No requirement templates found means either no records match or the current filters exclude them. Clear or change the filters before creating a duplicate. If loading fails, use Retry.

Safe next steps

Unwanted drafts

For a saved draft that is no longer needed, use Discard draft and enter a reason. See Discard an unwanted draft.

Protect template edits

Template forms warn before navigation, tab closing or cancellation would discard unfinished changes. Save the draft to retain it. A draft remains subject to the normal controlled approval requirements.

Draft technical controls in parallel

Save a draft template while its procedure, uncertainty budget, provider method reference or check justification is still being prepared. Complete the missing technical controls before activation. Supplied references remain organisation-scoped and are checked when saved; drafting never bypasses approval or work eligibility.

Changing the work type applies the same evidence defaults as a custom requirement and clears incompatible links. Review the method, uncertainty, certificate route and accreditation choices before saving. A long warning period is permitted with guidance; equipment assignment checks its calendar recurrence. Select one equipment item for a server-derived due-date suggestion, review the evidence basis and select Use suggested date explicitly. Bulk activation still requires an explicit initial due date.