Templates

Use templates to simplify tasks, standardize processes, and improve data security. Define document structures and initial values for documents, and control who can view and edit document sections and individual elements within documents.

About templates

Templates in PLA 3.0 behave like standard documents in that you can create and work with them in the same way. In contrast to standard documents, templates should not contain any data. Therefore, you cannot calculate them. Also, the template document mode provides extra functions not available for standard documents.

The following figure gives on overview of these functions:
Standard functions of PLA 3.0 document templates
Figure 1. Standard functions of PLA 3.0 document templates

Create a template document and arrange the document elements in a structure that matches your requirements. Set up permissions and define initial values to restrict access to elements, and ensure correct usage of the template. For details, see the Create templates topic.

Enforce the use of templates and prevent users from creating documents that are not created from templates. To enforce templates, you define document restrictions. You can also set up restrictions such that folders can contain specific document types only. For details on document restrictions, see the Document restrictions topic.

Tip:
You can identify templates by an orange square in the upper right corner of the document icon ().

Method life cycle support

PLA 3.0 supports your method life cycle from early development to routine operation. You develop analytical methods using standard documents and use templates to transition your methods from development to operation. By saving standard documents as templates, you enforce your Standard Operation Procedures and implement your methods.

Figure 2. Method life cycle in PLA 3.0

Development mode

Functional administrators use documents to develop analytical methods in a test environment. They set up assay elements, the analytical methods, and the test system. To implement the method, they save this configuration document as a template.

Quality assurance inspectors apply electronic signatures to templates to approve the developed methods and confirm that they are suitable for the intended use.

Operation mode

Bioassay analysts and end users with restricted access use the templates created during development to create the documents they need to run experiments in the production system. Commonly, templates suit several experiment runs without extra configuration needed by the operating user. An operating user should only need to enter the experiment data, run the calculation, and report the results.