Procedures
Reusable calibration procedure templates — steps, equipment, materials, and acceptance criteria.
A procedure is a reusable calibration procedure template, scoped to a physical quantity (e.g. a documented process for calibrating temperature RTDs against a dry-block reference). Manage them from the Procedures page in the sidebar.
Why procedures exist
ISO/IEC 17025 requires that a lab document and follow defined procedures for its calibration work. Open Gauge's procedure templates capture that documentation once and let you reference it from every calibration performed the same way, rather than re-typing methodology notes each time.
Fields
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Name & physical quantity | What this procedure calibrates, and for which quantity. |
| Version | Free-text version string (e.g. "1.0") — bump it when the methodology changes. |
| Difficulty | Informational skill-level guidance for whoever performs it. |
| Standard reference | Free-text reference to an external standard (an ISO/ASTM number, etc.). |
| Author, duration | Who wrote it, and roughly how long it takes to perform. |
| Tags | Free-form labels for search/filtering. |
| Equipment | Structured list of required equipment. |
| Materials | Structured list of required materials/consumables. |
| Environment | Required environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, etc.) to perform the procedure under. |
| Safety notes | Free-text list of safety considerations. |
| Steps | The ordered procedure steps themselves. |
| Acceptance criteria | What counts as a pass for this procedure, documented alongside it. |
Downloading a procedure as PDF
Every procedure has a Download PDF button next to Edit on its detail page — it live-renders the procedure's current data (metadata, required equipment, materials, environmental conditions, safety instructions, steps, and acceptance criteria) into a PDF, ready to print and carry into the field.
The PDF comes from a published, active Calibration Procedure document template — the same WYSIWYG editor used for certificate templates, just with a procedure-specific set of variables (equipment, procedure metadata, environment, steps, acceptance criteria, safety instructions, dates). By default it renders with whichever template is marked Default in Admin → Templates → Procedures; the download button's chevron lets you pick a different one for that download alone, a one-off choice that doesn't change the saved default. Every install starts with a permanent, built-in base template (see Managing templates) that covers every field on the Procedure model and is the default until an admin marks something else — so downloading works from the very first procedure, before anyone has designed a custom layout.
Unlike a calibration certificate, a procedure PDF documents the method, not one calibration event — it isn't digitally signed and carries no technician/checked-by signature block.
Linking a procedure to a channel
On a sensor channel, set calibration method to a saved procedure — this becomes the channel's default procedure, pre-selected whenever you start a new internal calibration for that channel. It's just a default: any calibration can reference a different procedure (or none) if the situation calls for it.
Where procedures show up in a calibration
An internal calibration (see
Calibration overview) can reference the procedure that was
followed (internal_procedure_id), and that reference is printed on the resulting certificate
alongside the reference standard used and the environmental conditions recorded — the full
traceability chain a calibration certificate needs.
Import & export
Available to admin and superadmin users only. Any procedure can be exported as a ZIP bundle — from the Export button next to + New Procedure on the Procedures page to bulk-export a selection (a checklist modal lets you pick individual procedures or select all at once), or from + New Procedure → Import from file for a single procedure at a time. A bulk export is just several single-procedure bundles inside one outer ZIP, so it can be re-imported the same way it was exported.
Each procedure gets its own folder named after its proc_id (e.g. PROC-TEMP-001/), containing:
procedure.yaml— every procedure field (name, version, difficulty, standard reference, tags, equipment, materials, environment, safety notes, steps, and acceptance criteria), in a human-readable format.media/steps/{n}/— the actual bytes of any file attached to stepn(images, PDFs, etc.), one subfolder per step index.
What's deliberately left out of procedure.yaml: internal database UUIDs — the procedure's
own id, created_by, and every file's id. These only make sense inside the database they came
from.
Importing
Import a ZIP either from Procedures → + New Procedure → Import from file (expects exactly one procedure in the file) or from the page's Import button (accepts one or more ZIPs at once, each of which may itself contain one or more procedure folders — handy for re-importing a prior bulk export). Both flows call the same backend endpoint and report one result per procedure folder, so a problem with one procedure never blocks the others in the same file.
On import, a brand-new procedure is created with a new internal id. If the exported proc_id
already exists in the target system, that procedure's import fails with a clear error — rename it
in the YAML and retry.