QC Templates
A QC Template is a named selection of QC Items: the set of tests you want run for a particular purpose. For example, all the checks you want performed on externally produced content before you ingest it, or the checks a specific customer requires before delivery.
Where a QC Item answers "what does this test mean", a Template answers "which tests apply here". Templates are what a QC workflow is actually built from.
Any logged-in user can create Templates. See User roles.
Creating a Template
Open Templates in the left menu and use Add. A Template needs a name; everything else can be filled in as you go.
Add QC Items to the Template from the Items list. The order of the Items in the Template is yours to set; it does not affect the tests themselves.
Which version of an Item does a Template use?
This is the part worth understanding, because it decides whether your Template changes underneath you when an Item is updated. Each Item in a Template is held in one of three ways:
- A specific version. The Template always refers to exactly that version, whatever happens to the Item afterwards. Use this when you need the test set to be reproducible: a delivery specification you have agreed with a customer, or a test plan you want to be able to re-run identically in two years.
- Latest published. The Template follows the most recent published (or withdrawn) version of the Item. It updates when a new version is published, and never points at a draft.
- Latest. The Template follows the most recent version of the Item of any status, including drafts. Mostly useful to Editors who are working on an Item and want to see it in context.
See Versioning for what the version numbers mean, and Status for what "published" and "withdrawn" imply.
Note that a version of a QC Item cannot be deleted while a Template refers to it by version. Templates that follow "latest" are not strict about which version they get, so they do not block deletion. See Versioning.
Who can see a Template
Each Template has a visibility setting:
- Private - only you.
- Group only - you and the members of the EBU Groups you link to the Template.
- Editors only - any QC Editor. This is the default.
- EBU members only - any signed-in user from an EBU member organisation.
- Public - anyone, including visitors who are not signed in.
Visibility controls who can see the Template itself. It does not widen access to anything inside it: a reader still only sees the QC Items their own role allows.
Tags
Templates can be tagged, which makes them easier to find in the list. Template tags are a separate list from QC Item tags, so tagging a Template does not affect the Items. See QC Tags.
Parameter values
A Template can record the values you want used for an Item's input and output parameters, rather than leaving them at whatever the Item defines. That is how a Template expresses "we run this test, at this threshold" instead of only "we run this test".
Downloading a Template
A Template can be downloaded from its page. XML is the default; CSV and JSON are also available. This is the usual way to hand a test set to a QC tool or to a colleague who does not use qc.ebu.io.
Handing a Template to someone else
A Template has a single owner, the user who created it. The owner can generate a transfer token from the Template's page and pass it to another signed-in user, who redeems it to take over ownership.
Two things to be aware of:
- The token transfers ownership rather than sharing it. After it is redeemed, the original owner no longer owns the Template.
- Tokens expire. Generate one when the other person is ready to use it.
To let somebody read a Template without giving it away, change its visibility instead, or send them a download.