Every file is read, mapped and previewed first. Nothing is stored until you confirm it.
EQAWarden reads the myQAP survey report, results files and pasted tables, Bio-Rad Unity Real Time exports and LotWarden's lot records. Each goes through the same three steps: choose the file, check the layout, confirm and store. What it learns about a layout it remembers, so the second file of a kind needs no checking at all.
One PDF, three kinds of evidence, stored as one batch.
Drop the survey report exactly as downloaded from myQAP. EQAWarden recognises its Result review and Method Comparison pages and reads every section at once, with no layout to check.
Your survey
- Results for both samples, as submitted, censoring kept
- Method category and target source for each measurand
- The APS as printed, and what each result was assessed against
- RCPAQAP's own review colour and MPS
- Category and all-method medians with their group sizes
Your history
- Each measurand's "Summary of last 6 survey results"
- Kept only where that survey is not already stored
- Never replaces a result from that survey's own report
- Gives the series rules something to work on from the first import
Your method group
- Every group of the Method Comparison table: n, median, mean, SD, CV per sample
- Your group highlighted against all methods
- RCPAQAP's ranking of your SD, CV, bias and MPS across the cycle
- Feeds the method group rules and the survey workbook's Method groups sheet
No OCR. myQAP reports are digital PDFs and are read as text, with word positions used to line the table rows up under their columns. A PDF with no text layer is refused with a message that says so, rather than guessed at.
Any table a laboratory can produce.
- CSV, TSV and text in UTF-8, UTF-16 or Windows-1252, with the delimiter sniffed and decimal commas detected.
- XLSX and XLSM read as values only: no macros, no links, and a guard against oversized archives. An old .xls is refused with the fix.
- Rows pasted from a spreadsheet, straight into the page.
- Text PDFs other than the myQAP report, read by word position and checked like any other layout.
Header names are matched; a new layout is checked by you, column by column.
Known field names and their synonyms are matched first, with false friends such as "threshold", "expiry" and "generation" kept out of the way. Two-row headers, sample blocks, level blocks and headerless files by column position are all recognised. What cannot be matched with confidence is shown for you to confirm.
A confirmed layout is remembered by its header signature, named, and can be renamed or forgotten. Teaching, forgetting and renaming are audited with initials, the way LotWarden learns a supplier's docket.
Analyte, instrument, product and Unity test names, confirmed the first time they appear.
Each reported name is matched to the knowledge base's analytes and aliases, the analyser's own test codes, and LotWarden's register of assays and calibrators, and a suggestion is offered. You confirm with initials. A confirmed mapping is applied at once to stored results, IQC points, statistics, events and lot intervals, and the record ids never change, so nothing already signed is disturbed.
The reported wording is always kept beside the canonical id, and the mapping history says who confirmed what and when.
The report first. The laboratory's table second. A default only when flagged.
- Printed on the reportread from the row, in RCPAQAP's own formssource: report
- The laboratory's APS tableseeded from RCPAQAP's published specifications, each row marked verified or notsource: table
- Manualentered with initials, shown as suchsource: manual
Every assessment says which source it used. An APS taken from the default table is labelled as such on the page.
Read from Unity's exported files. Never connected to Unity.
QC points
One value per row, or a block of columns per level; date and time columns joined; accepted and rejected flags read; censored QC values kept and excluded with the reason.
Statistics and events
Laboratory and peer mean, SD and CV exports. Rule tokens such as 1-3s, R-4s, 2 of 3-2s and 10-x are canonicalised; Unity's numbered actions and free-text comments become calibration, lot change, maintenance or comment events.
Lots on points
Reagent and calibrator lots written on QC points become instrument-level lot intervals, so a laboratory without LotWarden still sees lot changes on the chart. Bio-Rad's level-coded control lots are resolved to lot and level.
Three ways to know which lot was on board.
LotWarden, live
With the link switched on, EQAWarden reads LotWarden's lot-usage feed on this PC, identifying itself with a client header. The page shows the link as linked, starting or not running, and the read is cached for 30 seconds. How the link works.
LotWarden's export file
The same lot-usage payload as a file, carried between PCs. Its SHA-256 is checked on import and a changed or unsigned file is refused.
Manual entry
A product, a lot and its date in use, entered with initials and audited, for a laboratory that keeps its lots elsewhere.
Whatever the source, each lot interval carries its basis (superseded by the next lot, a hard end, or still open) and a confidence of high, medium or low that the engine uses to weight what it concludes.
You see what was read and how it maps before it is stored.
Preview
The preview shows the rows as read and the field each column mapped to. It is held in memory for two hours and never written. Required fields missing stop the commit with a sentence saying what to add.
Store
The commit re-reads the same bytes with your column choices, so what was previewed is what is stored. A re-import compares records without their provenance: unchanged records keep their first batch, and anything replaced is archived, never deleted.
Undo
A whole import batch can be undone in one step, and the undo is audited like the import. Imports, layouts, mappings, APS rows, lots and link switches each write their own audit action with initials.
When the report has no analysis date. The series and lot rules need the date each sample was analysed. Where a report gives none, the Survey page asks for it once, records who set it, and until then uses the closing date with the lot confidence lowered and the basis stated on the assessment.
Bring a real myQAP report to the walkthrough.
We read it in front of you, show the preview and the mappings, and open the first assessment. Nothing is stored unless you say so.