QC insertion protocols — setting the rules

QC itself is about judging numbers after the lab reports them. A protocol is the other half: the rules for what goes into the sample stream in the first place, and how often.

What a protocol holds

• Intervals — insert a standard every N samples, a blank every N, a field duplicate every N. Each type can be enabled or left off.
• Insertion mode — Independent (each type counts on its own), Staggered (each type starts at an offset, so they don't all land on the same sample), or Round robin (one interval, rotating through the types).
• Counter scope — whether counters reset per drill hole / per sample programme, or run continuously across the project.
• A default standard — the CRM to reach for when a standard is due.

A project can hold several

Real programmes aren't uniform: an RC campaign and a soils grid want different QC rates. So a project holds many protocols, listed across the top of the protocol page. Click one to edit it; the settings below always belong to the protocol you have selected.

Exactly one protocol is the project default — the one used wherever a drill cutsheet or sample programme doesn't name a different one explicitly. Promoting another protocol to default demotes the current one automatically, so you can never end up with two, or none.

Programme type (Drilling / Soils) is a label. It titles the protocol and seeds sensible starting intervals when you create one, and it picks honest wording for the counter-scope options — a soils grid has no drill holes. It never decides which protocol applies. That decision is always either "the plan named this one" or "fall back to the default".

Where the rules are used

The intervals drive the QC reminders on drill cutsheets and sample programmes, and the field app reads the project default. A cutsheet remembers the protocol it was planned with, so re-opening an old one shows the rules it was actually built under rather than whatever the default happens to be today.