ITP template
An ITP is the document a QA plan is built around: for a given scope of work, every inspection and test it owes, in order, with the hold and witness points marked. Most ITPs live as a spreadsheet or a Word table, filled in by hand as the job goes and quietly diverging from what the spec actually required. The template is not the hard part — turning it into something that gets followed is.
What an ITP has to contain
Every inspection and test the scope of work owes, in the order they happen — receiving through installation, start-up, functional and integrated testing.
The acceptance criteria for each line, not just the activity. "Pressure test" is incomplete; "pressure test, held at X psi for Y minutes, no drop" is an ITP line.
Which lines are hold points (work stops until proven) versus witness points (a party must be present) versus surveillance points (spot-checked, not gated) — the three levels most ITP formats distinguish, and conflating them is a common source of dispute.
Who is responsible for each line — contractor, commissioning agent, owner's rep, third-party inspector — and the reference to the specification section it satisfies, so the ITP can be traced back to the contract.
What to look for in software that runs an ITP
- 1Does the ITP stay a document, or does it become the checklist?A tool that stores the ITP as an attachment but runs a separate checklist has two sources of truth that will drift. Look for one where the ITP's lines are the actual gated steps.
- 2Are hold, witness and surveillance points distinguished?If the tool treats every line the same way, it cannot enforce the difference between "stop and prove it" and "someone should glance at this."
- 3Can the ITP be written once and reused across units?A hand-typed ITP per machine does not scale past a handful of assets. Look for a template tied to the equipment type.
- 4Does closing a line require the acceptance criteria to actually be met?Ask whether a reading outside the stated range can still close the line. If it can, the acceptance criteria are decoration.
- 5Can the ITP be exported as a signed document if a spec demands it?Some specifications still want a bound, signed ITP. If the tool cannot produce that from the live record, you are keeping two systems.
How Veristep does it
Written once and reused, each line names its evidence type — the acceptance criteria live on the step, not in a separate document nobody re-reads.
A required step will not close without its exact evidence, for the technician, the office, an import or an administrator alike.
Where the template calls for a witness, the person who did the work cannot be the one who signs off — set once, enforced every time.
Add a machine of an equipment type and its ITP-derived steps are already there — required, not yet satisfied — from day one.
There is no separate spreadsheet to keep in sync; the template is the plan, and the case is the evidence that it was followed.
Honest limits: there is no dedicated ITP document generator that produces a signed, spec-formatted PDF on its own — the ITP is expressed as hold-point templates, which is stricter in practice (it actually gates the work) but is not the same artefact a specification reviewer expects to receive. If a spec demands the ITP as a signed document, you produce it from the templates and the export. There is also no statistical sampling-plan engine for surveillance-level inspections. A starting checklist is on the templates page.
Questions people ask
Does Veristep replace our ITP?
It replaces the enforcement, not necessarily the document. Your ITP becomes hold-point templates per discipline; the template is the plan, the case is the evidence it was followed.
Can we upload our existing ITP as a starting point?
You bring your ITP's content and write it as templates once — Veristep does not currently parse an uploaded ITP document automatically into templates.
Does it distinguish hold points from witness points?
Both are expressed as required steps with typed evidence; a witness requirement is enforced through independent acceptance rather than a separate field labelled "witness point."
Is there a downloadable ITP template?
A free document register template is available today; a dedicated ITP-style checklist template is on the list — check the templates page for what is currently live.