# Template Best Practices

Source: https://userguide.qualytics.io/data-quality-checks/templates/deep-dive/best-practices/

These practices keep templates easy to find, and keep the checks they create trustworthy as the templates change.

## Decide on the Lock Before You Apply the Template

**Locked** and **Unlocked** lead to very different maintenance:

- Lock a template when the rule must be identical everywhere, such as a regulatory or contractual rule. One edit then updates every linked check.
- Leave it unlocked when the template is only a starting point, and each team is expected to tune its own check.

Changing your mind later is possible, but costly in one direction: the save that locks a template with checks copies its definition to every linked check, overwriting whatever each check had changed. See [Locked and Unlocked Templates](https://userguide.qualytics.io/data-quality-checks/templates/deep-dive/how-it-works/#locked-and-unlocked-templates).

## Write the Description for the Checks

On a locked template, the description is copied to every linked check, and it is what people read on each check and its anomalies. Write it about the rule and its business reason, not about the template itself. Leave table and field names out, since they change from one check to the next.

## Use Tags to Group Templates and Their Checks

Tags always reach the linked checks, locked or unlocked. A tag such as `customer-data` or `regulatory` on a template lets you filter every check built from it, and tag weights raise or lower the [Importance](https://userguide.qualytics.io/data-quality-checks/checks/deep-dive/importance/) of all those checks at once.

## Prefer `each()` Over Copies of the Same Template

When a rule differs only by one value, such as a country or a region, one template with `each()` in its filter is easier to maintain than one template per value. New values become new checks with a single edit. See [Filter Permutations](https://userguide.qualytics.io/data-quality-checks/templates/deep-dive/filter-permutations/).

## Review Checks Created in Bulk Before They Run

**Multiple Checks** creates every check as **Draft**. Open the template's **Checks** tab, review the drafts on their tables, and activate them once they are right, so a mistake in one target does not produce anomalies across many datastores.

## Validate Edits Against the Linked Checks

An edit to a locked template is applied to all its checks or to none. Before a large change, check the template's **Checks** tab for checks whose table or field may not accept it, such as a filter that names a column missing from one table. If the edit is refused, the message lists the checks that blocked it.

## Keep the Library Clean

Archive templates nobody applies anymore. On an unlocked template, archiving unlinks its checks, which keep running as they are. A locked template with checks cannot be archived, so decide first whether those checks should keep the rule. See [Archive a Template](https://userguide.qualytics.io/data-quality-checks/templates/how-tos/archive-a-template/).

## See Also

- **Template Permissions**

  Who can create, edit, apply, archive, and export templates.

  [Template Permissions](https://userguide.qualytics.io/data-quality-checks/templates/deep-dive/permissions/)
- **How Templates Work**

  What a template defines, how checks are created from it, and what Locked and Unlocked change.

  [How Templates Work](https://userguide.qualytics.io/data-quality-checks/templates/deep-dive/how-it-works/)
- **Filter Permutations**

  How `each()` in a template's filter creates one check per value, and how adding or removing values changes them.

  [Filter Permutations](https://userguide.qualytics.io/data-quality-checks/templates/deep-dive/filter-permutations/)
- **Template Overview**

  Every part of a template's Overview: Summary, Description, Definition, and Timeline, plus the page's tabs and actions.

  [Template Overview](https://userguide.qualytics.io/data-quality-checks/templates/deep-dive/template-view/overview/)
- **Template Checks**

  Every check created from the template, across datastores, and how to review the drafts it creates.

  [Template Checks](https://userguide.qualytics.io/data-quality-checks/templates/deep-dive/template-view/checks/)
- **Template Anomalies**

  The anomalies found by every check created from the template, and how to triage them from the template's page.

  [Template Anomalies](https://userguide.qualytics.io/data-quality-checks/templates/deep-dive/template-view/anomalies/)
- **Template Examples**

  Scenarios that show when a template pays off, and whether to lock it.

  [Template Examples](https://userguide.qualytics.io/data-quality-checks/templates/deep-dive/examples/)

*Last updated: November 10, 2026.*