Troubleshoot ISO 17025 dossiers

Use this guide when you cannot prepare, submit, approve, generate, or download an ISO 17025 dossier.

A submitted dossier is a frozen snapshot. If scope or source evidence changes, create a new revision instead of editing an approved one.

Prepare dossier is unavailable

Likely causes:

• Audit profile is not saved in the selected organisation.
• You do not have dossier creation permission.
• You are in the wrong organisation.

Safe fix:

1. Open Readiness in the selected organisation.
2. Save the Audit profile with the required title and scope.
3. Return to Dossiers.
4. Ask an owner or quality manager to confirm your permissions if it is still missing.

Draft will not save

Only the member who created a draft can edit that draft revision. If ownership or scope needs to change, create a new draft revision.

Expected sites are missing from scope

Likely causes:

• A client filter hides the site.
• Internal-site view is not enabled.
• The site belongs to a different organisation.
• The site is inactive.

1. Set the correct client filter or enable internal sites.
2. Confirm client-backed sites have client name/reference values.
3. Confirm the site is active and belongs to the selected organisation.
4. Fix site/client details through normal workflows if needed.
5. Return to the draft and re-select the correct site.

Readiness has warnings or missing evidence

Likely causes:

• Missing evidence links.
• Evidence is still draft or not approved.
• Evidence is expired.
• Not applicable rationale is missing.
• Personnel authorisation is inactive.

1. Open Review ISO 17025 audit readiness.
2. Read every reason shown.
3. Fix only after the scope decision is approved by the right role.
4. Upload and independently approve required controlled PDF revisions.
5. Refresh readiness before preparing or submitting.

Warnings do not mean automatic non-conformity. Do not mark topics as not applicable just to remove warnings.

The dossier cannot be submitted

Likely causes:

• Status is not draft.
• The draft is owned by another member.
• The revision changed.
• A selected site is no longer active/owned.
• Required source records are missing.

1. Refresh and verify status/revision.
2. Have the original preparer submit their own draft.
3. Confirm selected sites, client context (if used), and date period.
4. Fix source evidence through normal workflows.
5. Save and submit again.

If it was already submitted, prepare a new revision.

Approve is unavailable

Likely causes:

• Wrong status.
• Trying to approve your own draft.
• Missing reviewer permission.
• Record version changed.

1. Refresh dossier list.
2. Confirm status is Ready for review.
3. Ask a different authorised reviewer to approve.
4. Reviewer must add a review statement before selecting Approve.

The preparer cannot approve their own dossier.

Generate package is unavailable or queueing fails

Likely causes:

• Status is not approved.
• Missing generate permission.
• Stale revision.
• There is already a generation in progress.

1. Refresh and confirm status.
2. Complete approval first if status is ready_for_review.
3. Click Generate package once from approved.
4. If already generating, wait and refresh.

generating alone is not a failure.

The dossier stays in Generating

1. Refresh periodically.
2. Wait for available or failed.
3. Do not submit duplicate generation requests.
4. Escalate if it stays generating beyond expected time.

Healthy generation can resume if a worker is interrupted.

Generation failed

Use the displayed failure code:

For generation_failed, check linked controlled revisions and certificates are current, in scope, and match the required period and movement history.

After correction, make a new revision. A failed revision is terminal and is not edited.

Download ZIP is unavailable

Likely causes:

• Status is not available.
• File has expired.
• Missing download permission.
• Wrong organisation context.

1. Confirm status and expiry.
2. If failed or expired, create a new revision.
3. Confirm your organisation owns the dossier.
4. Ask an owner or quality manager to verify download permission.

Download starts but fails

Likely causes:

• Session expired.
• File expired during download.
• Package integrity check failed.
• Temporary platform issue.

1. Re-sign in and return to the same organisation.
2. Refresh and confirm status is still available.
3. Retry once.

Do not alter source evidence just to hide download issues.

The dossier is Expired

Generated dossier ZIP is available for 90 days.

After expiry, the derived ZIP is removed from active download, but these stay:

• dossier metadata
• frozen scope
• source record references
• controlled revision details
• checksums
• audit events

1. Do not edit or re-generate this revision.
2. Prepare a new revision with corrected scope and evidence.
3. Submit, get independent approval, generate, download before expiry.

expired and failed are terminal states for that revision.

Escalate safely

Escalate when:

• generation never leaves generating;
• failure code repeats (snapshot, archive, storage);
• downloaded package repeatedly fails.

Preparation errors remain visible in the dialog as:

• Reference with record ID
• Error message

Include:

• organisation name
• dossier title and revision
• status and reference
• failure code and warning text
• site scope and client context
• audit period
• time and action taken

Do not share passwords, private storage keys, or certificate files in support requests.

Related guides

• ISO 17025 dossiers
• Create and submit a dossier
• Generate and download a dossier
• ISO 17025 dossier reference
• Review ISO 17025 audit readiness