Schedule Manager — reusable inspection schedules for your certificates

Schedule Manager

The Schedule Manager is where you look after your library of inspection schedules — the numbered lists of items you inspect and code when completing an EICR. The app ships with the standard BS 7671 schedules, and the Schedule Manager lets you view those, copy them, adapt the copies, and build your own schedules from scratch. When you create a new certificate, you choose which schedule it starts from.

To open it, go to File → Schedule Manager on the Home Screen:

The schedule library

The home screen shows every schedule in your library as a card:

Each card shows:

• A preview of the schedule’s first few sections.
• Built-in or Custom — built-in schedules ship with the app and are read-only; custom schedules are your own and fully editable.
• The amendment badge — which edition of BS 7671 the schedule applies to: A3:2024 (the EICR, EIC and Minor Works 2024 forms), A4:2026 (the 2026 forms), or both.
• Section and item counts, and when the schedule was last edited.

Finding a schedule

Use the filter pills under the header to narrow the library:

• Show — Both, Built-in only, or Custom only.
• Amendment — Any, A3:2024, or A4:2026. A schedule tagged for both amendments appears under either filter; a schedule with no tag appears only under Any.

Open library folder opens the folder where your custom schedules are stored, which is handy for backing them up or copying a schedule file from a colleague straight into your library.

Removing a schedule

Custom cards carry a small bin button next to Duplicate. It removes that schedule from your library, and the Schedule Manager asks you to confirm first — removing a schedule deletes its file and can’t be undone.

Certificates you’ve already completed are not affected: a certificate keeps its own copy of the schedule it was built from, so removing the library schedule doesn’t change any existing work. It only stops the schedule being offered on new certificates.

The built-in schedules have no bin button — they ship with the app and always stay in your library.

The standard schedules

The schedules that ship with the app — the residential Part 7 schedules and the example checklists from BS 7671 — are read-only. You can open one with View to read through it, but you can’t change it, so the standard wording is always there to come back to.

To adapt a standard schedule, use Duplicate to edit — on the card or inside the schedule. That makes an editable copy in your library (including its amendment tag) and opens it straight in the editor. The original stays untouched.

Creating and editing schedules

Create a schedule with New schedule, or open one of your own with Edit. The editor has two tabs over the same schedule — Structure, the row-by-row editor described here, and Text file, the schedule’s own text (see Editing the text file directly, below). The Structure tab shows the schedule on the left and the details of the selected row on the right:

• Add rows with + Section, + Item and + Note. New rows are inserted after the selected row.
• Numbering is automatic. Sections become 1.0, 2.0…; items 1.1, 1.2…; sub-items 1.1.1, 1.1.2… Move rows with Move up / Move down and the numbering keeps itself right.
• Notes are un-numbered guidance lines shown between items — use them for reminders like “Record any access limitations in Section K.”
• The panel on the right edits the selected row: its description, an optional italic sub-note, whether it’s an item or a sub-item, and an optional custom outcome list (for example Y, N/A) when an item shouldn’t use the standard outcome codes.
• Applies to sets the schedule’s amendment tag — tick A3:2024, A4:2026, or both. This controls which new certificates offer the schedule (see below).

Editing the text file directly

A schedule is a plain text file, and the Text file tab shows you that file — the same thing Export… writes and the same thing Save puts in your library folder. It is a proper editor, with line numbers and colouring for each part of the format:

Reading the colours:

• Blue — a section heading (1.0) or an item number (1.1). Sub-item numbers (1.1.1) are purple.
• Amber — BLANK, which starts an un-numbered guidance note, and the note’s wording.
• Red — a custom outcome list such as {Y, N/A}.
• Green italic — a // comment line, including the // applies-to: line carrying the amendment tags.
• Grey italic — an indented continuation line, which becomes the sub-note of the item above it.

The two tabs are two views of one schedule, reconciled whenever you switch between them: type in the text and the structure tab picks it up, edit the structure and the text is rewritten to match. Because the name and the amendment tags live in the text (the first line, and the // applies-to: line), the boxes for them in the toolbar are greyed out while the Text file tab is open — edit them in the text instead.

Two things are worth knowing:

• Numbering is not automatic here. The structure tab renumbers rows for you; the text tab takes the numbers exactly as you type them. The count along the bottom (“8 sections · 78 items”) tells you what the text currently reads as.
• Only the // applies-to: comment is kept. Your own // comments stay put while you move between the tabs, but they aren’t part of a schedule, so they aren’t written to the library when you save. Use Export… from the Text file tab if you want a copy with your comments in it.

A built-in schedule has the Text file tab too, so you can read the standard wording in its original form — it just can’t be edited:

The schedule text format

The whole format is six kinds of line, read from the top of the file down. Here is one of each:

// applies-to: A3:2024, A4:2026
Domestic EICR — house standard
Condition report inspection schedule for houses and flats on a supply of up to 100A.
Numbers in brackets are Regulation references.

1.0 INTAKE EQUIPMENT (VISUAL INSPECTION ONLY)
1.1 Distributor/supplier intake equipment
1.1.1 Service cable
1.1.2 Service head
1.2 {Y, N/A} Consumer's isolator, where one is present
1.3 Consumer's meter tails
  Check both the condition and the routing of the tails.
BLANK {Y, N/A} The person ordering the inspection and testing notified of any dangerous or potentially dangerous situations. (Tick as appropriate.)
// this line is a note to yourself, and is not part of the schedule

The header

• The first line that isn’t blank and isn’t a comment is the schedule’s name. In the example that’s Domestic EICR — house standard.
• Every line after it, up to the first blank line, is the description — the text shown under the name on the schedule’s card.
• // applies-to: A3:2024, A4:2026 carries the amendment tags, and is what the Applies to tick-boxes set. List one code or both, separated by a comma. Leave the line out and the schedule is offered for both.
• Any other line starting with // is a comment: a note to yourself that the app reads past. Comments are not part of a schedule, so they are not saved back to your library — see Editing the text file directly, above.

The body

The number, the wording, and everything else are separated by ordinary spaces; one space or several makes no difference.

Curly braces mean two different things

Braces are read as an outcome list only on a numbered item, where {Y, N/A} must come immediately after the number. There the braces do a job: they replace the standard outcome codes for that item, and they don’t appear in the wording.

On a BLANK note there is nothing to tick, so the braces are just wording and are printed as you typed them. That is exactly how the standard schedules use the line in the example above —

BLANK {Y, N/A} The person ordering the inspection and testing notified of any dangerous or potentially dangerous situations. (Tick as appropriate.)

— the {Y, N/A} is there for the person filling the form in to read, not for the app.

Two things that catch people out

• Every number needs at least two parts. 1.1 is an item, but a bare 1 Something is not a number at all — the app reads it as a continuation of the line above and joins it to that text.
• Don’t leave a blank line before an indented continuation. A blank line closes off the current item, so an indented line after one attaches to the section heading instead of to the item you meant. Keep the continuation on the line directly below its item.

If a line doesn’t look the way you expect, the count along the bottom of the Text file tab — “8 sections · 78 items · 2 notes” — is the quickest check: switch to the Structure tab to see exactly where each line landed.

Press Save to keep your changes. If you leave a schedule — or close the window — with unsaved edits, the Schedule Manager asks what to do with them first:

Using a schedule on a new certificate

When you create a new EICR 2024 or EICR 2026, the New Certificate dialog has a Schedule drop-down. It offers the schedules that match that certificate’s amendment:

• An EICR 2024 offers the A3:2024 standard schedules plus your custom schedules tagged A3:2024.
• An EICR 2026 offers the A4:2026 set plus your custom schedules tagged A4:2026.
• Custom schedules with no amendment tag are offered for both, so nothing you made before tags existed goes missing.

The drop-down defaults to the standard residential schedule for that form, so if you don’t change anything the certificate starts exactly as it always has.

Sharing schedules

Schedules are single text files, one per schedule, so they’re easy to pass around:

• Export… (in the editor) saves a schedule as a .pirform.schedule.txt file you can email to a colleague.
• Import… (on the home screen) brings a schedule file into your library as a new custom schedule. The amendment tag travels with the file.

The file you are passing around is the one the Text file tab shows, and its layout is set out in The schedule text format, above — so a schedule can just as easily be written in any text editor, or generated from a spreadsheet, and imported.

You can also drop a schedule file directly into your library folder (Open library folder) and it appears in the Schedule Manager the next time it opens.