Technical Standards Help

Navigating the DOE Technical Standards Portal

• Using the Technical Standards Portal
• Technical Standards Policy and Procedures Tutorials

   Tools

The links at the top of the page will take you to the major elements of the site. The toolbar at the right includes links to related resources. In order from the top are links to:

• RevCom, the online review, comment, and approval system for draft Technical Standards. You can sign in here to review documents.
• TSP Resources, which contains Resources and Responsibilities for Technical Standards Managers.
• Technical Standards Tools, useful material for the preparing activities (PAs), TSMs and subject matter experts (SMEs), including how technical standards are processed and collection of templates for document development.
• References that link users to Directives and NNSA supplemental documents, DOE forms,  and other useful information.
• Technical standard procedures  procedures to write, revise, or maintain a DOE technical standard. They are also used to convert a DOE technical standard to a non-government standard or to form a topical committee..
• Reports that are used in the Technical Standards Program.
• Help where you can find information about searching portal content and review FAQ
  
  

Browse by Technical Standards Status (Current, Archives, Draft)

In the Technical Standards section select a collection where you wish to search.

  Search

The search box is in the upper right corner anywhere on the site. Use quotation marks and the AND and OR operators to make your search more restrictive.  Use advanced search when you have specific criteria.

  Advanced Search

Click on Advanced Search when you have specifics for your inquiry:

You can narrow or expand your search based on the criteria you select from the options available. You can choose more than one in the selections.

• Select Document Status collection (current, archive, or draft).
• Select Organization you which to search
• Select Document Type
• Enter text of interest (use AND/OR to combine multiple words)
• Enter Document title
• Enter all or part of a document number
• Enter dates to limit your search to a specific time period
• Select an office of primary interest (OPI) to find all documents produced by that organization

  Faceted Search

 Faceted search/navigation/browsing (at left of document listing) allows you to set limits on the list that is being displayed. You will be "filtering" the list.

• Chose one or more of the Document Types (Standard, Handbook, Functional Area Qualification Standard, etc.,)
• You can select a standard number series. When you choose a series, the list includes only that number series
• Narrow your list by Issue Date within a specific time period
• You can narrow your search by choosing one or more Subjects
• Or you can limit the list to documents produced by a particular office (OPI)

  Email Notification

You can subscribe/unsubscribe to email notification about new technical standards, draft technical standards, project justification statements posted to the portal. Follow the steps below to set up your automatic email subscriptions

• On the Home Page, select Email Alerts (in the News & Updates list at lower left)
• Enter your name
• Enter your email address
• Chose one or all of the three options under Subscribe if you would prefer not to receive notifications any longer select the option that you would like to  Unsubscribe from and submit the form.

  Help

If you cannot find what you're looking for, please contact us. We are always open to suggestions on making the portal better and easier to use. If you have ideas, please let us know.

  Frequently Asked Questions

What are the types of Technical Standards?

DOE Standards - Provide a specific approach, methodology, technical criteria or other information on accomplishing a task, developing a plan, and/or performing a calculation or assessment to implement a DOE requirement; provide a common shared approach or methodology for implementing a DOE requirement such  that it's implementation is consistent across DOE programs and operations; and can be mandatory via DOE regulatory or contractual requirement.

DOE Handbooks - Provide a compilation of good practices, lessons-learned, or reference information that serve as resources on specific topics; and provide general, textbook-type information on a variety of subjects.

DOE Specifications - Support repetitive acquisitions or products or items; and describe essential technical requirements for purchasing material. 

Why do we need Technical Standards?

DOE Technical Standards are initiated and developed as a means to implementing DOE requirements when a disciplined technical methodology or criteria are needed and appropriate Voluntary Consensus Standard does not exist.

When a Technical Standards in "effect"

DOE Technical Standards are approved by the Preparing Activates senior line management, or in the case of DOE Functional Area Qualification Standards, approved by the DOE Federal Technical Capabilities Program Chair.

How are Technical Standards maintained?

There are several types of maintenance activities that may need to be performed for DOE Technical Standards: new development, revisions to an existing standard, change notices, reaffirmations, and cancellations.

What are the phases for a Technical Standard in RevCom?

Phase 1 - Project Justification (15 business days) 

The author submits the Project Justification Statement for reviewers to consider whether the project should go forward. The review consists of answering a question to indicate one's concurrence with proceeding.

Phase 2 - Review and Comment (90 days total)

The author submits a first draft for review (60 days). TSMs assign SMEs to review the draft and submit comments. The TSM will then compile the comments that represent the organization's position to the author for consideration.

In the second part of Phase 2, the author responds to comments submitted through Headquarters organizations (30 days).

Phase 3 - Response Negotiation (30 days)

There is no comment submission for this phase. The author submits a redline showing changes in response to comments. The comment response report is posted in the References. During this 30-day period the reviewers have an opportunity to review the response to comments and discuss the authors resolution, via email or telephone, of their comments with the author. Users who login see the following:

THIS IS NOT AN OPPORTUNITY TO COMMENT ON THE DRAFT

No RevCom action is necessary at this time.

This is an opportunity for reviewers to see the author's responses to their comments and if warranted, negotiate changes to the response via telephone and email communication, Please contact the PA (PA's name, phone number, and email address are listed).

For an effective Comment/Response Negotiation process, TSMs should assign this activity to SMEs who have commented on the draft.

The Comment Response Report is available in References and the redline is posted as the Entire Document (link above the title when you open the file).

Note: that TSMs are asked to assign SMEs who commented on the draft to review the comment responses. The expectation is that reviewers who wish to discuss the responses will either call or send email to the author to negotiate changes to the responses.

Phase 4 - Concurrence (10 business days)

The author posts a markup showing the changes to the draft in response to reviewer comments and negotiated changes to the author's response. TSMs and SMEs who reviewed the original draft concur or nonconcur with the revised draft.

Note that this is not an opportunity to comment unless the reviewer does not concur with the revised draft and justifies nonconcurrence in the Notes box.

The Entire Document will be the updated redlined version of the draft. References will include a clean copy of the proposed final for publication.

Final Notes:
Participation in all phases of the process helps to ensure that the author receives valuable input from reviewers who will be implementing the proposed standards. The Technical Standards program works best when our authors, TSMs and SMEs participate fully in the RevCom process.

 I've been asked to review a document in RevCom. What is my next step?