A Matching Template fills in the details a record doesn’t have yet: the producer, carrier, consignee and waste. Each template has rules, such as “company name contains ACME”, that decide which records it applies to. Set one up for each regular customer or waste stream, and records from imports, Gatehouse or Gate fill themselves in.
Open Gate → Matching Templates (the page is titled Import Templates). Admins only.
Matching Templates or Quick-Fill Templates? They’re different. Quick-Fill Templates (WTN templates) are what you pick when creating a WTN, and what Gate Hot Picks are built from. Matching Templates are applied to records waiting in Flagged For Review, by rules. See Quick-Fill Templates for the other kind.
Creating a Template
Click New Template and work through the steps.
1. Basics
A name and description, a Priority (higher numbers are tried first), and an Active switch.
2. Matching rules
Add one or more rules. Each rule has:
| Part | Options |
|---|---|
| Field | Company Name, Haulier Name, Product Name, Product Code |
| Operator | Equals (exact match), Contains, Starts with, Ends with |
| Value | Pick from your lists, or type a custom value |
All rules must match for the template to apply. Matching ignores capitals and extra spaces, and product codes ignore spaces, so “15 01 01” matches “150101”.
Note: A template with no rules is never applied automatically. You can still assign it by hand.
3. Producer, carrier and consignee
For each party, choose:
- Use Own Company: your own business details
- From Pick List: one of your saved customers, filtered by role
- Manual Entry: name, email, address, postcode and licence or permit number (plus SIC code for the producer)
The consignee uses your own company unless you change it. When a party is your own company, you can pre-sign that section with a name and signature.
4. Waste
From Pick List (one of your waste types) or Manual Entry: waste name, EWC code, description, physical form, container, number of containers, recovery or disposal code, and hazardous and POPs details where they apply.
5. Review
Check everything, then Create Template.
Create one from a record
In Flagged For Review, expand any record and click Create Template. It’s set up with that record’s company, haulier and product code as rules, and its waste details, ready for you to adjust.
How Templates Are Applied
Templates are applied to records in Flagged For Review, not while a file is being imported.
Auto-Match
Click Auto-Match in Flagged For Review. Every record without a template is checked against your active templates, highest priority first, and the first template whose rules all match is assigned.
Tip: Give specific templates a higher priority than general ones. A “Contains ACME” template at priority 0 shouldn’t win over an “Equals ACME Recycling Ltd” template meant for one account.
Assign by hand
Select records and use Assign Template to choose one yourself, or Remove Template to take it off.
Submit All Assigned
Submit All Assigned selects every record that has a template and creates their WTNs in one go, using the template’s producer, carrier, consignee and waste details.
What a template changes
When the WTN is created, the template’s details are used for each party and the waste, replacing what was on the record. They don’t just fill gaps. For Manual Entry waste, any field you leave blank in the template keeps the record’s own value. Check a few records from a new template before relying on it.
Readiness badges
The DWT Readiness badge in Flagged For Review is worked out from the record as it stands, before any template is applied. A record with a template assigned says so, and its details are filled in when it’s submitted.
Daily Auto Processing
Flagged For Review Auto Processing, in Workflows → Gate, runs once a day at a time you choose and can apply templates for you. For each record waiting in Flagged For Review, it:
- uses the template already assigned, or finds a matching one
- checks your Auto-submit confidence setting:
- Any match: any template that matches
- Exact rules only: only templates whose rules all use Equals
- creates the WTN only if it would be complete: carrier, vehicle registration, receiver permit, email, address and postcode, EWC code, waste description, and a weight
Anything that doesn’t meet all of these stays in Flagged For Review. Bolt Upload records are always left for a person to check. See Gate Auto Processing for run times and reports.
Managing Templates
Each template shows how often it’s been used and when it was last used, with any priority and what it fills in.
- Active switch: turn a template off without deleting it
- Edit
- Duplicate: a copy to adjust for a similar customer
- Delete: this can’t be undone
Switching templates off for the account
In Gate Settings → Flagged For Review, the Matching Templates switch controls the whole feature. Turn it off and Auto-Match, Assign Template, Remove Template and the template column are hidden, and daily processing only creates WTNs for records that are complete as they are.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why didn’t a record match?
Every rule must match. Check the record’s company, haulier, product name and product code against the rule, and whether the template is Active. If a higher-priority template matched first, that one was assigned instead.
Can a template match on more than one company?
Not with one rule, as there’s no “or”. Use Contains on a word the names share, or duplicate the template for each company.
Does “used N times” count loads?
No. It counts how often the template was assigned by hand or used in a batch of WTNs, not individual records.