For a better understanding of the organizational process of the synthetic proficiency testing rounds of the IFA-Tulln, the essential steps from the registration to the final report are explained in the following section.
Participation in the PT scheme is treated anonymously and confidentially. The names of the participants
will not be listed in the reports. Moreover, names and mailing addresses will not be passed on unless
the participants explicitly agree to do so. The only exception to this is the transfer of information to third parties based on legal regulations and official instructions.
All results are treated strictly confidential. A letter code is randomly assigned to each participant in the final report. Each laboratory receives only its own letter code.
After registration and subsequent activation by the IFA, you can sign up for all offered proficiency testing rounds through the new web application “ifatesten“.
For organisational reasons, we ask you to order until two weeks before the respective shipping date.
After processing by the IFA-Tulln, you will receive an order confirmation, which will include the shipping dates, the expected delivery time, and the costs.
The proficiency testing items are mailed to the participants with the parcel services DPD or EMS.
A delivery time of two to five working days must be expected for shipping within Europe.
Deliveries to non-EU countries may be delayed due to customs clearance.
Any delivery delays that may occur cannot be ruled out.
The shipping dates can be found in the programme overview or at “ifatesten“.
For stabilization, the samples are sent cooled. Transport is carried out in disposable cooling boxes made of styrofoam.
Depending on the parameter group, we ship bottles made of plastic or aluminium. The proficiency testing items of the parametergroup "metals" are stabilised with 0.5 % HNO3 (v/v).
The selection of the analytical method and the number of replicate measurements are completely up
to the participants. If analytical standard methods are suggested in the announcement, it is possible
to replace them by equal or better methods. For all other parameters, use the methods applied in routine analysis.
There are no limitations regarding the number of analyzed
parameters. The decision, how many parameters will be analyzed, is made by the participants.
Although we check the stability of the proficiency testing items by measurements within each round, we recommend
analyzing the samples as soon as possible upon receipt. This recommendation particularly applies to
less stable parameters like e.g. ammonium, phosphate, nitrite, DOC, mercury and silver.
In any case the proficiency testing items are to be kept unopened, cooled and stored in the dark until analysis.
The closing date of each round is within four to five weeks after sample dispatch and is mentioned in the schedule and in the instructional letter attached
to the proficiency testing items. On the respective websites you can also find the detailed description of the rounds in question.
The results are transmitted via the web application “ifatesten“.
If you encounter any issues or have questions while using the new web application, please contact us. We look forward to your feedback.
Each participant can submit one result per parameter and proficiency test item for evaluation. The measurement values should be transmitted with the associated measurement uncertainty in the specified unit.
For proficiency testing rounds conducted in cooperation with our partner UBA, results will continue to be transmitted as usual through the software provided by Quodata.
The assigned values and reports will be published here shortly
after the transmission deadline for the results. For this reason, we can no longer accept results that arrive late. Each participant will receive a confirmation of participation for each proficiency testing item, displaying the z-scores in both tabular and graphical form, as well as the recoveries.