PLANREFERENCE OUTLINE

User Requirements Specification (URS)

URS capturing testable functional, operational, data integrity, and regulatory requirements with unique IDs and traceability — the anchor for design, risk assessment, and qualification. Maps to ASTM E2500 and GAMP 5.

What a template is not

A template is a document baseline to adapt inside your own quality system. SPEQ does not approve, validate, or take responsibility for what you issue from it, and using one is not evidence of compliance.

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REGULATIONS MAPPED
ASTM E2500ISPE GAMP 5
DOCUMENT TYPE
Plan
LAST UPDATED
January 2025
PURPOSE

A specification stating, testably, what a system or piece of equipment must do — the document every later verification activity traces back to. A URS written as a wish list produces qualification that proves nothing in particular; a URS written as discrete, uniquely identified, verifiable statements produces a traceable line from requirement to test to release, which is what a risk-based verification approach depends on.

What's Inside

System overview and intended use, including the GxP process the system supports
Functional requirements stated as single testable propositions rather than narrative description
Operational and performance requirements — throughput, capacity, availability, and environmental conditions
GxP, data integrity, and electronic-record requirements, separated from business preferences
Regulatory and safety requirements, including anything imposed by the market the product is sold into
Constraints and interfaces to upstream and downstream systems, with the data exchanged named
Unique requirement identifiers and the traceability approach, plus baselining and change control

How to Use It

1Write each requirement as one proposition a test can pass or fail; a requirement containing the word 'and' usually contains two
2Separate GxP-critical requirements from business preferences explicitly, because the two attract different verification effort
3State data-integrity and electronic-record needs as requirements rather than assuming the supplier will provide them
4Give every requirement a unique identifier at the outset — retrofitting identifiers after design is where traceability breaks
5Name the interfaces and the data crossing them, since interface failures rarely appear in single-system testing
6Baseline the URS under change control before design, and route later additions through change rather than through the margin
DOCUMENT CONTENTS

The full section structure of this template — every section and sub-section, so you can use it as a baseline for your own site document.

Document Control
Document InformationApproval SignaturesRevision HistoryDistribution List
1Purpose, Scope, and System Overview
2Functional Requirements
3Operational and Performance Requirements
4GxP, Data Integrity, and Part 11 Requirements
5Regulatory and Safety Requirements
6Constraints and Interfaces
7Requirement IDs and Traceability
8Approval and Change Control
REGULATORY CONTEXT

ASTM E2500-25 makes the requirements definition the basis on which verification is planned and risk is assessed, and ISPE GAMP 5 (2nd ed.) expects requirements to be traceable through specification and testing to release. EU GMP Annex 11 requires that computerised systems are validated against a specification of intended use. No standard writes your requirements or decides which are GxP-critical; that determination is the organisation's, and this template exists to record it in a form that later verification can trace to.

MAPPED STANDARDS
ASTM E2500ISPE GAMP 5
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