A workshop on Alignment and Calibration (AlCa), organized by the PPD and DPG Coordinations, was held at CERN from the 17th to the 19th of March (https://indico.cern.ch/event/306000/). The main focus was the assessment of the needs and the plans for the calibrations at the start of RunII, both for the detector and physics object levels.

The discussion spanned several topics, from the strategies for the alignment of the tracker, muon and calorimeter detectors to the review of the calibration workflows to be deployed before and during the data taking. Particular attention was dedicated to the plans for the conditions needed online by the L1 and HLT triggers, discussing the pace of the updates and the possible strategies for the validation prior to the deployment.

The needs in terms of datasets (AlCaReco and skims) and dedicated trigger selections were collected. Several action items, related to making sure that in the upcoming productions the samples required for studies and development will be available with the required event content (including RECO in most cases), have been identified.
A session of the workshop was dedicated to familiarizing the calibration teams with the ongoing development on the Database applications.
A common theme throughout the workshop has been the push for automation of the calibration procedures, including the ongoing development for the Prompt Calibration Loop.

This workshop has served as a valuable check point on the roadmap for RunII preparations: the feedback from the detector and POG groups has been very useful in diagnosing potential weaknesses as well as workflows that may be affected by the foreseen LHC running conditions and will require new strategies. Several important milestones have been identified for the coming months, among them the possibility of exercising some of the calibrations in the Cosmics Global Runs and during the CSA14 exercise in summer. A detailed summary talk will be given in one of upcoming PPD meeting. Please stay tuned!

Gianluca Cerminara and Silvia Goy Lopez