Receiving and Confirming Samples

Sample Receipt

Often jobs are registered ahead of the samples arriving in the laboratory. Sample receipt allows the job and its samples to be marked as received by the laboratory.

Defaults for Job and Sample Received Date

A job's or sample's Received Date depends upon how the job or sample was created, as follows:

  • When a Registering Ad-hoc Production Jobs, Registering Jobs using Proposals or Registering Internal Jobs, then the job's Received Date is set to the current system date-time.
  • When Registering Jobs from Template Jobs or Registering Jobs from other Registered Jobs, then the destination job's Received Date is set to the current system date-time. For each sample created in the destination job, the sample's Received Date is set to the destination job's Received Date, such that, if the destination job's Received Date is empty, then the sample's Received Date is empty also.
  • When a Adding a Group of Samples to a Job, the group sample's Received Date defaults to the job's Received Date. If the job's Received Date is empty, then the group sample's Received Date is empty also. If the group sample's Received Date is cleared or updated during sample entry, then it is not overridden with the job's Received Date. All samples expanded from the sample group are given the same Received Date.
  • When Adding Samples to a Job using a Template Sample, where the template sample's Is Auto Received is selected, then the sample's Received Date is set to the job's Received Date, such that, if the job's Received Date is empty, then the sample's Received Date is empty also, or where the template sample's Is Auto Received check box is cleared, then the sample's Received Date is left empty.
  • When Copying a Sample in a Job, the destination sample's Received Date is set to the source sample's Received Date. If the source sample's Received Date is empty, then the destination sample's Received Date is empty also.
  • When a Maintaining Composite Samples to create a composite sample, then the composite sample's Received Date is set to the first component sample's Received Date, such that, if the first component sample's Received Date is empty, then the composite sample's Received Date is empty also.

Manual Sample Receipt

Sample receipt sets a time stamp on the job, and can be used to track the job delivery requirements, and expiry periods for samples within the job. This is only required to be performed if the job did not have a received date assigned to it when it was created.

Sample Gridding

During sample receipt, it may become apparent that samples are missing, or are too small to perform all required analysis.

Sample gridding is the process of marking one or more sample scheme analytes within a job with a workflow status of Listed Not Received (LNR), Insufficient Sample (IS), Not Analysed (NA) or No Result (NR) workflow status, or resetting the workflow status back to Not Started from one of these workflow statuses, by using sample gridding.

Once a job is registered, samples and tests can be registered on it.

A sample grid shows the intersections between samples and tests for a job scheme, indicating where sample schemes and sample scheme analytes are registered for samples, and where a sample scheme or sample scheme analyte is marked as listed not received, insufficient sample, not analysed or no result, or is ready to be completed.

Use of Sample Grids

A sample grid allows you to set which samples are not received by the laboratory, which schemes or analytes of a sample have insufficient sample for analysis, or cannot be analysed for one reason or other.

Different colours are used to indicate existence and workflow status. Initially only the job schemes are displayed, but these are expanded/collapsed to display/hide the job scheme analytes. Sub-analytes are displayed like ordinary analytes.

Sample Grid Functions

Right-click menu options are available to set various workflow statuses on schemes and analytes of a sample: Set to LNR, Set to IS, Set to NA, Set to NR, and Reset.

Only sample scheme analytes where the sample has a Workflow Status of Not Started can be set to Listed Not Received.

When sample scheme analytes are set to insufficient sample, not analysed or no result, any existing result is retained so that if the sample scheme analyte is reset to be analysed, the result can be seen.

Once workflow statuses are changed at the sample scheme analyte level, the workflow statuses are a) cascaded up the production job tree when the grid is opened in context of a production, proposal, internal or template job, or b) cascaded up the laboratory batch job tree and then up the production job tree when the grid is opened in context of a laboratory batch job.

Restrictions on sample grid functions:

  • If a job's Workflow Status is Cancelled or Finalised, then a sample scheme analyte cannot have its Workflow Status updated via Set to LNR, Set to IS, Set to NA, Set to NR or Reset actions.

The sample grid supports the following right-click menu options:

Name

Action

Set to LNR

Set each selected sample scheme analyte's Workflow Status to Listed Not Received which triggers the cascade engine to set sibling sample scheme analytes, sample schemes, sample, related sample sample scheme analytes, related sample sample schemes, and related samples having a Workflow Status of Listed Not Received, and to reassess related sample scheme, sample, job, job scheme analyte and job scheme's Workflow Status.

Note:Set to LNR can only be applied when the sample scheme analyte has no result.

Set to IS

Set each selected sample scheme analyte's Workflow Status to Insufficient Sample which triggers the cascade engine to reassess related sample scheme, sample, job, job scheme analyte and job scheme's Workflow Status.

Set to NA

Set each selected sample scheme analyte's Workflow Status to Not Analysed which triggers the cascade engine to reassess related sample scheme, sample, job, job scheme analyte and job scheme's Workflow Status.

Set to NR

Set each selected sample scheme analyte's Workflow Status to No Result which triggers the cascade engine to reassess related sample scheme, sample, job, job scheme analyte and job scheme's Workflow Status.

Reset

Set each selected sample scheme analyte's Workflow Status to Not Started which triggers the cascade engine to reassess related sample scheme, sample, job, job scheme analyte and job scheme's Workflow Status.

Expand All Schemes

Expand the sample grid to show sample scheme analytes.

Collapse All Schemes

Collapse the sample grid to show sample schemes.

Toggle Mode

Toggle between inverted and normal mode.

Display Mode

The sample grid is maintained using the CCSGRD—Sample Gridding application in which the sample grid is presented in normal mode that displays the scheme-analytes across and samples down the page, or CCSGRDINVM—Inverted Gridding application in which the sample grid is presented in inverted mode that displays a separate scheme-analyte grid for each sample, with schemes and analytes displayed vertically down the page.

The CCSGRD—Sample Gridding application is accessed by opening the sample grid for a job when Maintaining Jobs or opening the sample grid for a job scheme when Maintaining Job Tests, or from the Registration » Job Registration menu option or quick launch, or by toggling the display mode in the CCSGRDINV—Inverted Gridding application.

The CCSGRDINV—Inverted Gridding application is accessed from the Registration » Job Registration menu option or quick launch, or by toggling the display mode in the the CCSGRD—Sample Gridding application.

Where a job scheme contains more samples than schemes and analytes, the normal mode of sample grid is better suited to see the intersections between samples and tests.

Where a job scheme contains more schemes and analytes than samples, the inverted mode of sample grid is better suited to see the intersections between samples and tests.

Impact

Reception of Production Jobs and Samples into the Laboratory

At laboratory level, jobs and samples can be marked as received into the laboratory by users with Office Manager and Lab Manager privileges. Lab Supervisors and Operators have limited access to jobs, primarily to enter results testing conducted on the samples in a job.

Jobs and samples are marked as received using the CCREGN—Job application.

Samples are gridded on and off for analysis by marking them as listed not received, insufficient sample, not analysed or no result, or reset to be analysed using the CCSGRD—Sample Grid application.

Preferences that set the sample grid headers are:

The CCPREF—Preferences application is used to set preferences. This application is accessed using the System Setup » Laboratories and Application Setup » Application Preferences menu option.