Figure 5

Typical steps for vial search and request.

1. A scientist logs on the system from a participating lab, then searches for vials or specimens of interest, as shown in A.

2. To further narrow down the possible vials of interest, the scientist builds a custom view of the subset of vials she has identified through search. This custom view integrates information from diverse sources using shared identifiers. In the example shown in B, shared participant and visit identifiers are used to join in data from a related dataset. In this case, the gender of the participant who provided the sample (as defined in a separate, demographic dataset) is drawn into the vial data view.

3. The scientist then creates a new specimen request and uses the "specimen shopping cart" to add desired vials to this request, as shown in C.

4. When finished, the scientist submits the finished request, as shown in D.

5. Designated reviewers are notified of the requests and approve them.

6. Specimen repository workers are notified of the approved requests, fill the requests and update the web-based interface. Vial(s) that have been used are no longer requestable.

7. After receiving a specimen vial, the scientist performs an assay on the specimen. Results from this assay may be marked with the vial identifier or participant/visit identifiers so that they can be associated with specimen information on the LabKey Server. The process for associating assay results with specimens is shown later in Figure 7.