Category: About LabKey

For many labs, choosing a new sample management system can feel like a daunting task. Whether it’s your first time using software to manage your samples, or you are looking for a new sample management system to replace an existing application, there are a few considerations to keep in mind.

Sample Management System Features

When evaluating a system to manage your samples, it is important not to think about whether “it’s the right system”, but rather if it is “the right system for our laboratory’s needs right now and in the future”. 

Think about the features the system offers and how it matches up with your lab processes and workflow. Are the structured that you would have to change your existing lab processes? Do you feel that you require a system with more flexibility so that it can be configured to your existing sample management processes? Beyond your current lab operations it is also important to consider the future of your lab – do you plan to introduce new assays, processes, or sample tracking procedures, and will the system be able to handle those? Do you need freezer management features to help manage sample storage?

Aside from features, you should also think about how much effort it will take for your team to implement and configure the new system. 

Sample Management System Pricing

The price of the sample management system is also an important consideration. Make sure you are aware of the factors that determine system pricing. This may include pricing tiers based on the database size, number of users, number of samples, availability of certain features, or other price-determining factors. Make sure you are comfortable with any potential increase in cost as your lab grows and your needs change. This can help prevent an unexpected and significant increase in cost at a certain capacity. Making an effort to estimate usage, including users and amounts of data, prior to choosing a system will help you be a more informed buyer and help plan for the future. 

Adopting a Sample Management System in the Lab

Once you feel comfortable with the feature set and cost offered by a particular solution, the single-most important factor in implementing the software is gaining adoption within the lab. 

Incorporating a new sample management system into the lab can be arduous and challenging. Scientists are used to working in a way that is most efficient for them, and introducing a new system may be disruptive to their normal way of operating. To minimize this disruption and foster adoption of the new system, make sure to include the end-users in the lab during the evaluation process. Allow them to test their scenarios and evaluate usability. Create an environment where their feedback is valued and taken into consideration, and ideally choose a system that helps boost their efficiency and complement existing processes. Choosing software that provides tools for data validation, integration and reporting are all good ways to help scientific efficiency move in the right direction. 

Once you have chosen a sample management system, determine an implementation plan that will work for the group, and allow for some trial and error. Pick one or two lab processes that can be moved to the new system, gather feedback and make improvements as needed before implementing a new set of processes. Have a concrete timeline that will empower users to fully test the system and provide time for feedback and checkpoints. 

Product Highlight: LabKey Sample Manager

LabKey Sample Manager is a feature-rich and intuitive sample management software designed to boost the efficiency and productivity of your lab. Easily track samples, manage their lineage, define laboratory workflows, and unify your samples with assay data. Learn more about Sample Manager using the links below:

Sample Tracking – End-to-end sample tracking features including chain-of-custody tracking,  sample types and sources, and lineage views

Lab Workflow Management – Use workflows to standardize lab processes and manage ongoing work in the lab

Freezer Management – Manage sample storage and freezer capacity using an intuitive interface

Sample Data Integration – Integrate assay data with your samples and assign metadata for a complete picture of your ongoing experiments 

Explore Sample Manager – Sign-up for a tour ofLabKey Sample Manager!

Complete and efficient lab sample tracking is a must for any well organized laboratory. With a multitude of samples being received, aliquoted, having assays performed and making their way through the lab, it’s easy to see why a lab needs tools and procedures for managing sample tracking. A few general tips for tracking samples include:

1. Standardize sample naming conventions that are both unique and meaningful. And of course, make sure they fit on the label!
2. Capture sample metadata that makes sense for your lab, workflow, and for the sample. Make this part of your sample registration procedures and review the data points to be captured with your team to make sure your team is aware and engaged in the process.
3. Consider when and how the registration of new samples should be done in your lab setting. Are samples registered in bulk via an upload of an Excel spreadsheet or are samples entered individually and registered directly into the sample management software? Alternatively, can you anticipate what samples you’ll be receiving, and can register them ahead of time and mark them as received once they come into the lab? Standardizing the initial sample registration procedures ensures that your sample tracking gets off to the good start.

Tracking lab samples and chain of custody with LabKey Sample Manager

By implementing the lab sample tracking tips above, you can also start thinking about how to track the chain of custody of a sample using LabKey Sample Manager. One way to do this is by viewing the audit log at a macro level to see what’s happened in the system. Each entry tracks the user with a date/time stamp for full-featured auditing. Although this meets many compliance requirements, it is often burdensome to look through the many entries in the system to track down the actions around a single sample.

A much better way of tracking sample chain of custody is using the Sample Timeline feature within the application. Using this feature, users can see and analyze specific events for a sample- starting with when (time and date) a sample was registered and by whom (user).  Also tracked and viewable on the timeline are any metadata changes, assays performed, and the addition of a sample to a particular workflow job. 

Viewing the timeline for an individual sample provides a comprehensive look into the chain of custody of the sample within LKSM in one easy place. This feature can be used as an auditing mechanism, or just another way to track and understand the context of your sample in the lab.

Click here to explore the Sample Timeline in LabKey Sample Manager

LabKey has released Sample Manager, intuitive and powerful sample management software that brings greater ease, efficiency and insight to sample processing within laboratories. The application’s easy-to-use interface provides access to a host of powerful features that address common challenges experienced by labs in the processing and management of samples. These features include user-friendly mechanisms to create samples and efficiently discern sample lineage, workflow features to easily assign and track sample processing tasks,
and features to unify samples with their related experiment data. 

Sample Manager was built with valuable insight from a Product Advisory Council (PAC) made up of academic and biotech laboratories conducting research in various fields. PAC participants focused on providing LabKey with input that informed the development of features to boost sample processing efficiency, provide greater operational control and promote data integrity. 

Read the full press release about the Sample Manager launch by clicking here.

Try LabKey Sample Manager

You can easily begin exploring Sample Manager by visiting the product page and clicking the “Get Access” button in the green section. Once you fill out the form, you will receive an access link in your email to a read-only evaluation version of Sample Manager. Additionally, we will be hosting an “Introduction to Sample Manager” webinar on February 20th at 10:30am PST. Product manager Hannah Brakke will give an overview of the application and conduct a live demo of key features. 

To register for the webinar, please click here.

Research and clinical laboratories alike are continuously striving to improve their lab sample management workflows. As more organizations invest in translational and collaborative research, the need to collect samples with higher integrity and reproducibility increases. By using sample management software to improve their laboratory workflows, labs can generate more reproducible and reliable endpoints while also boosting processing efficiency. Standardizing processes and workflows can help improve identification methods and reduce processing errors within laboratories. 

Common ways to improve your lab sample management workflows include:

1. Standardize the processes within your lab.
   Developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for your laboratory sample management increases the reliability of endpoint samples and therefore the assay results. Well-developed SOPs will account for common troubleshooting methods and provide mechanisms for users to document abnormalities. This in turn will provide more insight to groups downstream about the sample fidelity. SOPs also act as excellent training resources for new staff and ensure the entire team is well trained and prepared for managing samples in the lab.
   
   
2. Determine your laboratory capacity.
   Establishing capacity for any workflow is important. Determining the capacity of both your laboratory staff as well as equipment capacity is important to establish limits that will guide the most effective and reliable lab sample management workflow. By evaluating the available capacity of staff and equipment, new insights can be learned to improve lab and sample processing efficiency.
    
3. Automate where possible. By introducing automation methods, even if they are as straightforward as barcode generation and scanning, you can improve the laboratory capacity as well as reduce the potential for errors. Barcodes in particular will enhance sample identification and minimize additional effort from laboratory staff. Other advanced methods of automation, such as robotic processing, may also provide value but are typically more costly and can increase processing time in some cases.
4. Deploy integrated systems that help laboratory work. Using software systems in the lab that do not hinder sample management processes, but instead enhance them, is important for gaining adoption and boosting laboratory morale. By having integrated systems that are easy-to-use, researchers can perform work faster with less ramp-up time, and can recognize discrepancies easier. Downstream, integrated systems offer organization leadership the mechanisms to track workflow data over time with the ability to easily adjust workflows to improve processing.

LabKey Sample Manager

Developed in coordination with our lab partners, LabKey Sample Manager has been intuitively designed to boost the efficiency and productivity of laboratories. The application allows for the registration and tracking of samples and their derivatives, as well as the assignment of samples to custom sample processing workflow jobs. This provides a flexible yet standard mechanism of capturing tasks in each workflow, and can act as a virtual record of sample processing. Additionally, Sample Manager allows laboratory staff to easily capture data generated from these workflows and associate them with samples. 

Contact Us for more information regarding Sample Manager.

Related Post: Benefits of Unifying Lab Samples with Assay Data