July 30, 2021
About LabKey
Many researchers are continuously seeking ways to boost scientific collaboration. As with other disciplines, enabling scientific collaboration requires the right tools and processes. This is especially true when researchers are sharing samples that need to be tracked at each step of their lifecycle. For some labs, collaborative sample tracking involves a piecemeal approach of emails, spreadsheets, and whiteboards to give teams some visibility into the next steps, assigned work and upcoming projects. This method of sample tracking is highly prone to error and can easily get unwieldy as a lab grows or the complexity of sample processing increases.
Finding a sample management software that tracks samples throughout their life cycle while also enabling scientific collaboration is imperative for the modern laboratory. Sample Manager has been designed by scientists, for scientists, to help get work done in the lab. We have created a tool that integrates sample registration, storage, experimental data and work assignment for doing all your sample-related work in a single application. Below are a few features that help enable scientific collaboration in the lab.
Workflow Management for Scientific Collaboration
Our task-based lab workflow management tool allows teams to capture the exact work that needs to be performed on samples. Using customizable templates, labs can easily standardize processes and create workflows that accurately reflect their SOPs. Common lab processes like sample receipt, shipping preparation, processing, and assay requests can all be managed using the Sample Manager workflow tool. For each workflow, samples are selected for inclusion in the job, tasks are assigned to individual team members, and notifications communicating the status are sent. The ability to set due dates and the priority of the work allows teams to plan and prioritize work appropriately.
Freezer Management/Sample Location Tracking
Our sample-centric freezer management tool gives teams insight into freezer capacity and the physical storage of samples. Team members efficiently work in an intuitively designed virtual freezer environment, capturing notes for freeze/thaws and displaying those in the Sample Timeline. Users can quickly understand storage capacity, relative sample breakdown, and overall sample status across storage units in the lab.
Picklists
Teams can create private or public Picklists of samples to generate pull lists, manifests or any other type of list that would be useful for tracking and sharing samples. Sharing picklists with team members enables visibility into user-curated lists of samples and reduces the need for exporting, printing and emailing lists of samples to team members. Shared Picklists can be used to print labels, check samples in and out storage, and add samples to workflow jobs.
Click here to learn more about Sample Manager and take a tour!