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To use requests and approvals, you should have a Specimen Catalog: this will allow you or your collaborators (with permissions) to select the samples that they would like to request. Specimens can be distributed directly from any specimen screen, but the requests and approvals will not be tracked using this method.

Order Custom Fields (optional): If you want to collect additional information (fields like ‘shipping address’ or MTA) you need to create these as a custom form and they should be attached to your DP. <link to KB>.

Order Report Query (optional): To specify the data to include along with the specimens, you can create a query with the columns to include when distributing specimens. (link to KB)

To create a DP, your user role must include Create/Edit Distribution Protocol rights.

The receiving Institute, Principal Investigator, and receiving Site (optional) need to be added to OpenSpecimen by an Administrator.

Who will be receiving the samples and where are they?

1. Principal Investigator (Dr. Robert Smith)

2. Their institute: this is the overarching institute to which the PI belongs (like a University)

3. Their ‘Site’: this is typically the lab or dept name (like Dr. Smith’s Lab or Center for Integrative Science). If you were to ship the samples to the Dr. Smith at the University of Southern California, where within USC would you be addressing the shipment?

What are the project details?

1. What is Dr. Smith’s IRB (if applicable)?

2. What is Dr. Smith’s project title? (What are they studying that warrants sharing these samples with them?) Does the study fall within the consent statements that the participant signed?

3. Is there an MTA needed and, if so, what is the MTA number?

Who, within you lab, will be responsible for approving this shipment? (PI of your project or a lab manager?)

Who, within your lab, will be responsible for pulling and shipping the samples?

What information about the specimens will you be sending to Dr. Smith?

1. Specimen type

2. Quantity

3. Concentration

4. Anatomic Site

Do the samples need to be relabeled or de-identified prior to shipping?

Select ‘Distribution Protocols’ from the navigation bar.

Choose ‘Create’.

Complete the fields with the information gathered in the first section.

Required Fields:

1. Title: descriptive of the DP: “Dr. Smith’s specimen request for Project XYZ”

2. Short Title: recognizable acronym or shortened discription, “Smith XYZ”

3. Receiving Institute: (Institute to which requestor belongs; ‘USC’)

4. Principal Investigator: Requesting PI (must belong to the Institute specified above).

5. Distributing Site(s): Sites allowed to send samples to the above PI. (Note that sometimes a PI will request specimens from multiple projects. So this DP can be used by multiple users and CPs.)

Optional Fields

1. Receiving Site: if there is a division, dept, or lab associated with the receiving PI, you can optionally specify this. It would have to be added to OpenSpecimen by an Administrator.

2. Coordinators: these are the actual members of teh receiving site lab who will be receiving or handling the samples and need to be notified of the shipment and will receive any attachments, like the sample metadata.

3. Ethics ID: This is the IRB number associated with the project belonging to the receiving site.

4. Start and End Dates can be added for DPs that will have shipments sent over time. For instance, some DPs request samples that meet specific criteria to be shipped on a weekly or monthly basis.

5. Label format: this can be specified if samples are being relabeled upon distribution.

6. Order Custom Fields: These are your custom fields that can be added to any distribution.

7. Order Report Query: These are the specific data fields that will be sent to the investigator along with the specimens. If no custom query is defined, the manifest will include the standard fields (what are these?).

8. Order attachment: this specifies whether the email notifications will include sample data as .csv, .pdf, or both types.

9. Email notifications: if enabled, all users specified in the above fields will receive a notification of sample shipment once the samples are distributed.

Consents: If you capture answers to specific consent statements, you can set requirements that samples can only be distributed to a DP based upon a specific answer to a consent statement. For instance, Samples can only be distributed if the participant answered ‘yes’ to ‘samples may be shared with external researchers' or ‘I consent to genetic analysis’.

Requirements: You can set the DP to only allow specimens that meet certain criteria

Services: You can manually assign services associated with a DP that you can subsequently bill for, such as aliquotting and relabelling, add a cost and note if it will be paid with internal or external funding.