101.7 Store or Transfer specimens

Specimen storage can be recorded at the time specimens are created or subsequently. A prerequisite to storing a specimen is that a container (box) exists that can accept the specimen based upon the protocol they are in and their specimen type. Typically no location is recorded for primary samples that are immediately processed.

It is important to understand the layout of your boxes and the method used by your laboratory of adding specimens to boxes. For instance, many labs add samples beginning at the upper left corner of the box and add samples in rows from left to right. Rows are populated from top to bottom. These parameters are programmed into the box when it is created.

The most common method to store a sample is upon creation of the sample to be stored. The specimen collection page will display ‘Container’ and ‘Position’ fields. Under Container, you will choose the Box Name, and under Position, you can record the coordinate. If a box is linear, there will be only one Position field, but if the box is 2D, you will enter the row and column.

Record a storage location

Click in the ‘Container’ field
A list of available boxes will appear. Choose the box where the sample will be stored. In this instance, there is only one box available to store whole blood tubes in this Demo Protocol.
If a position is not recorded, the system will place the sample in the next available slot in that box which will be displayed in the specimen table on the next screen.
To manually select a position, you can click on the the magnifying glass icon in the ‘Position’ field.
Click ‘Select’ on the pop-up screen.
Select the position to place the sample from the 2-D map displayed. Available slots are shown in gray. Occupied slots are green. Click ‘Done’.
The position is shown as ‘18’ in this example. Note that this box is defined as linear and populates from top to bottom, left to right.
Note that this sample would have been automatically placed in slot 18 since it was the next available in this container.
Navigating to the Visit displays the Specimen Table and the location where the sample is stored.
You can navigate to the box map as well by clicking on the sample and then the Storage Location.
This displays a 2-D view of the box and the Specimen Labels of the samples in the box.

Transfer specimens

The process to transfer samples is similar. Samples can be ‘Transferred' from one box to another, from ‘no location’ to a box, or from a box to ‘no location’.

Select one or more specimens from any view, such as a specimen table, a specimen list, a Cart, or a Query by clicking on the box to the left of the specimen label (or clicking within a row of a list of samples in a query). This process will follow selecting specimens in the Specimen List view. The goal is to store aliquots of DNA received back from the CTRC that were recorded on 3/10/2023.

Navigate to ‘View Specimens’ from the Participant list view page.
Applying filters to my specimen list shows 6 specimens. Select them all by clicking on the box next to the Label field or choose individual samples.
Choose Transfer from the Actions dropdown menu.
This will display a page to choose the box(es) into which the samples will be placed. Click the ‘Location’ field to display available boxes. Choose the box to use. The copy button next to ‘New Location’ will copy this box name to all specimens in the list. To place samples in different containers, choose the box for each sample.
Follow the steps above to either let the system assign the next available location or to manually select each slot. Note that if you attempt to store more samples than are available, the system will tell you that there are not enough storage locations for all the samples. In this case, it will be helpful to use the magnifying glass to determine how many slots are available in the storage container.
Selecting submit will record the storage locations and will display the specimen list view page with the locations.

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