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6.3.1 Management
The Management section includes the following functionality:
- The 'System Availability' controls enable you to disable specific Director functions e.g. if you disable Senders, scientists will not be able to introduce new vials into the system. Disabling Transport will stop all lab2lab activity (though instruments will continue to analyze loaded samples) which may be needed if you have to recover a stuck vial from a Pipe.
- The 'Sample Data Retention', 'Sample Vial Retention' and 'Overnight' settings will need to be tailored to your laboratory's working practices and the volume of vials submitted to lab2lab.
You will need to use your operational experience in deciding what values to use for some of these settings e.g. the vial retention settings. If a higher than expected number of vials is retained in the Buffer post-analysis then a lower physical retention time may be required in order to prevent the Buffer from becoming full, as this would greatly reduce system efficiency.
The table below explains the meaning of the different sample data retention and sample vial retention settings.
| Sample Data Retention | These settings affect how long data is retained in the lab2lab database. When the retention period is met, the vial data in the database is deleted. The colours shown match the colours displayed in the Director application for vials of this type. |
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Registered Data held for Unsubmitted Samples |
Unsubmitted samples are vials that have been registered with the system, but the physical vial has never been in the system and doesn’t have a location within the system. For example, registering a vial through the Client application but not submitting the physical vial through the Sender. |
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Sample Data viewable after Vials Disposal for |
This setting is for vials that are no longer physically in the system following processing and don’t have a location within the system. For example, a vial that was processed and sent to the Waste Bin or Collection Point. |
| Sample Vial Retention | These settings affect how long a physical vial is retained in the lab2lab system before being disposed in the Waste Bin. The colours shown match the colours displayed in the Director application for vials of this type. |
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Maximum retention for Processed or Unregistered Vials |
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Absolute Maximum physical retention period for any vial |
These two settings are functionally the same (one of them will be deprecated in a future software release). Vials that are in the Buffer of a system and either have no methods or all their methods are Completed will be sent to the Waste Bin when this vial retention period has been met. |
6.3.2 Sample Registration
The Sample Registration settings are as follows:
- Where a list of valid user IDs has been specified for a lab2lab system, these settings govern enforcement of these user IDs. If this parameter is set to false then the user ID list is used to prompt scientists when registering vials, but they can enter a different ID if necessary. When set to true, only user IDs in the list of valid user IDs can be used when registering vials.
- Check the 'Waters Acquity Methods' option to require scientists to provide method parameters for analyses run on Waters HPLCs when registering vials with lab2lab Client. Leaving this unchecked will leave the parameters as optional.
- Use 'Refresh Available Method details' to immediately implement changes to the lab2lab ini file, e.g. adding new analytical methods. This is optional; all method changes will automatically be applied at midnight each night, if there is no urgency.
6.3.3 Using a file to register multiple vials
As well as registering vials individually, either through the client software or by clicking the New Vial button in the Vials table screen, you can register multiple vials with a single text file. The text file must be either in comma separated variable (CSV) format or extensible markup language (XML) format.
Please contact reliance for more information on file registration
The submit the file, copy and paste it to the specified file monitoring folder. If the Director is setup to monitor the folder (‘Automatically process files for sample registration and editing’ is checked on the Sample Registration tab), it will process the file and add the submitted vials’ details.
6.3.4 Sample Handling
- Check the 'Sample Handling' options to enable your lab2lab system to process vials more efficiently. Sending vials directly to waste without waiting for analyses to finish frees up space in the Buffer (though if there is a problem with a vial's analysis, it is easier to repeat it if the vial is in the Buffer).
- Samples requiring NMR and other instruments can be configured to go to the NMR instrument first or last. If the ‘No preference’ option is selected, the methods are processed by instrument availability.
- Methods processed on Bruker NMR systems are queued on the instrument. This implies that over time the instrument can build up a long queue of waiting methods, particularly if the methods take a long time to process. Enabling the queue of one allows the system to only send another vial to a Bruker NMR instrument if the current processing method has either just started running or has completed.
6.3.5 Transport
The Transport Settings will be configured by SPT Labtech staff during commissioning. Only edit these settings in consultation with reliance.
6.3.6 Email
SPT Labtech recommends that you set up and use the automated emailing facility as this will speed up response time to any problems that may occur. If you have a support contract with reliance you should ensure that the lab2lab Support email is included in the external recipients list.
The Daily Summary emails are sent at midnight, local time. They are only sent following days when there has been some activity on the system. The information they contain has proved very useful in monitoring system reliability and utilisation.
6.3.7 Clients
The settings here enable you to configure the information which is shown to users in lab2lab Client software.
- Displaying the 'Average time to analysis' gives system users an indication of how busy the system is. The average time to analysis is calculated as an average of how long after entering the system vials with currently running methods took to have their method processing started. If no vials are currently running methods, this value will be 0.
- Displaying the system administrator's contact details enables users to seek advice easily.
6.3.8 Database
This tab shows the settings for archiving and data deletion which are set up on your lab2lab system. These values are displayed for information only and cannot be altered through Director.
See the 'lab2lab System Administrator's Manual' for more information about these topics.
6.3.9 Quality Control
