Entering specimen information (Overview)

Records are added to LDMS from the top-down, starting with the creation of a new participant.

About this task

Because records in LDMS are hierarchical, you need to enter information starting with a participant, and then work your way down to aliquot specimens.

There are two ways to enter participant, enrollment, and specimen in LDMS:

  • Using the Quick Add feature (recommended)
  • Adding new participant, enrollment, and specimen information one-by-one

For most data entry in LDMS, the Quick Add feature is strongly recommended since it allows you to enter all of the information at once. Adding individual items on the Specimen Management page is recommended for minor changes, such as adding a single aliquot specimen to a primary specimen.

Each of the steps below can be completed independently, provided that the previous steps were completed. For example, you can create a new participant in LDMS without enrolling that participant in any protocols or creating any associated visits, however you cannot create a generic enrollment that is not associated with a specific participant visit. Likewise, it is also not possible to create a primary specimen without associating it with a specimen participant’s visit.

Procedure

  1. Create a new participant.
    Participants are specific to a project. If a person is participating in more than one project, then they would be considered two different participants in LDMS and would be entered separately.
  2. Add an enrollment to the participant.
    This means that you are associating the participant with a specific protocol. Participants can be associated with multiple protocols.
  3. Add a visit to the participant.
  4. Add a primary specimen to the visit.
  5. Add aliquots that were processed from the primary specimen.