group Configuration

LDMS has many hard-coded groups (typically government-sponsored networks like ACTG and IMPAACT). When one of these groups is selected in LDMS Specimen Management , LDMS enforces certain rules specific to that network on what fields are required and what are valid entries. These groups are defined by Frontier Science in collaboration with individual networks, and cannot be modified by users.

Laboratories can, however, add their own groups for internal use. Internal groups can be modified and used as a laboratory sees fit.

To view groups and add new internal groups, click Administration > Group Configuration. You'll see a list of all groups in your LDMS installation, along with the labels for the ID1, ID2, and ID3 fields in Specimen Management .

Figure: group Configuration. Viewing and configuring groups in LDMS; only internal created by your laboratory can groups can be modified.



Adding a new internal group to LDMS:

  1. Click Administration > Group Configuration from the LDMS menu bar.

  2. Click the button to add a new row to the listing of groups.

  3. Enter the name for the group as you want it to appear throughout LDMS into the Group field.

  4. Enter a description for your group into the Group Desc[ription] field. This information will appear if a user presses Ctrl H with your group selected.

  5. Enter the label that you want to use for the ID1, ID2, and (optionally) ID3 fields in LDMS Specimen Management into the Patient ID, Study, and Secondary ID fields respectively.

  6. Click the button from the LDMS toolbar.

You can only modify groups that you have created. If you attempt to modify a group that is hard-coded into LDMS, you will receive an error message.

Internal Groups and shipping

Since internal groups are created at individual laboratories, only that laboratory has the group available. If you want to ship specimens in an internal group to another laboratory, there are a few options:

  • The group from the sending laboratory can be mapped to an existing group at the receiving laboratory

  • A new group can be created at the receiving laboratory

The receiving laboratory will automatically be prompted to do one of these when the shipping file is imported.

This distinction between internal and government groups prevents the two from be added to the same shipping file in LDMS.