Create items with online forms

Lab collections constantly expand, with new chemicals, plasmids, cell lines, etc. Every new lab collection item needs to be added so that the database always reflects your lab supplies accurately.

Items can be added via online forms as explained on this page, hoewever, this is limited to the creation of single items. We also provide a mechanism to import entire collections in batch (with spreadsheets)

A single item can be created by filling an online form up. The form lists known attributes and provide appropriate input fields in which to input the value for the attribute.

Certain attributes expects free text values, others more specific values, in which case the interface provide relevant controls, like option selector supporting controlled vocabulary - to select one value within a list of known values -, or custom widgets (e.g. for _location, dates).

To ensure the recorded information is valid and relevant, the form attribute values are validated in real time, and feedback provided immediately to the user.

More about forms, fields, and validations on the Detail View - Edit section

Upon creation, additional metadata about the item is also capture, this includes for example the creation data, the owner (logged-in user), etc.

Certain items can derive from one another, in which case additional properties defining the relationship will be recorded.

How to create items using online forms ?

• Use the left menu to go to the list page of the collection you want to add an item to
• Click the New at the top left of the page. This button is enabled only if online forms are available for this collection.

Clone, Create Child and Derive

When two items are similar, or related, one can first create the first item and either clone it or derive from it.

Clone an item

Cloning item is to be used when the cloned item is very similar to the original one. Cloning will pre-fill the online form with values of the cloned item, which can be edited accordingly.

How to clone an item?

• Reach the detail page of the item to be cloned
• Click the Clone button in the detail view toolbar
• Make the necessary adjustment and save

Create an item child

Creating an item child allows to automatically capture relationships between the parent and the child item.

This is currently available for Samples.

How to create an item child?

• Reach the detail page of the item for which a child should be created
• Click the Create child button in the detail view toolbar
• (This may opens a dropdown to pick a different item type for the child)
• Fill the rest of the information up and save

Derive an item

Deriving an item is to be used when the deriving item needs to inherit certain information from the derived item. This also capture parent-child relationship information.

This is currently used for deriving lab notes from protocols

How to derive an item?

• Reach the detail page of the item to be derived from
• Click the Derive button in the detail view toolbar
• Make the necessary adjustment and save

Assign unique codes to items

It is common for researchers to uniquely identify items with human-readable label using a prefix and a unique number (and report this label on the tube containing the item). For example, Ab-1, Ab-2, Ab-3, etc. to identify antibodies ; or Ab-Bob-1, Ab-Bob-2, etc. to identify antibodies owned by Bob. These two examples represent two different series of antibodies, each characterized by its unique prefix Ab- and Ab-Bob-. Thus, each item serie has a serie prefix.

Every LabID collection item can receive such a custom identification label that is stored in the code property. This code property can also be used to store barcodes.

Unlike UUIDs that automatically assign to every LabID item to allow for their universal identification, the code is used within a group to uniquely identify an item in a given item collection (Antibody, Sequencer, Sample...). As already mentioned, codes are attributed by users.

	Identification	Attributed by	Scope
UUID	Universal	LabID	Unique accross all items, also across LabID installations
Code	Collection + Group specific	You	Unique within a collection (e.g. antibodies) and a group

It can be difficult to keep track of all the codes that already have been attributed, either by yourself, or by someone else in your group, as well as getting to know what is the next available code in a given serie. In LabID, when your serie follow a defined prefix-number pattern, it is easy to find the next available code for your item. Input the prefix- of your series in the code field and click the . This immediately finds and returns the next code in the serie for the current group. An additional section is also opened, in case the first returned code was not right. User can then adjust the prefix or the group to which the serie belongs to.

Left: List page with a two-item serie of antibodies, both identified with a unique code composed by a common prefix prefix- and a number. Right: New item page showing the creation of a 3rd antibody in the same serie. Prefix is inputed into the input field. Clicking the 'Get Next Code' button will modify the input field to add the number (3)

Result: Automated next code generation returns prefix-3.
The blue section on top of the input field also opens up in case the returned code is not the one expected. The prefix and/or the group then need to be adjusted.