In the last Locations Structures article we discussed the way in which BSI allows users to design a virtual storage architecture that matches the real storage options available in their specimen storage and handling facilities. BSI does this by providing users with the tools to first create custom container types, and then construct them into totally configurable location hierarchies. Next, we will explore additional functionality of BSI’s Location module including some of the ways in which users can edit location structures, interact with the specimens stored in locations, and view data associated with locations and specimens.
Last time we explained that BSI provides tools to allow users to quickly and easily create Locations structures using defined container types. Many real storage structures contain repetitive patterns in terms of numbers of boxes, shelves, racks, etc., within a freezer or room. In order to minimize the potentially tedious nature of creating such repetitive locations structures, BSI has two important tools. The first of these is BSI’s Copy and Paste/Paste Multiple tool. This allows a user to highlight a container which may or may not have sub-containers, and subsequently copy and paste this structure fragment into other parent containers. For example, a user may choose to ‘copy’ a rack containing several boxes, and then ‘paste’ that rack multiple times into a separate freezer, so that now the new freezer contains multiple racks of the same configuration. Similarly, the ‘Save Configuration’ tool allows entire Locations structures to be saved to use at any time in the future. By selecting the parent-most container of the structure they wish to use again, a user can right click to name and save that configuration. The configuration is then saved in the system so that at any later time, the entire structure can be selected and added to a repository’s Locations.
Because BSI recognizes that a facility’s Locations needs change and grow over time, the Locations module is completely flexible in that any container or structure can be edited, augmented or even deleted at any time, with the correct user permissions. There are multiple ways in which existing container and container structures may be edited, from renaming containers and editing their properties, to reserving containers for particular studies, to rearranging where specimens are stored. New containers may be added to any parent container as needed, and any container not holding specimens can be deleted.
In the next and final Locations Structures article, we will look at the ways in which users can interact with specimens and specimen data from the Locations manager.