Location Reservation

Topics:

Reserving Locations

The Reserving Locations wizard is used to find containers in which to store new vials and reserve those containers for the batch.  When a container is selected for a batch, the entire container will be reserved until the batch is committed, deleted or the containers are unreserved by using the Remove Location Reservations tool.

Locations must already exist in the Location Management module before they can be reserved by this wizard. In the Location Selection Panel users can reserve locations using the Location Tree and the Advanced Search option.

Advanced Search - Select the Advanced Search button to the right of the Location Tree view. The Advanced Search works like the Quick Search. Different Location fields can be added and filtered on here. If any default fields have been saved in Location Search they will be present here as well.Reserving Locations wizard

  • To add more specification fields, select the Add/Remove Field button. The Select Fields dialog will open. The left side of the dialog shows available field choices. After selecting the field, press the > button to move it to the right side of the dialog. Select the OK button to confirm the added field and return to the Location Specifics panel. A text box for the field will become available. Fill in the added text boxes.

Once the search has been specified, the user can press Next to select the locations to reserve are selected from a results panel, and then location assignment options are set. Users can save a list of locations while assigning locations to specimens. In the same batch, users can then select Reserve Locations from a Saved List from the Tools menu of the Editor to use the previously saved locations to reserve additional locations.

Example: Let’s say that Dr. Boras has recently obtained 40 new blood specimens and needs to document where he will store them in BSI. After entering the specimens in a Data Entry Add batch, Dr. Boras highlights all rows in the batch and uses the Reserve Locations tool to choose where he will store them. Selecting the particular, pre-existing box in BSI where they will be placed, he specifies that specimens will be assigned locations vertically across the box and in a serpentine pattern. He does this because his assistant has already placed them this way in the physical box.Serpentine pattern

Location Selection

On the first screen of the location wizard, using the location tree, select the top-level container(s) to be used for the search.

To specify search using the location tree:

  1. Expand the location tree by clicking on the + icon next to the folder, or double-clicking on a folder until the desired destination is visible.
  2. Highlight the locations that will appear on the results page.  Double clicking on a parent container will display all of the available sub-containers underneath it.
    • Users can select multiple parent containers by using either Shift + click or Ctrl + click.
    • A separate column will show the sub container's empty spaces.Location Tree
  3. To restrict the search to containers which do not currently contain any vials, or any reserved slots, select the Use only empty containers checkbox.
  4. To allow multiple specimens to be placed in the same location, select the Use Occupied Spaces checkbox. This can be used to re-assign locations to specimen in a Modify Batch.
  5. To restrict the search to containers which have enough unused, unreserved space to fit all the vials highlighted in the batch editor before the wizard was opened, select the Fit all vials in a single container checkbox. This checkbox will not be available when initially creating an Add Batch in Data Entry, but can be used to assign locations from the Add Batch Editor.
    • It is not necessary to select Use only empty containers, Use Occupied Spaces or Fit all vials in a single container to continue.Restrict search
  6. Click Next to proceed to the Select Results panel. Or click Advanced Search to proceed to the Location Specifics panel.
    • If you selected the lowest container in a hierarchy, you may select Reserve to skip the remaining panes and use your default location assignment settings.

Location Specifics Panel

On the first screen of the Reserving Locations wizard search panel, select the Advanced option to set specific criteria for the search:Reserving Locations Advanced option

To use Advanced location search:

  1. Select the Container Type from the menu. Select the specific type of container that will be used for the batch.  Only results for the container type selected will be returned by the search.

    • To restrict the search to containers which do not currently contain any vials, or any reserved slots, select the Use only empty containers checkbox from the Location Selection page before selecting Advanced Search.
    • To restrict the search to containers which have enough unused, unreserved space to fit all the vials highlighted in the batch editor before the wizard was opened, select the Fit all vials in a single container checkbox from the Location Selection page before selecting Advanced Search.
    • It is not necessary to select Use only empty containers or Fit all vials in a single container to continue.Container Type Ellipsis
  2. Other Location fields can be added and filtered on by selecting the Add/Remove Field button and choosing a new field to search. Once the field has been chosen, users can manually add search criteria to the Location Specifics page in the text field that appears next to the field chosen. If search criteria were specified in the Location Search tab of the user profile they will appear on this panel.Add/Remove Field
  3. Click Next to proceed to the Location Search panel.

Select Results

The Select Results panel will display a table listing one row for each container returned by the search. The table will display container information including the container’s label, the number of empty specimens slots in the container, the number of specimens already in the container, and the number of slots that were reserved previously by another user or batch. The table can be printed, sorted and searched like any other table in BSI. There are also Add Row and Delete Row buttons, which allow users to open the locations tree to add additional locations and to delete rows from the selected list of locations.

  1. Select the rows that correspond to the containers to be reserved for the batch.

  2. Click Next to continue to the Location Assignment Options panel.  

If your user preferences to set the location assignment options are defaulted, you may skip location assignment by selecting Reserve on this pane.

Note that users may select more than one row from the table using Ctrl-click, or Shift-click. All highlighted containers will be reserved in full for the batch when a user clicks the Reserve button.

Location Assignment Options

The Location Assignment Options panel allows users to set the order containers will be scanned, the starting row and column and the assignment pattern. Your user preferences may be set to default the options on this pane.Location Assignment Options

To set the Location Assignment Options:

  1. Set the order the containers will be assigned.  The selected containers will be displayed in the center table with one row for each container.  Select a container and press the Up or Down button to change the order.  Locations will be assigned in the order listed from top to bottom.
  2. Set the starting row and column.  This will set the starting point for the first location assigned.  Location assignment will begin at the first available location if these fields are left blank, which will allow specimen to be back-filled into empty locations.
  3. Set the assignment pattern to determine the direction and order that locations will be assigned.
    • Orientation - This option determines the basic direction that locations will be assigned: either Horizontal or Vertical.
    • Pattern - One of the following options:
      • Across - Locations are assigned in the order 1, 2, 3..., left to right or top to bottom, for each row and column in the box.
      • Serpentine - Locations are assigned beginning from the side of the box that finished the previous row.  The starting direction of a serpentine pattern can be set by choosing the From left or From right options for a horizontal orientation, or by From Top or From Bottom for a vertical orientation.
  4. Select the Reserve button to reserve the locations for the batch.
Container_fill_pattern_options.png

Remove Location Reservations

If an error was made when reserving locations for a batch or if reservations are no longer needed, the reservations can be removed by using the Remove Location Reservations tool.  The containers can then be used or reserved by another batch.

To remove location reservations from a batch:

  1. In the batch editor, select Remove Location Reservations from the Tools menu.  A Current Location Reservations dialog will open containing a standard BSI table that displays one row for each container currently reserved for the batch.Remove Location Reservations

  2. Select the container or containers that are to have the reservations removed.

  3. Press the Remove button.  The Current Location Reservations dialog will close and the reservations will be released.Select Locations to Remove

To remove location reservations from a requisition:

  1. In the task completion dialog, press the Locations button and select the Unreserve Locations option.  A Current Location Reservations dialog will open containing a standard BSI table that displays one row for each container currently reserved.Unreserve Location Reservations

  2. Select the container or containers that are to have the reservations removed.

  3. Press the Remove button.  The Current Location Reservations dialog will close and the reservations will be released.

When a location has been assigned to a specimen, a non-editable ‘Container Type’ field will display the label for the container in Data Entry, Requisition, Shipments and the Specimen Viewer. ‘Container Type’ will also be available in Templates for hide/show/arrange as well as in Customization for verifiers.