Question: When importing specimens, does it always go into OpenSpecimen as an Unplanned Specimen?

Solution:

OpenSpecimen v3.4 supports uploading specimens in bulk as planned specimens.

Planned specimens refer to linking the samples to their corresponding specimen requirements in the collection protocol.

It is done in two ways:

Option #1: Associate to specimen requirement code

In the collection protocol, you can set a unique code for each specimen requirement. To enable CP codes, refer to CP Coding. This code can be used to link the specimens in the CSV to its corresponding requirement. Refer to Specimens CSV for more details on importing samples in bulk.

Option #2: Using specimen pre-printing option

If the collection protocol has pre-print enabled, all the specimen labels are auto-generated for pending specimens. This can be used to collect specimens as planned with below steps:

• When visits are created via UI or BO, pending samples with auto-generated labels will be added to the visits.  
• Download template for specimens bulk import (Collection Protocol→Import→Specimens).
• Fill in the data, label of the pending samples, and collection status as collected. You can also fill in other details like location and quantity if you want to update them.
• Upload this data CSV file as 'Update' operation under Specimens import.