Collections for general biobanking are usually unplanned, i.e., there are no specific time-points, and specimens get collected whenever they are available. For such cases, the unplanned specimen collection workflow of OpenSpecimen is best suited. You can use the add unplanned specimens page to do the following:

Collect unplanned specimens of the same type

This is used when you are collecting multiple specimens with exact same properties.

Click here to view the steps...

In the participant page, click on the dotted menu of the desired visit and select option ‘Collect Unplanned Specimens’
Enter all the details, to collect multiple copies of the specimens with the same properties, specify count under 'Count' field of 'MULTIPLE SPECIMENS' section and click on 'Next' button
Enter further details and click on 'Submit' button

Collect unplanned specimens of different types

This can be used when you collect multiple specimens of "almost" same properties. Here you enter the properties of the first sample and make copies of it to make any minor changes to the copy.

Click here to view the steps...

In the participant’s overview page, click on the dotted menu of the desired visit and select option ‘Collect Unplanned Specimens’
Enter all valid details for collecting one specimen type and click on 'Add Another' to add another specimen type
"Copy Last" options: These options are useful if you are creating specimens that are similar but with minor changes
1. Copy last: Will make a copy of the last specimen without the aliquots
2. Copy Last With Aliquots: Will make a copy of the last specimen with the aliquots
Enter all the details and click on 'Next' button
Enter the quantity of the specimens to be collected, select container position and click on ‘Submit’

In the above example, all the labels are auto-generated. If the auto-generation of labels is off, a field ‘Labels’ will appear in the last step

Create aliquots while collecting unplanned specimens

When copying, you can either copy with the aliquots or without aliquots.

This was added as a feature in v5.0

Click here to view the steps...

In the participant page, click on the dotted menu of the desired visit and select option ‘Collect Unplanned Specimens’
Enter all details and check the checkbox of ‘Do you want to create aliquots?’ of the ‘ALIQUOT DETAILS’ section’
Enter details of the aliquots and click on 'Add Another' to add different aliquot types
Click on Next
In the next screen, specify quantity and container position and click on 'Submit' button
You can view the summary of the collected specimens along with all the aliquots, note that the system automatically creates the intermediate derived specimens

Unplanned Derivatives/Aliquots

Depending on the needs or availability, you may often have to create a child or grandchild of a sample without prior planning. OpenSpecimen allows you to collect additional derivatives or aliquots from a specimen’s overview page.

For more details, refer to collecting unplanned derivative/aliquot