Introduction

OpenSpecimen can be integrated with box scanners to support the following features:

Associating barcodes with OpenSpecimen
Managing specimens within a box (e.g., creating boxes, moving specimens, etc.)

Benefits

Speed: Reduce data entry time by 80%

With one click, you can retrieve the barcodes of all specimens in a box. This will reduce the time and effort needed to manage your inventory. For example, you removed a few specimens and added a few more to a box. Rescanning the box, OpenSpecimen will inform you which specimens were removed and allow you to assign a position to new specimens, all in a single click.

Accuracy: Reduce errors

The chances of errors are reduced since you are scanning the entire box, rather than scanning each barcode manually.

Supported Box Scanners

Azenta DP5 – DP5 is the software used by various Azenta box scanner models. Any scanner running DP5 can be integrated with OpenSpecimen.
FluidX Scanners (iRest) – Any FluidX scanner using iRest software can be integrated, including models like Perception and Impression.
New scanners can be added based on request.

Videos

Scan 1: Introducing Barcodes to OpenSpecimen during specimen collection

Scan 2: Rescanning to manage inventory

How to view the API payload received by OpenSpecimen

When a user clicks the ‘Scan’ button, OpenSpecimen invokes the box scanner APIs, which return the scanned values as an API payload response. For debugging issues such as specimens being physically present in the box but not appearing in OpenSpecimen, or scanned box barcodes not reaching OpenSpecimen, the OpenSpecimen team requires this incoming API payload. Since boxes are typically stored in freezers, it is often not practical to retrieve and rescan them later. Therefore, it is best to capture the payload when the issue is observed. Steps to get the API response Navigate to any page where you are using the box scanner (e.g., Workflows, containers, shipments, etc.) Select the scanner Launch Inspect element (or developer tools) by right-clicking the browser window Scan in OpenSpecimen Search for the specific scanned console entry Request will contain the container_uid (whatever is defined in DP5) Copy the response part in a notepad file and share The response is usually in JSON format.

Error: “Unable to connect to the box scanner”: Validating Scanner Connection

OpenSpecimen and the scanner software must run on the same machine.
Errors occur when:
- The scanner software (DP5/iRest) has not started.
- Users switch machines between OpenSpecimen and the scanner.
- The scanner software is frozen or unresponsive.
OpenSpecimen automatically checks for scanner input during scanning.
If no input is received, it shows an error message to help validate the scanner connection.

Example error message:

Box Scanner Integration