1 Introduction
2 CP Level
3 System Level
- 3.1 Specimen Class Units
- 3.2 Specimen Type Units
4 Add new unit dropdown values
5 Working with units for live clients

Introduction

From v11.0, OpenSpecimen supports specimen units per CP. A common issue for clients with multiple groups was to make units uniform across the collection protocols. Some groups wanted to use ‘ul’ vs ‘ml’ as units for fluids like serum/ plasma or capture the quantity of DNA or RNA in ‘ul’ vs ‘ug’. With this feature, users can configure the units specific to each specimen type within a single collection protocol.

CP Level

You can define units for a particular collection protocol using the steps mentioned below,

Navigate to Home → Collection Protocols → View CP details → Settings → Specimen units.
Click on ‘Add’ to add the units
Add the required specimen class, type, unit and concentration details.
On adding units, they will be listed on this page

System Level

You can define units for all the collection protocols in the application using the steps mentioned below,

Navigate to Home → Extras → Specimen Units
The user will be navigated to the list of current units set up.
The units visible here are being populated from the list configured in the ‘Dropdown manager’→ ‘Specimen Unit’ attribute.
In this list, users can edit any of the existing unit values by clicking on the edit icon.
Click on ‘Add’ to set a new unit configuration.

It is possible to set units at the specimen class and type level

Specimen Class Units

You can define units for a specimen class, which will apply to all the specimen types under it

To add units at the specimen class level across the system, select the specimen class and units from the dropdown.
If you select a CP, then this will be added only for that study.

Specimen Type Units

You can define units for a specimen type, which will then show

To add units per specimen type across the system, select the specimen class and type and the units from the dropdown.
If you select a CP, then this will be added only for that study.

Add new unit dropdown values

From v11.0, you can create/update a list of the units you want to use in the system. This list can be used to define specimen quantity/concentration units for specimen class/ type on the system/CP level.

After upgrading to v11, all the values present in the specimen type properties for quantity and concentration will be added to this list automatically.

Navigate to Home → Extras → Dropdown Manager→ Specimen Unit
You will be navigated to the page below, which has all the units.

Working with units for live clients

From v11.0 onwards, the system will automatically pick all the specimen units defined for specimen types in the dropdown manager to the specimen units. Manual intervention is not required.
If units are updated after specimens are collected, then the existing specimens won't be automatically recalculated. For example, if blood is changed from ml to μL, then the system won't change the values proportionately to μL. 1 ml won’t be updated to 1000 μL automatically. Users will have to change it manually via bulk upload.
Display the unit using the following logic:
1. Use the units specified either at the CP level or system level using the following mechanisms: (cp, class, type) → (cp, class, *) → (*, class, type) → (*, class, *) where * represents all of that category E.g., (cp, class, *): All specimen types of a given class for a specific CP.
2. When the specimen type is changed, use the units specified either at the CP or system level for the selected type/class using the above mechanism.
There is no support for displaying specimen units in the query results v nor the query exported CSV.
Units are not stored with the specimen or specimen requirements. Their units are auto-computed based on what is configured either at the system or CP level.
There is no mechanism to allow the lab user to override the units for any particular or selected specimens. Any update to the unit applies to all the specimens of that type.
On making any changes to the specimen units, please refresh your browser page once for the new configuration to be shown.