Introduction

OpenSpecimen can be configured to auto-generate certain fields likes labels and names. You can define the format either at the system level or at the collection protocol level depending on the type of field.

The fields which support auto-generation are:

Participant protocol ID (PPID)
Visit name
Specimen label

Sorry!

We understand this is a bit complex to understand. We are planning to implement a user interface to design labels in one of the coming releases.

What is a token?

The format is configured using "tokens". A token is a unit of information. This page has the list of tokens and examples of the format supported for each field. It takes programming efforts to add a new token.

How to define a format?

A format can be defined using one or more tokens and fixed text. Care should be taken that the format will result in a unique string for the label. Currently, no validation is performed when the label format is set. If the label format does not result in the unique label, then OpenSpecimen will start giving errors during data entry. The simplest way to ensure that the label format is unique is to add a UID token.

Finally, always test the new label formats on QA server before setting in production server.

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