LIMS Functionality Spotlight – Portal for Oil Exploration Labs

Does your oil exploration laboratory need a client portal and why?

For most of us, including oil testing labs, clients are the most important part of our laboratory’s business, whether they are external or internal. Let’s consider this: how easy, convenient, and fast is the sample submission and tracking process for your customers? Do clients have to fill out lengthy paper forms or call you to get status updates?

If you are experiencing these pain points, your workflow has potential bottlenecks between you and your clients. Your lab’s customer service starts here, and so does your lab’s smooth operation and cost effectiveness.  The laboratory client portal is a key system to improve customer service and reduce laboratory costs.

A portal can be used to connect your clients and their samples to your laboratory information management system (LIMS), where they can enter sample information and tests requests, view the status changes, and receive their data, results, and reports.

Use Case: Oil Analysis Testing for Oil Exploration

The LabLynx myLabCare portal for oil analysis labs is specifically designed to meet the needs of both the lab and its customers. Portal users can log new orders and samples, check on sample status, receive reports and data.

The portal ensures all required information is submitted with each sample, while also providing the ability to add comments as needed. This can include information like customer, operator, sample date, sample description, well name, sample point, lease, region, test name and parameters, etc.

Any information and testing data that you maintain in the LIMS can be displayed in the portal, including sample status.  Clients can then view all logged orders and filter in a variety of ways to make finding specific orders or samples easier. Once testing data is entered or approved in the LIMS, clients can view and filter that data as well as exporting what they are interested in.

How a client web portal works for oil exploration labs

A portal is only a window into a database; specifically, the LabLynx myLabCare Portal is a window into our ELab LIMS database. Any data or information within the LIMS can be shown to clients via the portal. This does mean that if you are still using spreadsheets and/or paper, then a portal will have nowhere to pull data from or push new order logging information to.

For the myLabCare Portal order entry, you decide which fields to make mandatory, ensuring you always receive the information you need. Sample types, sampling points, locations, sites, operator, leasing information, manufactured products, assets and inventory, and all other relevant information for order entry is saved in the LabLynx ELab LIMS database and readily recalled by the portal so that neither you nor your customers waste valuable time re-entering the same data.

The portal allows customers to submit samples by filling in the required information, and then printing barcode labels to affix to their samples. They can request multiple tests for the same samples, log as many samples as they like at one time for each site, or even bulk register, etc. The portal can also process payments or simply apply payments to a cost or income center in an interfaced accounting application or service.

When your lab receives the samples, you simply scan the labels and their information is displayed in the LIMS. A simple checkbox logs them as received and ready for processing. As the samples make their way through the assigned workflows, the system updates their status in both the LIMS and the portal, so that customers always know the latest data about their samples.

As soon as results are available in the LIMS, the report and/or data can be made available in the portal for your customer, subject to any review and approval steps you may prefer to have in place before sharing the report. An email alert can be sent to the user that their results or data are ready in the portal.

Functionality

The myLabCare Portal, from LabLynx, is a full-featured client web portal, customized to your specific needs and is a fully integrated option with the LabLynx ELab LIMS.

With the ELab LIMS for oil exploration and our integrated myLabCare Portal, you can assign users, internal or external, to have access to various functions:

• Enter new order requests
• View and filter orders and samples previously entered
• Print previous order forms as needed
• View overall status of samples within a specific amount of time
• View and filter data and results
• Download reports
• Query and filter historical data

What do you need to know about myLabCare Portal for oil exploration labs?

Log in

• You can link the portal log-in page from your website with your custom portal URL.
• As a web-based portal, you can use any browser on any operating system to access the portal.
• The portal can be branded with your company’s information and logos.
• We recommend that every user receives their own unique and secure log in. This can be via secure single sign-on (SSO), so that internal clients can use their existing credentials.
• The LIMS admin (you) can manage every portal user’s log-in and access level.
• If needed, users can be given access to multiple locations or departments.

Home page

• The home page can show a quick overview of sample statuses during a specific time period.
• The date range for this status can be customized for your portal.

Orders page

• The orders page shows all of the samples that the user has in the system.
• There are many different ways to filter the samples to find what you are looking for, including customer, operator, sample date, sample description, well name, sample point, lease, region, and test name.
• You can customize what data is shown on your portals orders page to fit what your customers are looking for.
• When you click on the order number, the full order information page opens.
• Depending on what information is displayed for the order information page, you can click the individual sample number for more details on the sample.
• You can print the chain of custody (COC) from the orders page or the order information page.

New orders page

• The new orders page is where your client would go to register new order requests.
• The order and sample information fields are determined by you, including which fields are required for the order submission to go through, including customer, operator, sample date, sample description, well name, sample point, lease, region, and test name.
• The fields can be free text, drop down pick lists, calendar date selections, or check boxes.
• Multiple samples can be added to one order and multiple tests can be added to each sample.
• Once submitted, the submission form, COC, and/or labels can be printed to send with the samples.

Data management page

• The data management page is where your client can query all of their data.
• Various filter options can be set to make finding data easy, including customer, operator, sample date, sample description, well name, sample point, lease, region, and test name.
• The data can be exported here as well.

myLabCare Portal + ELab LIMS = A full client-lab solution

The LabLynx ELab LIMS will assign unique identifiers to samples and other entities (like the clients themselves), allow printing of barcode labels from the portal or LIMS, allow the lab to set up tests and workflows, manage instrument calibrations and maintenance, manage inventory … the list goes on.

Not every LIMS comes with an available portal, nor do they all integrate easily with one. The LabLynx ELab LIMS is actually not just a single purpose application; it’s a platform, with many components and apps included or available, like the myLabCare portal, an ELN (electronic lab notebook), interfacing solution, collaboration tools, and other components.

The myLabCare™ client portal can be used to connect your clients and their samples to your ELab LIMS where they can enter sample information and tests requests, view the status changes, and receive their data, results, and reports.

Ready to take a look?

If you would like to see a demonstration of the myLabCare™ client portal, as well as any of our other products, just contact us using the contact form at https://www.lablynx.com/get-started or by email at [email protected]. We value your business and are happy to discuss your specific needs any time!