Remote Sampler is a highly configurable system that can be used to replicate a wide variety of paper-based on-site workflows. The most difficult part of replicating your existing sample collection workflow in Remote Sampler is actually in planning what data you actually want to collect and the order in which various steps occur. This page provides some useful tips and examples to help you begin to put together a description of your process so that it can be recreated in Remote Sampler.
Sample Types
The first step in the process is to think about how many distinct types of sample you want to process using Remote Sampler.
Definition
Sample Type - A distinct group of samples that have a common set of identifying traits. Samples of the same type will have the same on-site workflow within Remote Sampler.
In the case of clean water sampling, one simple example is found in the difference between customer address samples and reservoir samples. The process undertaken on-site is different if the technician is at a customer property to that performed at a service reservoir. As such, different data fields will need to be configured and these fields will need to be set to appear condtionally based on some indicator that signifies the type of a given sample.
Mandatory Data
For each sample type, generate a list of all the mandatory data fields that need to be collected. These fields may be required by an external system e.g. a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS).
e.g.
For a clean water reservoir sample the fields that need to be collected for later analysis are:
Optional Data
Remote Sampler can also gather additional information that may be beneficial from an operational perspective, yet may not be mandatory.