Quick Start Guide

Basic Funcionalities of MetroLabIS

version: 1.0.1

1 Introduction

In this quick start guide, you will get acquainted with basic elements of MetroLabIS. In few short lessons, you will learn to create: (1) basic laboratory parameters (staff functions and persons accessing the service), (2) documents system for quality management (internal and external documents), (3) methods (testing and calibrating), (4) users (customers and providers) i (5) laboratory equipment.

Besides that, we will show you how to create alarms reminding you on documents expiration.

But before all of that, we will go through basic usage and menu navigation.

2 User environment

2.1 Application menu

Application menu consists of six elements: (1) Dashboard, (2) Quality system, (3) Administration, (4) "user", (5) Help, and (6) language switcher.

Main menu

Two menu items are personalized: the icon in the left corner (your lab's logo) and a name of currently logged-in user ("svelab" in this example).

Now we will examine the menu structure.

2.1.1 Dashboard

This item returns you to the home page, where you can find information about free space, a reminder regarding expiring your documents, the total number and status of your files, and the list of activities on the program during last 24 h.

Dashboard

Subscribing to MetroLabIS, within the basic plan you, also, get 1 GB space on our servers. Typically, you will use this space for storing your attachments in their original formats: images, pdf doeuments, tables, etc. Mainly, you will store you documents of the management system (rule books, manuals, standards, calibration certificates, etc.).

Reminders are here to inform you when a document expires, for example, is the calibration certificate for a piece of equipment is about to expire, or is it time for the next internal audit.

Total File No. is the entering point to everyday lab work. You get information on active and archived files, while activation of Directory transfers you to your digital document archive, where you have full control over all files.

Finally, Activity Diary is a register of your recent activities: file creation, filling-in of working forms, reporting on performed tests or calibrations and similar, which can help you in reconstruction of previous works.

2.1.2 Quality system

Here you can find basic functions of the service. They are stored and numbered according to the actual version of the reference standard (ISO/IEC 17025:2017, in the time when this tutorial is written).

The reason for this kind of storing and numbering is precise tracking of the standard elements, which also significantly accelerates responses to the accreditation body crew during an external audit.

Currently supported reference stardard sections, in the sense of data input, processing, and presentation, are:
- 5.5 b) Responsibility and authority, where functions of lab personnel are determined
- 6.2 Personnel: personnel docs (function, responsibilities, auxiliary documentation,...)
-6.3 Facilities and environmental conditions. Here you can enter all information about the lab, organize the way how to numerate files, number formats, usernames of your employees that would have an access to the system, as well as, locations making the lab's workplace
- 6.4 Equipment: docs of standards/equipment/instruments (measuring characteristics, manuals, usage locations, calibrations,...)
- 7.2 Selection, verification, and validation of methods: Complete information on each test/calibration method, measuring quantities, measuring uncertainties, reference documents, locations of performing methods,...
- 7.4.2 Identification of calibration or test items: information on tested samlples and calibrated instruments
- 8.2 Management system documentation: Creating templates for internal and external documents that make the laboratory quality management system

2.1.3 Administration

2.1.3.1 Partners

Here you will include all your business partners (suppliers, customers, and manufacturers) into the system. You will automate communication and reporting by entering information about addresses, contacts, account numbers, etc.

A key element of this part of the service is defining persons who will access MetroLabIS in behafl of the partner. By entering a username, name, last name, e-mail address, and password to the user (one or more of them), you allow your partner a limited access to the system in needed and sufficed amount for complete communication.

Your partners will, via their user accounts, have the following permissions related to testing and calibrations:
- creating and printing test/calibration requests
- filling in and printing handover logs for samples
- printing work logs (measures form) and
- printing testing reports or calibration certificates.
For other documents you possibly create for a user (offers, contracts, (proforma) invoices, letters, records,...), there is print permission, while edits or deletions are not allowed.
Generally, for security reasons, the partners cannot delete any documents related for their files, even the requests they create by themselves.

2.1.3.2 Data types

MetroLabIS recognizes the following data types:
- text,
- long text,
- integer,
- floating point number,
- decimal number,
- yes/no,
- date,
- time,
- datetime,
- e-mail,
- url,
- image,
- file,
- list i
- label.

The types: text, long text, e-mail, url, and label are all, basically, textual fields. A context of their application differs. For example, the difference between text and long text is, except in the length of the data itself, a way how it is displayed in printed documents. The long texts are, generally, treated as section in longer documents, while text fields are usually shorter that 100-200 characters. There is no a strict border, but it exist specifically because of different treatment in the printed documents.

It is likely that you will have no need for creating customized standard data types. The option for creating a new data type exists because of creating lists.

Introducing a new data type of the type "list" with its values and choosing this type in creating data in any context (method, document of management system, etc.), you limit the allowed values to the newly created data, which is particularly useful when specialized lists are requested.

2.1.3.3 Themes

A theme is definition of a document's layout. It is expected that all your documents share a standardized form, layout, and description, with changeable content, meaning, adapted to the type of the document you are forming. At some extent, you can imagine the theme as a template in some other programs, although it has much more wider meaning.

A theme definition form in comprehensive and contains all necessary elements for unique visual determination of a document system. Elements containted in the theme are divided in five groups:
- general data: name, numeration, space above the title, space between title and subtitle, space below the subtitle, space above the section, space below the section, text threshold, document description
- frames: frame type, frame width, frame colour, padding (each feature available for: text, table, table heading, page footer)
- font definitions: font, text font size, alignment, style, background, you create all of these features for: document title, document subtitle, section title, section subtitle, table heading, table text, text, table heading, page footer
- page definition (page height and width, upper, bottom, left and right margin and orientation), and
- page header and footer content: here you will enter elements that you want to be displayed in the header's and footer's: left, middle, and right side.

If there is a need for different descriptions of lab's documents and if, for some reason, you do not need them to be uniform, you can create and later use a custom number of themes. Selection and element varieties making a theme is, as we have seen, very wide, which makes this concept very flexible.

2.1.3.4 Actions

Actions are your reminders for important activities. Define a custom number of alarms for each activity with a certain due, and the alarm will remind you when to act.

Currently, you can choose between two action types:
- document due and
- calibration.

2.1.3.4.1 Documents expiration

This action type is already embedded to the system. Each document you create, contains the field "Expiring date". If you enter some date here, the system will, through the card "Reminder", inform you about expiring.

By defining an action in this part of the program, you can change schedule and presentation type of these warnings.

2.1.3.4.2 Calibration

Here you can customize a warning about approaching the next calibration of the laboratory equipment.

2.1.4 "User"

Instead of the title "User", this menu item will hold your username.

Here you can change your password, and to logout from the system.

Editing other access parameters (name, surname, and e-mail address) is performed in Q/A System - 6.3 Facilities and environmental conditions - users.

2.1.5 Help

Manuals and instructions for using MetroLabIS.

2.2 Navigation

For quicker orientation in the menu system, the upper and bottom part of each page hold a breadcrumb showing where you are within the app.

Higher level page titles and hyperlinked, so you can return to each previously opened page, by clicking that link.

Note: clicking a breadcrumb link, data in the current form are not updated, so possible changes are not saved.

Saving changes is performed by clicking the OK or Update buttons. The difference between these two buttons is that, clicking OK returns you to the page you arrived from, while Update just updates the changes and remains on the same page. Cllicking Close closes the pages without updating it and returns you to the page you arrived from.

3 Starting your work

When you create a trial MetroLabIS account, you get few filled-in forms, as a help for exploring and creating the ones you need.

The best start is exploring the option Q/A System - 8.2 Management system documentation. There you can find created two sets of internal document templates; the first covering testing (test request, handover log, and test report), and the other, example of calibration (calibration request, measuring log, and calibration certificate).

Also, we prepared for you corresponding external documents for both examples, covering standards for the applied methods.

3.1 A structure of an internal document

Internal documents are divided into sections. The section description allows editing some of the parameters defined by the theme, so here you can do some further customization of the theme, to fit the particular need.

There are, also, four yes/no fields:
- method data
- measuring equipment data
- samples data, and
- measurement data.

Each of these four elements creates a corresponding table within the section, where requested data are sorted, so there is no need for any manual intervention. For example, if you set "yes" for measuring equipment data, MetroLabIS will create a table with information about instrument(s) subjected to calibration. Similar stands for other three options.

Below the main form, there are two auxiliary options:
- general data, and
- signatures.

General data are entered in a free form, they can contain any content, but you will use it mostly for entering general data about a document, client, dates, etc., where you will use keywords, which is covered earlier in this manual.

3.2 Methods

Within the package of helping documents/forms, in the menu Q/A System - 7.2 Selection, verification and validation of methos, you can find two methods (a test and a calibration), so you can easier specify your own.

The main method form is the place you will enter all important parameters (name, type (standard, modified, developed in the lab), measuring range, traceability, description of measurement uncertainty, etc.).

Fields "Area of testing/calibration" and "Testing item/subsort" are predefined and taken from Serbian Accreditation Body Manual ATS-UP07 "A list of areas for codes/keywords for test/calibration/control/certification testing of conformity", where you choose the area and subsort for each method, as standing in your scope of accreditation.
gde ćete, za svaku svoju metodu, izabrati onu oblast i podvrstu, kako vam piše u obimu akreditacije.

3.2.1 Method details

Method details are these elements/data/parameters specific for each particular method. Here there are input data you gathered from your clients in the request for test/calibration, parameters you measure, calculated values, etc.

For each data, you have a wide scope of describing it. Beside basic data, as: name, unit, type, tolerance, lower and upper limit, here you choose in which (printed) document will that particular data appear:
- (test or calibration) request
- handover log (when it is about testing a sample)
- working log (calibration), and
- report (test report or calibration certificate).

Depending on the chosen data type, you can, also, choose its format. If the format field is empty, the format defined in the lab's basic data will be used.

If you have defined some data of the "list" data type (in Administration - Data types), you can use it here by choosing "list" for "data type". Fill in other field and click "Update". Now, a new field "List" will appear in the form under the "Data type", where you can choose any of the lists you created earlier.

3.2.2 Reference documents

If you have created management system documents of the type:
- standard
- working manual
- technical manual
- manual
- rulebook or
- other reference document,
here you can join them to the editing method.

In this way, the reference standards or other reference documents are joined to the method and they will automatically appear in created tables.

3.2.3 Locations where methods are executed

The reference standard ISO 17025 requests that each method contains, also, information about the location where it is executed. The locations defined in "Q/A System - 6.3 Facilities and environmental conditions - objects/locations" will appear in a dropdown menu and you can join them to the method.

4 Directory

You access the directory via the dashboard's card "File No.". You will see the list of active files which you can edit or delete.

4.1 Creating a new file

You create a new file by clicking to "Create file". Its number will be automatically formed according to the template you entered into "Q/A System - 6.3 Facilities and environmental conditions - File number format".

You enter the file name and, also, choose a partner and a user. The partner is your client you start a contract related to testing or calibration. The user is a company that the partner named as the user of your service. In other words, the partner issues the request in behalf of the user, while the test report or the calibration certificate should point to the user.

These two items are optional, is you use MetroLabIS as a general directory and have files that are not strictly related to one particular partner.

In the lower part of the form, you add and edit documents related to the file. "Add" button will create a new empty document. Here you can, also, join a partner (if it differs from the one created in the file), type and name of the document, as well as, auxiliary parameters connected to review, expiring and status of the file.

As a document type, you can select some of the internal documents of management system which you have previously formed in the "Q/A System - 8.2 Management system documentation".

General data list, in the lower part of the form is, currently, empty. If you select an earlier created test or calibration request, this table will be populated by fields filled in according to instructions and default values in the corresponding template.

4.2 Request for testing

If you have chosen "Request for testing" for a document type, one more table will be created, "requested methods", where you will enter requested , testing method(s), together with number of samples for each method.

When the testing request is filled in, by clicking the command "Review" (found in a table row where information on the request are), a handover log is created, with needed number of samples, making it ready for further populating with data.

When the handover log is populated, by clicking "Generate reports", MetroLabIS generates needed number of test reports, according to the previously defined template, and with all necessary data requested by the reference standard.

4.3 Calibration request

If "Calibration request" data type is selected, instead of "requested methods", the other table will be named "equipment", where you will enter information about the instruments the calibration is requested for.

You select the equipment from the database of already calibrated instruments but, also, you can enter the instruments that are coming to your lab for the first time, saving them for future use.

Instrument already existing in the database, you will enter simply by selecting it from the existing list.

Similarly as with the test request, clicking "Review" registers the request as reviewed and creates a working form which you will populate.

When you have populated the working form, selecting "Generate certificate" option, a calibration certificate is automatically created. Your client can download it immediately after logging to the system.

5 Further steps

MetroLabIS is an actively developing system. Since it is a web service, you do not need to update it, everything happens centralized.

You will be informed about major updates. Users of the paying service get, also, complete technical support, as well as, an auxiliary set of manuals, courses, and supporting material.

For all your questions regarding MetroLabIS, the technical support is always available at support@metrolabis.com, and ready to answer to all your requests.

We wish you successful digitalization of your laboratory with MetroLabIS!