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Some laboratories never see a donor. Sealed specimens arrive from external collection sites with their chain-of-custody paperwork already complete, and what the lab owes back is a report an external Medical Review Officer can act on. Reference Lab — Intake to Report Only is that shape: intake → screening → confirmation → finalized PDF report, with the collection, MRO and DER modules taken away.

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Switch the mode

1

Open the Lab Workflow card

Under Settings, open the Lab Workflow tab. The card explains its own scope: “Determines which laboratory module is shown to your staff. Switching modes does not delete any data — orders remain in their original workflow.”
2

Choose Reference Lab

Select Reference Lab — Intake to Report Only, which carries a New badge: “For laboratories that receive sealed specimens from external collection sites and produce a PDF report for an external MRO. Hides collection, MRO, and DER modules.”Choosing it reveals an alert headed Reference Lab mode: “This mode hides the collection, MRO review, and DER reporting modules from the DOT-LIMS sidebar. Orders move from intake → screening → confirmation → finalized PDF report. Existing in-flight orders are unaffected.”
3

Save

Select Save Workflow Mode — Reset abandons the change. The toast reads Lab workflow updated — Reload your DOT-LIMS pages to see the new mode.
4

Tell your team to reload

Anyone with a DOT-LIMS page already open keeps the old mode until they reload. Reference Lab mode also reveals two further settings cards — Lab Report Branding and Custom Panels — which is worth setting up before your first report goes out. See MRO review and the employer report for custom panels.
Switching modes migrates nothing. Orders already in flight stay in the workflow they were raised under and finish there, so a lab mid-changeover will run both shapes side by side for a while. That is intended.

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What changes on screen

The DOT entries are renamed rather than removed, and the screens behind them are re-labelled for intake working: The collection-supplies sheet is hidden because a reference lab transcribes an external chain-of-custody form and runs no collection of its own. On a lab running Standard Clinical Lab, the DOT entries are hidden entirely instead.

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Book in a specimen

Select New Intake to open the New Lab Intake Order sheet. Its cards run in the order you will work them.
1

Identify the specimen

On Specimen Identification, enter Specimen / CCF ID * — “Scan the barcode on the CCF or type the 12-character ID printed on the bottle.” Scan it with a barcode wedge, use the camera button, or generate a random ID where no external form applies.Lab Accession Number (LAN) is filled in for you — “Auto-generated. Edit if needed.” — in the shape LAB-{year}-{5 digits}. Then record Date & Time Received *: when the specimen physically arrived at your bench.
2

Record the test information

Agency / Program * takes Non-DOT, FMCSA, FAA, FRA, FTA, PHMSA or USCG. Test Reason * takes Pre-Employment, Random, Reasonable Suspicion, Post-Accident, Return to Duty, Follow-Up or Other. Choose the specimen type — urine or oral fluid, with oral fluid pre-selected — and then the Drug Panel *.The specimen type decides which cutoffs the bench works to and whether specimen validity testing is required, so read it off the CCF rather than accepting the default. See Screen and confirm a specimen.
3

Attach the donor

Under Donor, use Search Patient * (“Select donor…”) to attach the person, then record the donor identifier the chain-of-custody form carries — an Employee ID, an SSN, or a CDL with its state and number.
4

Transcribe the collection metadata

Collection metadata (from CCF) is where the external site’s record goes: when it was collected, the collector’s name and phone, the collection site’s name, address and phone, and whether the collection was observed and why. Copy it from the form in front of you rather than from memory.
5

Record the employer

Employer takes the name, address and any remarks, plus an optional referring doctor so the work is attributed for your referrer reporting. See Referring clinics.
6

Create the order

Save the sheet. The toast reads Lab intake order created — LAN: {LAN}, and the order joins the Lab Intake Queue under Intake Pending.
The Specimen / CCF ID must match the ID on the bottle exactly. A specimen ID that does not match its label is a fatal flaw: the test cannot be used for any employment-related action and has to be cancelled. Scan it rather than typing it wherever you can, and check the last four characters against the bottle before you save.

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Scanning the specimen ID

The field accepts three inputs. A handheld barcode wedge types into it like a keyboard and needs no setup. The camera button scans the barcode on the CCF with the device’s own camera. And where no external form exists, Generate random ID produces one. Two camera messages you may meet:
  • Camera access requires HTTPS. Open this page over a secure connection to scan. — the page is not on a secure connection. Use the normal app.clinikehr.com address rather than a local one.
  • Camera permission denied. Allow camera access in your browser settings to scan. — grant the camera permission to the site, then reopen the scanner.
A wedge scanner works in both cases and is the more reliable choice at a busy receiving bench.

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Donor identifiers are stored encrypted

The identifier you enter — SSN, employee number or CDL — is stored encrypted and shown masked afterwards. You will not be able to read it back off the order, so if you need to correct it, re-enter it in full.

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From intake to report

Once the order is on the queue, the rest is the ordinary bench workflow with two stages removed:

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Check it worked

  • The sidebar reads Lab Intake and Intake History, and the queue is headed Lab Intake Queue.
  • The status filter offers All Orders, Intake Pending, In Analysis and Finalized.
  • Your new order appears under Intake Pending with the LAN from the toast.
  • Settings › Lab Workflow now also shows Lab Report Branding and Custom Panels.

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If something goes wrong

They need to reload. The success message says so: Reload your DOT-LIMS pages to see the new mode.
Orders raised before the switch finish in their original workflow. That is deliberate — nothing is migrated, and nothing is lost.
Setting the mode is an owner or manager action. Ask one of them rather than working around it — see Roles.
Read the message. Camera access requires HTTPS means the connection, not the camera; Camera permission denied means the browser permission. Either way a barcode wedge scanner will work immediately.
That is correct. Identifiers are stored encrypted and shown masked. To change one, enter the full value again.
Build it under Settings › Lab Workflow › Custom Panels, and check each custom analyte has a confirmation cutoff for the specimen type — without one it will not appear. See MRO review and the employer report.