Chemical Manager Manual

1. Introduction

   • If you are a chemistry guy: No installation on your local computer is required! Since application is available thru your favorite browser, chrome, IE or Mozilla (sorry MAC users, we didn't test it with Safari) you don't have to install anything on your computer. In addition, you may access from anywhere: your lab, colleagues lab, from cafe when planning next experiment, or even from home, whenever you have your internet device with you!
   • If you are an IT guy: you will need to work a bit, but not too hard to make things work on the server machine, so that chemistry guys can enjoy the application! Believe me, they will appreciate every minute your work on that!

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2. Overview

   1. User roles concept. Our system is split to three roles, when each role can perform different actions:
      1. Admin – which can only open new labs, reset labs and remove them.
      2. Lab User – which can perform basic stock operations such as adding chemicals, check-in, check-out substances, edit substances and search other labs
      3. Lab Manager – which can perform all of the Lab User operations but is also exposed to the Lab Management tab which enables Restriction definition, Substance import and Other lab custom
   2. Family concept. Since organic chemistry world is very rich and diverse, this is something, that every chemical obviously craves, be categorized family. Thus, you can assign every chemical it's family, e.g. sulfur acid is an ACID. In addition, another chemical can be categorized as [FAMILY X] and [FAMILY Y] and it's OK and even more than that, you assign as much families to each chemical as your lab work may require.
   3. Chemical Storage Policy. Obviously, we don't want chemicals, to come into reaction, or even explode if stored in improper way. Thus we introduce a "Safety Restriction" concept, e.g. two chemicals of certain families cannot be stored together. If so, we say "Safety Restriction is Violated". At any point of time application makes sure that all restriction are preserved. But, there also exist real-life scenarios, when restrictions are violated and we can live with that, that case is supported also. That makes application even more flexible and friendlier to use. All violations are thoroughly tracked and user is notified straight away when it happens, or one can review them retrospectively on demand. ion is flexible, it allows

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3. Basic chemical operations - Lab Users, Lab Managers

   1. Add new Chemical. Having imported existed chemicals list each lab member would be able to introduce new chemicals. The "New Chemical" dialog offers user to insert pretty much information about subject chemical, fortunately only one that required. Nevertheless, user is highly recommended to input as much as he can, since this information may be of great use when looking up a chemical later.
   2. Delete existing chemical. This straight forward one. Any chemical may be deleted form it's "Substance Details" dialog.
   3. Check out some amount for existing chemical. Let's imagine you carried out an experiment and consumed some amount of certain chemical. You may easily update the chemical state, having looked up the chemical from Search Dialog and clicking "Check Out" option.
   4. Check in some amount for existing chemical. You may do that when some amount is a leftover from previous experiment or maybe you want to update the total quantity for the certain chemical when new supply was shipped to your lab, rather than introducing new record to your chemical data base. Either option is OK and totally legal - the application supports both!
   5. Chemical MSDS page

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4. Chemical look up - Lab Users, Lab Managers

   1. Basic search. This is a main substance browsing tool – quick, as you type, fast and user-experience oriented! It finds your substance by name or formula. It can work out for your lab, any other lab at your organization or either all of them!
   2. Advanced search. This search extends drastically search functions capabilities. You can look up chemical not only by its name or formula, but also by CAS number, family, supply date, last modification date, family, and even more: you may combine these search criteria!

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5. Advanced chemical operations - Lab Managers only

   1. Import chemical from Excel file. This feature, in general, makes your life really comfortable. It helps, very easily, start off smoothly with Chemical Manager, regardless what software application you've been using before. Let's assume you've been using excel file or some other application to track the chemicals around the lab. And you want to load them all to Chemical Manager. For that, you have to slightly change the file format and that's it! These are the guidelines that you have to follow:
      1. Before You proceed, back up your original excel file.
      2. Your excel file version must be excel 97-2003.
      3. Your excel files must be free of images, embedded objects, or anything else other than plain Text
      4. Your excel files must NOT include empty lines, merged cells, including hidden ones.
      5. The import operation will hold for first data sheet only
      6. First row must start at A1 and include all of the following headers. Spell the headers exactly as listed bellow (You are strongly advised to copy/paste them):
         1) CAS_NUMBER, 2) QUANTITY, 3) NAME, 4) FAMILY, 5) PURITY, 6) UNIT, 7) LOCATION, 8) FORMULA, 9) SUPPLIER, 10) SUPPLY_DATE, 11) MODIFICATION_DATE, 12) COMMENTS,
         In case your excel doesn't include one(or more) of these headers, add a blank column with respective header.
      7. If columns SUPPLY_DATE, MODIFICATION_DATE are NOT empty, corresponding cells have to be formatted in the following manner : dd/MM/yyyy
      8. QUANTITY column may include unit as well, for example "15gr", "4cc", etc.
      9. In order to import the excel file that was previously exported tru "Export CSV" menu, save it as excel 93-2003 format. And only then, import the saved file.
      10. In summary, your excel file must be formatted exactly as downloadable template, which is available for download from actual application.
      11. Before pressing the "Send File", make sure the excel application is closed.
   2. Back Up / Export existing chemicals to excel file. All substance data can be easily exported to csv files which can later be imported back into the system and act as a backup database

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6. Safety restrictions management - Lab Managers only

   
   1. Adding new restriction. As a reminder, I would like to say that safety restriction is a pair of families: let’s say Family A and family B, when none chemical of family A can be stored together with any of chemical of family B. “Add New Restriction” dialog consists of two panes: Left pane and right pane. On the left pane you can pick one family only whilst on the right pane you can click on as many families as you want. After you click “Add Restriction”, the family from the left pane will make up a safety restriction with each family on the right pane. One would think of situation when he wants two particular chemicals be separated, but their families not. What may be done in that situation? The best in that situation is to introduce two new artificial families. One family for each chemical. These artificial families will not include any chemicals except those mentioned. One should pick very specific names for these new families. Let’s assume they are Carbons and Arsenics, which may in real life scenario totally OK with each other, but the user wants to restrict some chemicals under these families. So new families will be: Carbons_restricted and Arsenics_restricted. In addition, these two subject chemicals must be assigned to these families. Thus in very elegant way we solve the application responds to that situation!
   2. Deleting existing restriction Delete restriction is very simple: check the respective checkbox or even several of them and click “Delete Restrictions”. The checked restrictions are automatically removed from the list
   3. Validating existing restrictions This feature gives you a deep insight of what is going on inside your lab. You may do this in two ways:
      • • On demand. You have to take an initiative and click on a button “Validate restrictions”. After that you will get a full list of restrictions that somehow problematic in terms of your lab manager. Thus you will know exactly what drawer, box or container holds chemical of restricted families. You will get exact families names and chemicals themselves altogether.
      • • By notification. When you are trying to add a new chemical and the placement is problematic in terms of your lab manager, you will a respective notification. In addition, you would be asked to pick an alternative chemical location/placement; as stated before, you can always choose to ignore this safety restriction.
   4. Exporting existing restrictions to excel file This feature is useful if you want to email someone the restrictions list your lab has, or maybe your IT guy is upgrading the application, so you want to be sure that your data is backed up.

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7. Family, Location, Units management - Lab Managers only

   1. Family management. For example, one lab may work with silver organic compounds, but other labs don’t, that’s why this particular manager will add a lot of brand new, custom families relevant to their field of research. In addition, manager may rename existing ones, and delete them. Nevertheless, the application comes with a set of predefined families that may be relevant to every lab.
      These are :

      “Metals", "Hydrides", "Acetates", "Halides", "Iodides", "Sulfates", "Sulfites", "Thiosulfates", "Phosphates", "Halogens", "Oxalates", "Phthalates", "Oleates", "Amides", "Nitrates",(except Ammonium Nitrate), "Nitrites", "Azides", "Hydroxides", "Oxides", "Silicates", "Carbonates", "Carbon”, “Sulfides", "Selenides", "Phosphides", "Carbides", "Nitrides”, “Chlorates", "Bromates", "Iodates", "Chlorites", "Hypochlorites", "Perchlorates”, “Perchloric Acid", "Peroxides", "Hydrogen Peroxide”, “Arsenates", "Cyanides", "Cyanates”, “Borates", "Chromates", "Manganates", "Permanganates", "Molybdates", "Vanadates”, ”Acids”, (except Nitric, since Nitric Acid must be isolated and stored by itself.) , “Sulfur", "Phosphorus", "Arsenic", "Phosphorus Pentoxide”, “Acids", "Amino Acids", "Anhydrides", "Peracids”, “Alcohols", "Glycols", "Sugars", "Amines", "Amides", "Imines", "Imides”, “Hydrocarbons", "Esters", "Aldehydes", "Oils”, “Ethers", "Ketones", "Ketenes", "Halogenated Hydrocarbons", "Ethylene Oxide”, “Epoxy Compounds", "Isocyanates”, “Peroxides", "Hydroperoxides", "Azides”, “Sulfides", "Polysulfides", "Sulfoxides", "Nitriles”, “Phenols", "Cresols”, “Dyes", "Stains", "Indicators".

   2. Location management. Needles to say it’s very different from lab to lab. Lab manager may add new locations, rename existing ones, and delete them.
   3. Unit management.Conceptually, units are very similar over different labs, but they still can easily be customized. Similarly to families, application comes with predefined set of units: "kg", "gr", "g", "mg", "L", "liter", "ml", "cc", "ampulla", "box".

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8. Users management - Lab Managers only

   As for our approach, we gave very much attention to idea that different types of users should see slightly different types of screens. Each lab has two types of users: “Lab User” and “Lab Manager”.
   1. Change lab user password.. This is pretty straight forward. By default, Lab User’s password is the same as labs name, thus it its highly recommended, that Lab Manager would change the password after the lab is created.
   2. Change lab manager password. . By default, Lab Manager’s password is manager. Thus after the lab is created, this password should be changed too.

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9. Super faculty admin - Admins only

   
   1. Add new lab
   2. Reset existing lab
   3. Delete existing lab
   4. Change his own password

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