Using Quickbase to Establish a Lab Sample Tracking System

It's being used in the R&D department to catalog a searchable database of commercial DNA samples, and associate their genotypes with them. We needed this database to be searchable by any field; for each sample to have multiple mutations, and for each mutation to be associated with multiple samples. We also needed each sample to be locatable within a box, so that we could find them when they were being used for experiments.

I think we have. I use it for tracking R&D sample's genotypes, phenotypes, and physical locations within our lab. It needs to be used for multiple search functionalities - for example if we need to test samples that have a particular mutation in as particular gene, we search by genotypic mutation. Then we will need to find it for testing, so we then need its physical location within the lab.

I did need some help in establishing relationships between attributes of R&D samples from a much more experienced Quickbase user. I could make simple associations, but I was unable to make concurrent associations searchable at the same time. So I think that simple tables are pretty easy to figure out, but the more complex, the more help is required, especially if you need very specific functionality.

Any time that our lab gets in a new set of samples that have a new set of attributes, the table needs to be updated. The process is very easy, just uploading a couple of Excel spreadsheets with different sets of data, and the associations between the two different sets remain intact once they're initially set up.