Sample ID Configuration: Increment by Samples Created Per Week/Month/Year

Configuring custom ID's in QBench is a valuable tool for any lab as it can provide clarity, increase productivity, and promote workspace organization. That being said, incrementing the Sample ID by the number of Samples created per week is not recommended by the developers at QBench due to the possibility of it breaking some of the valuable benefits that custom ID's have to offer.

Our database enforces that all custom ID's must be unique as this is a standard for any database system properly configured. The main issue with incrementing the Sample ID by the number of Samples created per week is that it removes the database generated Sample ID, which is truly unique, from the custom ID. This can cause issues in terms of duplicate ID's attempting to be created.

Here is an example of where issues will arise:

If a user has this option selected, and the prefix of the ID is "SA-", by the start of the next week, this user will not be able to create any more new Samples with custom ID's enabled due to non-unique custom ID's attempting to be created.

Example:

Week 1: SA-001, SA-002, SA-003, ...

Week 2: SA-001 ERROR.

When a custom ID is no longer truly unique, it is no longer clear which Sample is which, productivity becomes stagnant as clarification is required in certain cases, and workspace organization is threatened. This is why unique rules must be enforced.

We recommend keeping the standard configuration which keeps the database generated Sample ID in the custom ID, ensuring that it's uniqueness and clarity is guaranteed.