When considering the controls, checks and balances you might need for effective freezer inventory control, who can do what to which samples is often an important aspect of managing scientific sample collections. ICAST can apply configurable “rules” to specific collections as well as the lists used to administer groups of samples

Freezers and other storage facilities will often be used to store a variety of different sample types. To help with administration, ICAST groups the samples into a configurable catalogue of “Collections”. And when users want to retrieve or remove samples from storage, ICAST organises the appropriate samples into user generated “lists” for processing.

Database administrators can apply completely configurable “rules” to each collection or list type, giving full control over what can and cannot be done to each sample.

For example, a rule could be applied so that only certain users can view the sample records of a specific collection. Or a different rule configured such that users cannot add samples to a list if it means that there would be no samples left of a specific collection or batch.

In addition to the flexible rules that can be applied to lists, database administrators can also set the characteristics of individual lists types. Example characteristics include the type of action performed on the list when processed, or simply the colour associated with the sample when added to a specific list.

The configurability and flexibility of the rules engine and list characteristics is another example of how ICAST is specifically designed to effectively and efficiently manage inventory control for scientific sample collections