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Onboarding guide

From an empty laboratory to your first verified report — what to set up, in what order. Written for the administrator setting LabPilot up; each step opens to show exactly what to do.

Part 1

Secure your own account

You are the laboratory's administrator — there is exactly one. Before anything else, make the account that can change everything hard to take over.

1Manage your own accountName, password, notifications.
  1. Open My account from the menu under your name.
  2. Edit your name, phone, location and bio.
  3. Change your password.
  4. Set notification preferences, and enable push notifications on this device if you want alerts when the tab is closed.

Screen: /account · Anyone signed in

Then turn on two-factor sign-in under My account.

Part 2

Set the laboratory up

Configuration you do once. The order matters: tests point at master data, and staff are created into roles.

2Set the laboratory profile and brandingWhat appears on every report and receipt you hand out.
  1. Open Branding.
  2. Enter the name, address, phone, email and registration number. These print on the report footer.
  3. Upload a logo — PNG or JPEG. Keep it under 512KB or it will not be inlined into PDFs.
  4. Write the header and footer notes if you want standing text on every report.
  5. Choose the accent colour. It repaints the interface and the report headings.

Screen: /branding · Needs branding.manage

3Fill in master dataThe dropdown values the rest of the system offers.
  1. Open Master Data.
  2. Work through departments, specimen types, measuring units, sample statuses, patient types, occupations, regions and discount reasons.
  3. Do this before the test catalog — tests reference departments, specimen types and units.

Screen: /masters · Needs masters.manage

4Build the test catalogThe tests you offer, what they cost, and what normal looks like.
  1. Open Test Catalog and add a test: code, name, department, specimen type, price and turnaround target.
  2. Set the reference ranges. Ranges can differ by sex and by age band, and the right one is chosen per patient at result entry.
  3. For a test reporting several analytes, add its parameters, each with its own unit and range.
  4. Group tests into packages under Test Catalog → Packages, so a common request is one click.
  5. Link consumables so stock is drawn down as tests are run.

Good to know

  • Reference ranges are the single most important thing on this screen. Every high and low flag on every report is computed against them.
  • Bulk import is available if you are moving from another system.

Screen: /catalog · Needs catalog.manage

5Define rolesDecide what each kind of colleague may do, before you create them.
  1. Open Roles. Four built-in roles are already there — Receptionist, Lab Technician, Pathologist, Administrator — each holding everything its base role allows.
  2. To narrow one, edit it and untick permissions.
  3. To create a role of your own, choose a base role and tick from what that base allows.
  4. An inactive Accounts role is seeded for you. Switch it on if you have an accounts clerk.

Good to know

  • The base role is the important choice and cannot be changed later. It is what the database itself checks, and every permission on the role is validated against it.
  • You cannot grant a permission above the base role's ceiling — the screen will not offer it and the database would refuse it.

Screen: /roles · Needs roles.manage

6Create staff accountsGive colleagues a login.
  1. Open Staff and choose New colleague.
  2. Enter their name, email and role.
  3. Save. A temporary password is shown once — hand it over directly.
  4. They must change it at first sign-in.

Good to know

  • You can create receptionists, technicians and pathologists. You cannot create another administrator: a laboratory has exactly one, and appointing it is the platform operator's job.
  • To remove somebody's access, deactivate them rather than deleting. Deactivating stops their logins and their API tokens immediately, and keeps their name readable in the audit trail.

Screen: /staff · Needs staff.manage

7Configure operating rulesThe switches that change what the system will accept.
  1. Open Lab Settings.
  2. Operating rules are typed switches — the payment gate, amendment approval, and similar.
  3. Configuration holds untyped content that changes how documents read.
  4. Prescription templates hold reusable wording.

Good to know

  • The payment gate is the setting most often switched on without the bench being told. If technologists cannot enter results on unpaid orders, this is why.

Screen: /settings · Needs settings.manage

8Set up the referral networkDoctors, collection centres, reference labs and their rates.
  1. Open Network.
  2. Add referring doctors with their commission percentage. Commission accrues as their orders are billed.
  3. Add collection centres and the rates you charge them.
  4. Add outsource labs for tests you send away, with what they charge you.

Screen: /network · Needs network.manage

9Edit message templatesWhat patients and doctors actually receive.
  1. Open Messaging.
  2. Each event — order registered, sample collected, report ready, payment outstanding — has a template.
  3. Edit the wording, using the placeholders listed for that event.
  4. Placeholders not on the list will not be substituted and will print literally.

Screen: /messaging · Needs messaging.templates

10Set turnaround targetsDefine what late means, so the system can tell you.
  1. Open Turnaround.
  2. Set a target per test or department, and a tighter one for STAT.
  3. Breaches are swept every fifteen minutes and appear on Delayed Work.

Screen: /operations/tat · Needs tat.manage

11Set the critical escalation rosterDecide who gets paged when nobody answers.
  1. Open the Critical Desk and set the roster.
  2. Order the people an unacknowledged alert escalates to, and the delay between steps.
  3. A sweep runs every five minutes and works down that list until somebody acknowledges.

Screen: /operations/critical · Needs critical.manage

Part 3

Run one order end to end

Before real patients, push a test order all the way through. It is the quickest way to find a missing reference range, a role without a permission, or a payment rule nobody told the bench about.

12Register a patientCreate the record everything else hangs off.
  1. Open Patients and search first — by name, phone or MRN. Most people who feel new are returning.
  2. If there is no match, choose New patient.
  3. Enter the full name, date of birth and sex. These three are not cosmetic: age and sex select the reference ranges every result on every future report is compared against.
  4. Add phone and address if you have them. The phone is what report-ready and payment-due messages go to.
  5. Save. The record is given an MRN, which is the number to quote on everything afterwards.

Good to know

  • Getting date of birth or sex wrong produces results that are flagged high or low against the wrong range. It is the single most consequential field on the screen.
  • Registering the same person twice splits their history, so delta checks stop comparing against the right previous result. Search properly before creating.

Screen: /patients · Needs patients.manage

13Take an orderBook a walk-in from start to receipt on one screen.
  1. Open Orders and choose New order.
  2. Find the patient by name, MRN, phone or email. If they are not there, choose New patient (or press Enter when nothing matches) and enter their name, phone, sex and age. They are registered when the order is saved.
  3. Add the tests. Search by name or code; a package adds all of its tests at once, and more tests can be added to it. A package's own tests cannot be taken off one by one.
  4. Set the priority. A STAT order is measured against a much tighter turnaround target and shows differently on the worklist.
  5. Name the referring doctor if there is one. This is what drives their commission later, so it matters to the accounts as well as to the report.
  6. Payment starts at Full, in cash. Switch to Part or Pay later, or another payment mode, if that is not what is happening. Add discount is under the payment heading for anyone allowed to give one.
  7. Save, or press Ctrl+Enter. The order and its invoice are raised, the payment is recorded, and the receipt opens to print. The form clears for the next patient, with the saved order shown above it.

Good to know

  • Age is turned into an estimated date of birth, which is enough to pick an adult's reference ranges. For a baby, or anyone whose exact date matters, use the full registration form, linked from New patient.
  • Clinical context, travel, donation, the collection centre and notes are under More details. Most orders need none of them.
  • Prices come from the test catalog at the moment the order is taken, so a later price change does not rewrite an order already placed.
  • A reflex rule may add a follow-up test automatically once a result comes back. That test appears on the order afterwards and is billed then, not now.

Screen: /orders · Needs orders.create

14Collect paymentTake money still owed on an invoice and give the patient a receipt.
  1. Open Collections. Outstanding invoices are listed with what is still owed.
  2. Find the invoice — by order number, patient name or invoice number.
  3. Choose Collect payment.
  4. Enter the amount and the method. A part payment is fine: the balance stays on the invoice and the order remains payable.
  5. Save. The payment posts to the ledger and the invoice balance drops.
  6. Print the receipt from the invoice if the patient wants one.

Good to know

  • A walk-in normally pays on the New order screen as the order is saved. This is for what is left: a part payment, a pay-later, or a bill settled on collection day.
  • If your laboratory has the payment gate switched on, the bench cannot key results for this order until the balance reaches zero. That is the setting to check when a technologist says an order will not let them enter anything.
  • You cannot reduce a bill by collecting less than it says. Discounting is a separate, administrator-only action so that a shortfall is always a decision somebody made rather than a number somebody typed.

Screen: /billing · Needs billing.collect

16Collect and book in a specimenRecord that the sample exists and where it is.
  1. Open the Specimens desk.
  2. Scan or enter the accession number.
  3. Mark it collected, with the time. Turnaround is measured from here, not from when the order was taken.
  4. Record the storage location if your laboratory tracks one.

Screen: /specimens · Needs specimens.manage

17Receive a specimen at the benchAccept a sample into the laboratory's custody.
  1. Scan the tube on arrival.
  2. Check it against what the order expects — right container, adequate volume, intact.
  3. Mark it received. It now appears on the worklist for its tests.

Screen: /specimens · Needs specimens.receive

18Enter resultsRecord the measurements against the order.
  1. Open the order from the worklist.
  2. Enter the value for each test. Multi-parameter tests expand into their analytes.
  3. Read the flag beside each value. High and low are computed against the reference range for this patient's age and sex, not a single fixed range.
  4. Add an interpretation or comment where the number alone is not the finding.
  5. Save. The results are now waiting for verification — they are not yet on any report.

Good to know

  • If the screen refuses to accept entry, check three things in order: the payment gate on an unpaid order, a QC block on the analyte, and whether the specimen was actually received.
  • A delta check warns when a value has moved a long way from this patient's own previous result. It is a prompt to confirm, not an error — but confirm before saving.
  • Entering a critical value raises an alert immediately, before verification. Somebody has to acknowledge it.

Screen: /worklist · Needs results.enter

19Verify and release a reportApprove results and issue the patient's report.
  1. Open Verification. Orders with every test resulted and nothing yet released are listed.
  2. Open an order and read the results together, not one at a time — the pattern is the finding.
  3. Check flagged values against the patient's history. A delta warning that has not been explained is a reason to pause.
  4. Add an interpretation where it helps the requesting clinician.
  5. Verify. The report is generated, the share link becomes live, and the patient and referring doctor are messaged.

Good to know

  • Verification is the point of no return for the document. What is issued is frozen as a snapshot, so later edits to the underlying results cannot silently rewrite a report somebody already holds.
  • Your name goes on it as the verifying pathologist. That is the signature.
  • Every report carries a notice that it is for diagnosis and treatment only and is not valid for medico-legal purposes.

Screen: /verification · Needs orders.verify

Part 4

Before you go live

The routines the bench will rely on from the first morning.

20Record a QC runEnter control results and see whether the method is in control.
  1. Open Quality Control and choose the analyte and control lot.
  2. Enter the control value.
  3. The Westgard rules are evaluated as you save, and the Levey-Jennings chart updates.
  4. If a rule breaks, the run is flagged and an investigation is opened.

Good to know

  • A broken rule can block result entry for that analyte, which is deliberate: it stops patient results going out on a method that has just failed its own control.

Screen: /qc · Needs qc.record

21Sign in on a shared device by QRGet onto a bench terminal without typing a password on it.
  1. On the signed-out device, choose Sign in with QR. It shows a code and a two-digit number.
  2. On your phone, already signed in, scan the code.
  3. Your phone shows three numbers. Tap the one displayed on the other device.
  4. The device is signed in.

Good to know

  • Matching the number is what proves the two devices are in the same room. If the numbers do not match, somebody else is trying to sign in — stop.
  • The handshake is single-use and expires quickly. Start again rather than reusing a stale code.

Screen: /auth/login · Anyone signed in

22Connect an analyserSet up the channel that receives results from a machine.
  1. Open Analyser Channels and create one for the instrument.
  2. Choose the protocol it speaks — ASTM, HL7 or JSON.
  3. Map its test codes to your catalog, so what it calls GLU arrives as your glucose test.
  4. Note the channel id. The on-premise bridge needs it.
  5. Run the bridge on a machine on the same network as the analyser, with an API token that may record results.
  6. Send a test message and watch it arrive in Incoming Results.

Good to know

  • The bridge authenticates with a personal access token, and results filed through it are attributed to that token's owner. An analyser cannot be accountable for a clinical result; a named technologist can.
  • The token must carry write access. Tick 'Let this token record results' when creating it — a read-only token is refused by the results endpoint.

Screen: /instruments · Needs instruments.manage

And make sure the bench knows the offline bench exists before the first network outage, not during it.

Everything else — stock, quality management, accounting, reflex rules — is in the documentation, and inside the product under How to, which shows each colleague the tasks their role can do.