SDMS Grabber is an application that creates a connection channel through which SDMS communicates with other facilities and exchanges data. There are two types of communication sources: one is computer directories that contain files that the user wants to upload to the system, and another is medical instruments that send out messages containing medical data such as patient test results. Therefore, there are two types of data with which the Grabber is dealing: documents or instrument messages.

Documents

When working with SDMS, the first step is to upload files into the system and send them to the server for storing and (possibly) further processing. This can be done automatically using Document Grabbers. The grabbers are small applications that are installed on users' workstations. They silently monitor the file system, capture newly created files, and upload the files into the SDMS.

SDMS grabbers monitor predefined directories for predefined file types. After logging onto the system, the data monitor is activated. It monitors all the relevant input sources. For example, after an instrument or OCR scanner writes a file to the predefined directory, the file is collected and sent to the SDMS processing queue. Once received in SDMS, depending on the grabber configuration, the file is removed from the folder, moved to another folder, or retained in the folder.

By default, the system keeps monitoring the file system for events about newly created files.

Instrument Messages

SDMS Grabber allows the system to communicate with various lab instruments. When an instrument performs a test, it sends the test result in  the form of a binary message. The Grabber captures this message, and uploads it to SDMS. Because the LIMS systems' language is XML, SDMS has to translate the binary instrument message into an XML format, which is performed by Instrument Protocol Translation Objects. For explanation about instruments and their communication protocols for connecting to the system, see sections Instruments Inventory and Instrument Protocol Translation Objects.

After you install and configure the Grabber, connect to it relevant instruments, so that these instruments' messages will be automatically uploaded into SDMS by the Grabber. The communication is bi-directional - sometimes STARLIMS sends to the instrument different orders. For example, to perform an instrument check. Note that to be able to add instruments to the Grabber, these instruments first have to be defined in the system, as explained in section Instruments Inventory.

When using Grabber, you will be able to control these instruments' activities - pause grabbing, restart the connection, view the statuses of connected instruments and so on.

NOTE The SDMS Grabber is a standalone application.

The next sections can help you configure and start the grabbers from a specified user's computer.