draft version 0.9 sciquest erm cheat sheet new materials ... · draft version 0.9 sciquest‐erm...

Draft version 0.9 Sciquest‐ERM Cheat‐sheet – New Materials 14/01/2014

Guide for entering new materials into Sciquest‐ERM

Purpose: This guide is to help users with entering new/unmatched materials into Sciquest‐ERM.

Quick‐step list:

A. Check first if the material is already on Sciquest‐ERM

In substance register tab, use the name / identifier and search:

i) CAS# (if you got one) (Page 3)

ii) Partial name using wildcard (*) liberally to catch possible hits, e.g.

*amino*phenyl*prop* if you are after (1R,2S)‐(‐)‐2‐amino‐1‐phenyl‐1,3‐propandiol

Don’t worry about UPPER/lower case: *porphyrin* and *Porphyrin* will give the same

outcome. (Page 3‐4)

iii) Don’t create a new material if you find a similar material that differ only slightly in

composition, e.g. Palladium 10% on carbon can be put with “Palladium on carbon”. Use a

similar approach with solutions – only create a new entry if safety properties are very different.

Do remember you can label the container with more details (Page 4 and 9).

iv) If you find a hit for material, proceed to step C below (also pages 9‐10) and create a container.

B. Creating a new material on Sciquest‐ERM

i) If you can’t find the material, you need to create a new one. Start by searching online for it;

Sigma‐Aldrich website, ChemAlert or the supplier of your container being the best places.

ii) You want to find GHS information about your material + CAS# if available and you didn’t have it

already (if you find CAS# in this step – search it on Sciquest‐ERM before going further). The key

GHS information you are after are the GHS H‐ and P‐codes (e.g. H305, P234…) and the GHS

classifications / categories (such as Mutagenic – Category 2). Sigma‐Aldrich and other

Australian sources should have all this info in the (M)SDS in Section 2; GHS classification in

section 2.1 and H/P codes in 2.2. See Pages 5‐6.

iii) Once you got the GHS info etc., go to Sciquest‐ERM (see page 6) and create the material.

iv) In the “Identifier” tab, add CAS# by pressing the green cross left‐down labelled “structure

identifiers” and fill in the pop‐up window. Add “synonym” right‐down green cross if applicable.

Other fields are not as critical here – see Page7 for more details.

v) Move to the third tab = GHS properties (you don’t have do anything with tabs 2 and 4). In the

GHS properties, hit the “pencil” button towards the top and tick all the relevant H and P codes.

If the material is ‘non‐hazardous” according to (M)SDS, please tick the H‐000 code to indicate it

is clearly non‐hazardous. If you got no safety info, leave everything blank (Page 8).

vi) Now use the GHS classification/category data (section 2.1 in many (M)SDS documents) and

select the relevant categories on the bottom part of the GHS tab if any (Page 8‐9).

vii) Save the material when all this done and proceed to creating your container (Page 9)

C. Create a container

i) Change / edit the label name if necessary (e.g. to specify concentration). Put in the quantity

and pick the relevant unit (Page 9)

ii) Select the appropriate storage code, e.g. Freezer, FlammaliqAcid…(Page 9)

iii) Select the “use” location; click on Room, then sub‐location etc.. Then select “storage” and put

the same location there (page 10).

iv) Select the ‘supplier”. Use “unspecified” if you can’t find it but consider notifying the Sciquest‐

ERM team (page 10).

v) Save the container and print out the barcode. You should be done now! (Page 10).


Detailed description:

Background: All containers must be linked to a “material” (substance) which has to have an unique name.

Materials can also have many other attributes such as CAS#, synonym and composition (if it is a mixture).

Note that these other attribute such as a CAS# are NOT unique; several materials can have the same CAS#

when that is appropriate. More importantly, each material record must have accurate safety data linked to

it. This document will help users with the task of trying to match material entries with the existing Sciquest‐

ERM material database and entering new materials when necessary.

About the Sciquest‐ERM material database: This database is one of the core parts of the Sciquest‐ERM.

When UNSW got Sciquest‐ERM it came with a database containing in the order of +25,000 material records

that were very generously provided by Sigma‐Aldrich. This means also that most (but not all!) materials

available from Sigma‐Aldrich should be already on the database. If you are adding a new containers and it

contains a material that is available from Sigma‐Aldrich (even if you bought it initially from another

supplier) changes are therefore very good that you will get a match with the database. Although not

bulletproof, this matching process is done automatically in Spenddirector and Spotbuy, e.g. by comparing

CAS# provided by other suppliers with the Sciquest‐ERM material database . If a match is not found or your

adding a new container that you have created or you are adding a new lab inventory to the system you first

need to double‐check the material isn’t already on the database and if not, then add it as a new material.

Once it has been added, other users will find it so as UNSW progresses with the Sciquest‐ERM rollout the

database will grow in size.

Situations when this might be needed:

i) When a new container is bought via Spenddirector or Spotbuy and can’t be matched to the

Sciquest‐ERM material database . Note that just because a material is on Spenddirector it may

NOT be on the Sciquest‐ERM material database but Sciques‐ERM will then usually force to you to

match the material with the database or enter a new material as appropriate.

ii) When a new container is created in the lab (e.g., making up a new solution.

iii) When a container is added to the system for the first time, e.g. from legacy database (COSI in

ChemEng/Chemistry), excel spreadsheet or by hand when a new lab is added for the first time to

Sciquest‐ERM (all common scenario’s in 2014).

Overview of steps to take: Regardless of how the situation arose, the overall steps are simply:

A. Check manually if the material really doesn’t exist on the database. This is all about searching

the database in the most effective way. See pages 3‐4 for more details.

B. If a match is not found, add the new material to the database. This involves finding a name, try to

find CAS# and other key identifier and most importantly, finding (M)SDS information so you can

populate the safety information (GHS) for that material in the database. If it is “non‐hazardous”

you do still have to take action here to indicate clearly that it is non‐hazardous. See pages 5‐9 for

details.

C. Add your new container to the system. See pages 9‐10 for details.


A. Checking if a material is already on the Sciquest‐ERM database.

Before going through the extra work required entering in a new material (see page 3) it is worthwhile

spending some time on searching thoroughly for a possible match on the database.

To do this go to the “Substance registry” tab. Make sure you change the options to “ALL” for both status

and site before starting your search. This maximizes the span of the database you search through.

If you got a CAS# start by searching by that one. For CAS# and EXACT entry is required but you put it in the

“Name/Identifier” field just like any other search strings”

Then, if don’t find a hit that way or don’t have a CAS# start your name search. Some tips:

Use wildcards (*) liberally, and before and after part of the name you are after. E.g. instead of 2,4‐

dinitrobenzaldehyde try *dinitro*benzaldehyde* just to guard yourself against odd punctuation

marks (,‐ etc…) in the name. The system might then return a lot of hits but you might just found what

you are after there with slightly different spelling than you expected. For instance,

*amino*phenyl*propanediol* will give you:

As an example how you can start with a broad search and then narrow down: *amino*phenyl*

gives 754 hits *aminophenyl* gives currently 121 hits, and *amino*phenyl*propanediol* gives you

the 7 hits above.

NOTE that the bulk of the Sciquest‐ERM database uses US spelling!! E.g. Use “sulfate” instead of

sulphate“. But as you come across these issues you could add Sulphate as a synonym to that record.

When you do a Sciquest‐ERM search UPPER and lower case don’t matter. You can search by either

and the system will search both. E.g *hexafluoro*dianiline* and *Hexafluoro*dianiline* and

*HEXAFLUORO*DIANILINE* all give the same 2 hits:

or both give

Change review status & creator site to “ALL”

before you start your search

Name/Identifier is where you put your search &

creator site to “ALL” before you start your search

string in be it a name or CAS#.


A. Checking if a material is already on the Sciquest‐ERM database (cont – second page)

Careful with abbreviated names: E.g. Fmoc‐Phenylalanine is sometimes, Fmoc‐Phe or Fmoc‐Phe‐OH.

Search the simplest first, e.g. *Fmoc‐Phe* to be on the safe side.

For mixtures, search only using one component. E.g. if you are after Palladium on carbon 10% start

by simply doing “palladium*” and then narrow it down as needed if the output is too big. Note also

comments below about how to deal with mixtures.

Same applies with “unusal” materials such as (block)‐polymers, enzymes, biochemistry kits and so

own. Try starting your search by casting the net wide and use “*” on both sides of your search string.

If you found your material on the database but it is spelled differently or even named differently than

the container you have, you can still “label” the container with a different name. See page 6 for more

details. So there is no need to create a new material record even if you don’t “like” the current name.

What if I find a suitable hit? If you find a hit you can go straight towards creating the container from that

you wanted. If the search was difficult, it would though be worthwhile to go first and select “edit” the

materials to work out if you should add another synonym to the material record (helps other from having

the same problem later).

What if I didn’t get hit? You should now proceed to creating a new material (page 3). Note that it does

depend on your privileges whether you can do this. Anyone that can buy containers via Spenddirector or

Spotbuy should have the required access but if you can only search your database and create containers

you may not able to create a new material and you should ask someone more senior in the group to do it.

What about mixtures etc? In principle we could have different entries for 0.1 M HCl, 0.2 M HCl, 0.5 M

HCl…10 M HCl, HCl(conc,aq) etc.. But this is not advised. Although you as an user need to make a call on

whether a new material record is warranted if a similar material already exists. Two key things to keep in

mind here are:

i) Is the difference really so much it would have totally different uses/properties? E.g. if you are

entering Palladium on carbon 10% but you only find “Palladium on carbon” (unspecified) you

can probably put them together. But if you have block‐polystyrene‐polybutadiene mwt 5k vs.

mwt 40k they are chemically very different and having them as separate materials might be a

good idea.

ii) Are the safety properties significantly different? The difference between a 10 M and 5 M or

even 1 M sulfuric acid (note US spelling!) is not that much that they warrant separate entries

(as long as the safety properties of all = to the most dangerous/concentrated one). But a 0.1 or

0.01 M Sulfuric acid solution might warrant a different entries since the safety properties are

very different.

The UNSW HS will shortly provide more detailed guidance on this matter as there is no

straightforward rule of thumb one can use. In the meantime, be conservative and DO NOT

create a new entry for a new variant of a mixture unless you think it is absolutely crucial.


B. Entering a new material onto the Sciquest‐ERM:

Ok, so you searched the Sciquest‐ERM material database and you can’t find the material you need to

use to enter your container that you created, bought or are adding to the system. Here is how you add

a new material:

Step 1: Gather the necessary info OUTSIDE Sciquest‐ERM with focus on safety (M)SDS.

This is the most important but often most time‐consuming step!

1a) Before proceeding on Sciquest‐ERM, it is best to find first detailed information about your material.

It is recommended you open up new browser window(s) to perform searches for the material(s) you.

The Sigma‐Aldrich webpage (http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/australia.html) is good place but you could

also try ChemAlert (http://www.chemalert.unsw.edu.au/chemalert/) or even google the name + MSDS.

For specialised chemicals and materials such as proteins, reaction kits, polymers etc.. you are probably

best off trying to go to the site of the suppler that sold the container.

The information you should be focusing on is to find is:

Name(s) of the compound. If there are several names about, you will have to choose which one to use

as the primary (common) name in Sciquest‐ERM and which one you might need to add as a synonym.

Other key identifiers – especially CAS#. Please do not that a lot of materials don’t have CAS#. There are

essentially three sort of situations you might find here:

i) Firstly, you might have a CAS# already but it wasn’t found during your initial matching search

on Sciquest‐ERM (see pages 2‐3). Having the CAS# will help you finding all the other info you

need.

ii) Secondly you didn’t have a CAS# and you don’t find one. That’s perfectly fine and indeed

expected for “unusual” materials such as polymers, biochemical as well as things like kits,

mixtures or standard. So don’t panic if you can’t find a CAS#

iii) Lastly if you didn’t have a CAS# you might find one when you search for the name on external

databases/suppliers. If this is the case, it wouldn’t hurt for you to run a search on that CAS#

number again on the Sciquest‐ERM just in case your name‐based searches missed it.

GHS compliant safety data, i.e. “H‐phrases” and “P‐phrases”. This can either be in a tabulated format

on the supplier site or more often, within a (M)SDS document. Most Australian suppliers, including

Sigma‐Aldrich will have their data in GHS compliant format. In other cases (particularly the US) you

may only get the data in the “old‐format”, that is R & S‐phrases (see more below). Here are some

examples:

i) On the Sigma‐Aldrich website, ChemAlert or any

other Australian supplier website such as Life Technologies

you should be able to download a (M)SDS that is GHS‐

compliant (see left for an example for the latter. The

information you are after should be in section 2 (In Sigma‐

Aldrich, sections 2.1 and 2.2). The information you are after

are the “overall” health and physical hazard categories shown

here as “Health hazard” and “Physical hazards”. In Sigma‐

Aldrich these are in section 2.1 “GHS classification”. The other


information you are after are the individual “H” (Hazard) and “P” (Precautionary) codes, e.g

H341 or P281. In Sigma‐Aldrich these are in section 2.2 Note that if the H‐/P‐fields are blank

here it will mean that the material is considered “non‐hazardous” by that supplier (Sigma‐

Aldrich).

iii) If your only sources of safety information still use the old‐fashion R & S codes (particular with

US suppliers) you CAN use this website:

http://ghs.dhigroup.com/PagesGHS/TranslationTool.aspx to convert the R‐phrases to H‐

phrases. Unfortunately there no such tool for S to P‐phrases but these are not as critical so if all

you can get are the R‐phrases then you need to stick to this approach.

iv) Don’t forget that there is a BIG difference between a material being known as “not hazardous”

and not knowing whether it is hazardous or not. We added a “dummy” H‐phrase to the options

in Sciquest‐ERM: H‐000 = not hazardous according to GHS criteria to capture materials that

have truly been identified as “non‐hazardous”:

If you can’t find any (M)SDS information but you are convinced the material is not hazardous

(e.g. it is essentially a consumable such as a filtration device) you may use the H‐000 option.

But if you are unsure, don’t use it and leave the GHS properties are completely blank.

Step 2: Gather the necessary info OUTSIDE Sciquest‐ERM with focus on safety (M)SDS.

Ok – you found safety and other product information about your material – you can now proceed to

adding your new material on to Sciquest‐ERM. The steps required are:

i) Go to the “substance register”

and press the “new material”

icon (you only see these if you

have the correct privileges).

You will now get a pop‐up menu that looks like this:

Enter the name of the new material. You can edit this later in the

process of filling in the other fields but once the material has been

saved this “common name” because the key identifier. You can use a mixture of lower and UPPER case

letters (as explained before the search is insensitive to the case) but we don’t recommend that you put

the name in UPPER case only. Also, don’t include the concentrations, purity etc. in the “common

name” unless you think it is crucial (see also previous comments about mixture).

Press this icon here


Once you entered a “common name” the

material property window opens:

It should open on the “Identifiers” tab. The

only other tab that matters is the “GHS

properties”. The “Common name” field is

already populated with your previous

entry but you can now change it again if

you want. The two key other features here

are the “green crosses” highlighted here in

red for “structure identifiers” which were you can put your CAS# in and “Synonyms” (also in red).

“Common name” is the only compulsory

field on this tab and if your material

doesn’t have a CAS# and doesn’t have any

important synonyms then you may not

have to put anything else in here.

Let’s look closer now at the other fields in

the “Identifiers” tab starting with top part. Formula is straightforward but not very important. By all

means add it if you got the information but this isn’t very important.

The rest of the fields here are pull down except the “suppress containers creation” – please don’t

touch this! You should also NOT change the default from “Not Reviewed” to anything else. This will

allow HS admin to review your entry at a later stage. Material source has three options, blank,

commercial and proprietary. You don’t have to worry about this one either. Material type has two

option “blank” and “pure chemical”. If your material is clearly the latter (i.e. not a mixture) it would

helpful if you select “pure chemical”. The “Physical state” menu is useful and allows you nominate

various options for the physical state of the material (gas, liquid…)

On the middle of this tab there is another “green

cross” called “ingredients”. Use this option ONLY if

your material is a mixture of two (or more)

materials that are already on the database (e.g. 1% Citric acid in ethanol).

Apart from the “common name” the most important parts

of this tab are the two crosses towards the bottom. Pressing

the “structure identifiers” green cross opens a new pop‐up

window that will show “type” = CAS as default. You can now

enter the CAS# in the “name” field. Other important options

here are the so‐called MDL# which you can also add. Once you press “save” Sciquest‐ERM will now try

to match your CAS# with the structure database (which is different from the Sciquest‐ERM material

database) and if it finds a match, will automatically assign a

structure to your new material!

The other important option here is the green cross for “synonym”.

Pressing this will create another pop‐up menu with several

options; alias = the default one. You can add as many aliases or

zoom


other type of synonyms as you wish (for each entry you need to press the green cross again).

We are now ready to move to the other important tab

which is the GHS properties one:

This one looks complex at first with lot of option. But in

reality you only need to worry about one option – press

the “pencil” button on the top called “Hazard &

Precaution Alerts”.

This creates a new pop‐up window with a long list of H‐

and P‐phrases. They are really the only thing you should

worry about here.

In the example shown here to the left one box 000 =

Non‐hazardous has already been ticked.

But basically what you need to do is go back to the safety

/ (M)SDS information that you found on the web (see page 4) and then tick the relevant H and P boxes,

followed by selecting the appropriate Health and Physical Hazards (if any).

The tricky part here can be “combined” H and P phrases such as P304+P340. It does take a bit of a

practice to work out what to pick in

Sciquest‐ERM here but P304/340 is the

correct one.

Let’s look at an example of when the

(M)SDS is as shown here on the left.

After ticking the relevant boxes the


dropdown list in Sciquest‐ERM will look something like the

list the rights (it’s too long to show all of this).

Hit save and then select the appropriate options in the

“health” and “physical” dropdown options. When that is

done your screen should look like this.

Take a quick look at this but if it matches well with that the (M)SDS / safety info you have then you are

probably done with this. The last step in this process is to create a container. To start this process, you

can hit the “create new container icon at the top of the new material window (icon shows two

bottles).

C. Creating a new container on Sciquest‐ERM:

This creates a new pop‐up window:

Key areas here are:

Label name = Auto‐populated with the material name,

however you CAN change this (very useful if say want to add

concentration, purity tag here).

Current amt = number

Unit = drop down menu. Note that it has

both upper and lower case version of units

such as gram (g and G). You can use either.

“Original amount” will auto‐populate with “current

amount”.

The only other fields you really should focus on

are:

i) Storage code: Press the “…” button to get a dropdown list of options:

If none of these are applicable, just leave blank. But if you know that the compound should be in a

fridge/freezer/flammable etc… pick the appropriate option.

zoom


ii) Locations:

This is the most important one but can be confusing. Firstly note that

in most cases “use” and “storage” should be the same (the idea is

that if a container is “borrowed” you can change “Use” to the location

of the borrower but keep “storage” = to where the container should

live when it comes back). Note that these fields will autopopulate with your current location but only on

the “room” level. You need add the “sub‐location.

Unfortunately you have to add both “use” and “storage”. Always do “use” first – otherwise you need to

redo “storage” once you done that one and do “use” again.

So you start with “use”. Once

you select “Use” and make the

appropriate selection of sub‐

location. To find available sub‐

location click on the little

“expansion” icon next to your room number. A selection of sub‐

locations will now appear which you can drill further if necessary

(e.g. different shelves in a fridge).

Please do note that if you try to select a location outside your default room (e.g. 331 but your default is

333) it may not work (depending on your privileges). A work‐around is to create the container first in 333

and once created, go to container admin, find it and “transfer” to the right location in 331.

Once you done this for the “use” repeat the process for “storage” making sure you use the same

sublocation.

iii) Supplier (compulsory): You need to put a value here. A drop

down list appears, type in the first letters to bring your selection

closer (e.g start typing “sig…and sigma‐aldrich will be towards

the top). If you can’t find your supplier, put “unspecified”.

If you do think that others might have something from that supplier in their

inventory let us know (e.g. [email protected], [email protected] or

[email protected]) and we can put the supplier on the system.

iv) Once this is all done you can, press “save” and then “print label” to print the barcode.

Note that the barcode labels from Sciquest‐ERM currently

only have some basic information including name and

number.

The barcode are only in one size at the moment but in

February/March 2014 we hope to have a solution for

barcodes that fit on small vials.

draft version 0.9 sciquest erm cheat sheet new materials ... · draft version 0.9 sciquest‐erm...

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