User:Shawndouglas/sandbox/sublevel10

As you and your lab contact vendors and begin discussions about their solutions, there are two primary questions to ask at the outset:

1. What do I want their LIMS to do for me?

2. How does their solution fit into our previously discussed budget?

The answer to the first question is largely the same as most other kinds of labs. The system should provide clearly definable benefits to how you operate your cannabis testing laboratory. As discussed, these expected benefits should tie in with your overall business mission and goals. What follows are a few examples of the benefits any well-developed LIMS can provide to a lab. Whenever you go through the discovery process with a vendor, you'll be asking how their system provides these and other benefits through its functionality. A quality LIMS can provide:

• increased accuracy: the minimization or elimination of transcription and other errors;
• streamlined processes: ensuring each process step in a protocol/method is completed in the proper order, with all requirements met, updating sample statuses automatically;
• automation: integration with instruments, allowing for automatic uploading of samples and returning of results;
• regulatory and standards compliance: functionality that aids with compliance, including reporting results to state and local authorities;
• data security: role-based, configurable, secure access to data, processes, reporting, etc.;
• flexible reporting: reporting tools that allows for the design and generation of certificates of authority and other reports to lab- and regulation-based specs;
• instant data retrieval: query tools for finding data instantly according to any criteria (date range, test, product type, etc.); and
• configurability and cost-effectiveness: a user-configurable system (as opposed to hard-coded, requiring development for any modifications) that is flexible enough to adapt to rapid changes in test volume and type over time, without breaking the bank.

Addressing the second question concerning budget is more difficult, as a cannabis testing LIMS comes in all kinds of price ranges. How are you supposed to judge if the system, as priced, is appropriate for your lab and its budget? Know that there are some basic cost realities associated with LIMS acquisition, which will help you understand where the vendor price comes from, and how it figures into your lab's budget.

1. Vendor pricing is generally based on how many will be using the LIMS. This can be measured in concurrent users (how many will be using the LIMS at any one time) or named users (the number of total users who will ever use the LIMS, by name). Additionally, cannabis testing LIMS vendors increasingly offer the option of a cloud-hosted subscription, which of course has the advantage of not requiring your own IT department, and allowing labs to defray cost over time, with little or no actual license fee. Think about your usage strategy and choose the pricing format that makes the most sense for you.

2. Most costs are related to the work involved with installing, configuring, and migrating data to the LIMS. Try to choose a solution that has what you need out of the box, as much as possible. The more customized or unique options you ask for up-front, the more it tends to cost, as extra items are a function of the time it takes developers to add them.

3. "User-configurable" beats "vendor-configurable" on cost-effectiveness. Many LIMS vendors offer a free or low-cost option, but don't be fooled. They are in business to make money, and they are counting on the fact that you'll need to pay them to make things work, add necessary functionality, and provide support and training. If you can find a vendor who offers a genuinely user-configurable LIMS, and whose manuals and other support materials are clearly helpful and available so that you can adjust things the way you want, when you want, then that will go a long way toward budget efficiency and longevity.

4. Additional interfaces and reporting requirements cost money. If necessary, consider phasing in any additional instrument and software interfaces over time, as revenue eases cash flow. You can go live with your LIMS operations more quickly, entering results manually until you can afford to interface your instruments one-by-one. This goes for reports as well; a simple reporting module that meets regulatory requirements will do. You can make your reports and certificates of analysis (COAs) more attractive later.

Ideally, your budget has room for roughly $40- to $80,000 minimum (including setup, training, interfaces, etc.) for a decent, bang-for-your-buck professional LIMS, with $300 to $900 per month (depending on number of users) for ongoing subscriptions. At around five concurrent users, the economics start to favor purchasing perpetual licenses rather than paying for a subscription. Purchased licenses will also entail ongoing annual or monthly costs as well (e.g., maintenance, support, warranty for updates etc.) Subscriptions (if available) are generally aimed at smaller labs. If you will be growing and scaling up, it may be a great way to get started, but make sure you have the option to switch to perpetual licenses later.

Additional considerations

In addition to those two primary questions, you'll want to make a few more acquisition-related considerations when working with vendors. First, can the vendor provide a full demonstration of their software, addressing your own requirements at the same time? You likely are familiar with all of your lab's or potential lab's processes and methods, as well as the regulations that drive them, but that doesn't mean you necessarily have a full understanding of how a cannabis testing LIMS fits in to those processes and methods. That's where a knowledgeable and prepared vendor steps in. A quality developer already generally understands your kind of lab but will ask you a lot of questions about exactly how you do things. It's the exceptions that need catering to. Sitting in on a live, interactive demo that can be recorded—so you can review and share it with others later—is a great context for exploring how the LIMS performs the functions your lab requires. Being live, you can also see just how it performs in real time, and you can ask as many hypotheticals as you like. That kind of scenario can go a long way towards giving you a real feel for its suitability. Additionally, both you and the vendor can gain a concept of budget and how the LIMS fits with it, based on what your lab does, what you want the LIMS to do, and how it is implemented.

Second–after the demo—you should consider developing your requirements list or specification. By proceeding with this after the demo, a common error is avoided: too often labs think the first thing they must do is create a requirements list, then sit back and let the LIMS vendors tell them how they meet it. As mentioned earlier, even though they understand their processes, most labs don't have as strong a grasp on the informatics portion. Participating in a demo before creating the requirements list—or having only a minimal yet flexible requirements list during the demo—is a great way to later plug in the LIMS features you have seen demonstrated to your lab's processes and needs. After all, how can you effectively require cannabis testing LIMS functions if you don't fully know what such a LIMS is capable of? As for making or expanding your requirements list or specification, you may wish to turn to the LIMSpec for Cannabis Testing, a specification document designed specifically to help vendors and buyers with the system requirements of a cannabis testing LIMS.

At this point you are much more equipped to create a requirements list or specification, which later becomes the contractual product set and scope of work (SOW) that represents the implementation of the LIMS you select.