Requests and jobs
A request is a proposal. The lab decides.
Nothing you send becomes a job until a laboratory accepts it. Until then you can answer their questions or withdraw it. Once approved, the lab opens a TRF in its own system and you follow that to the report.
What the lab can ask
If something is unclear — a cross-section, a sample count, which standard applies — the request moves to Needs info and you reply in the portal. It returns to Pending with your answer attached to it.
What you receive
The issued report only: report number, ULR where the scope is NABL-accredited, issue date and the accreditation mark. Results, verdicts and internal lab notes stay with the laboratory, because they are its records under its own quality system.
Once work has started
Stopping a job is a conversation, not a button.
A request can be withdrawn while it is still a proposal. Once a laboratory has approved it, your samples may already be on the bench — so changing or stopping the work is the laboratory's call, and the portal keeps the thread you make it in.
What a request carries
Everything the laboratory needs to price the work.
A request that arrives incomplete becomes three emails before anything is tested. The form asks for what a laboratory actually needs, once.
The specimens
How many, what each one is, and the standard each is to be tested against. Specimens in one request can be tested against different standards — a submission is rarely one material — and each carries its own identifier once the laboratory accepts.
The date you need it
Stated up front rather than negotiated afterwards, so a laboratory that cannot meet it says so before you ship anything. The turnaround it commits to when it quotes is what the job is then tracked against.
Files, in the record
A drawing, a specification, a previous report — whatever actually says what the work is. Attached to the request rather than emailed separately, so the laboratory deciding it is reading the same document you sent and it is still there when somebody looks six months later.
Accredited or offered, before you commit
Where a test you have asked for sits outside the laboratory’s accredited scope, that is flagged in the request and again on the issued report. Perfectly legitimate work — but not work that can be certified under the accreditation mark, and you should know which you are buying.
What a report carries
A result you can hand to an auditor.
An accredited test report is a record, not a number in an email. What makes it one is the same set of things every time.
The accreditation mark, per test
A single report can carry both accredited and non-accredited results, and a compliant one says which are which rather than marking the page and leaving you to assume. Check the marking against the individual test.
A unique report number
Reports issued under NABL-accredited scope carry a ULR — a Unique Laboratory Report number — that identifies one report unambiguously. It is what makes a result checkable long after it was issued, and long after whoever ordered it has left.
A way to check it is genuine
Where the issuing laboratory runs its testing on Zymiq, the report carries a verification link that resolves to the issued document. A report nobody can check is a report somebody has to take on trust.
Every report in one place
Across every laboratory you use. A company testing at five laboratories has one list to search rather than five inboxes, and a report is attached to the job and the specimen it came from rather than to whoever happened to be emailed it.
Questions
Requests and reports, in plain terms.
- Is a request an order?
- No. It is a proposal. The laboratory reviews it and accepts, asks a question, or declines — and until it accepts, nothing is committed on either side. You can withdraw it in the meantime.
- What if a laboratory declines?
- It says so, with a reason, in the same thread. A decline is a normal answer: the test may sit outside the accredited scope, the range may be wrong, or the queue may be full. Nothing stops you sending the same request to another laboratory in the register.
- How do I get a price?
- The laboratory quotes against your request — an amount, a turnaround and a validity date — and you accept or decline it in the thread. Work starts when you accept. The laboratory can see your email from the moment your enquiry reaches it; your name and phone number reach it only when you accept a quote.
- When can I download the report?
- As soon as the laboratory issues it. Reports appear against the job they came from, so a job with four specimens carries the report for each as it is signed rather than all of them at the end.
- How do I check a report is genuine?
- Accredited reports carry a unique number and, where the issuing laboratory runs its testing on Zymiq, a verification link that resolves to the issued document. A report that cannot be checked is a report somebody has to take on trust.
- Can I stop a job once it has started?
- Ask the laboratory in the thread. Once specimens are with them and testing has begun there is real work in progress, sometimes destructive, so stopping is a conversation rather than a button — and the laboratory records what was done and why it stopped.
Get started