SciShield Tutorial: Updating your chemical inventory with ChemTracker

You can update your lab’s chemical inventory using SciShield’s ChemTracker module. The ChemTracker module allows you or your lab members to add new chemicals or containers, change the locations of items, and otherwise update and maintain your chemical inventory. In addition to being able to update your inventory in real-time using the tutorials below you also have the opportunity to update your inventory via a bulk upload procedure. In order to participate in the bulk-upload process you will need to reach out to your research safety departmental advisor (DSA). Please use the SciShield Import Template to provide your DSA with your current chemical inventory for this process.

Accessing ChemTracker

Log into SciShield (bu.scishield.com) with your Kerberos login.
From the left menu, select the name of your lab
From the expanded menu options, select ChemTracker
On the ChemTracker page, you should see a submenu along the top with options for Add Inventory, Totals, Bulk Edit, and Reconciliation. You can access everything you need to update your chemical inventory from here.

Adding Chemical Inventory

Navigate to your lab’s page on SciShield, and then select ChemTracker
Select Add Inventory from the top menu
In the Chemical search box, search for the chemical you are adding to your inventory by chemical name, CAS number, or product name or number. Results will be listed for…
- pure chemicals
- mixtures
- buffers
- commercial products
Select the appropriate chemical from the dropdown
- If the chemical is not on the dropdown list, select “None of the above” at the bottom (going this route will lead to the chemical being unlinked in the database and therefore not part of any regulatory reports).
- See if your chemical appears in the pop-up of other chemicals that have been entered by researchers. If you find the appropriate chemical, select it
- If not, select “None of the above” at the bottom again, then continue
- Enter the chemical name, CAS number, and physical state
- Here are some Do’s and Don’ts to ensuring the best possible association of your chemicals to SciShield ChemTracker database:
  - DO include concentration and solvent for chemical in a mixture or solution.
    - For example, use the name “Nitric acid, 2M” not “Nitric acid”
    - For example, use the name “n-butyllithium 1.6M solution in hexanes” instead of “n-butyllithium”
  - DO include the CAS RN for pure, undiluted chemicals if available
  - DO NOT include product information, such as percent purity, in the chemical name.
    - For example, use the name “Hexanes” not “Hexanes (HPLC)” or “Hexanes, ACS Certified 99.9%”
  - DO NOT include the CAS for chemicals that are mixtures or in solution
    - For example, if you provide the CAS “50-00-0” your record might match to the chemical record for formaldehyde (gas) in the ChemTracker database; however, it is much likely that your container is actually “Formaldehyde, 37% solution with 10-15% methanol” also known as “Formalin.” The pure/gas chemical has different hazards, properties, and regulations associated to it.
    - Linking to the pure chemical instead of the solution will impact the accuracy of ChemTracker reports.
Once you have finished entering the chemical name/CAS number, click on the dropdown for Location (space) and select the location you will be storing this chemical container
- If the space you are looking for is not listed, please contact your EHS Departmental Safety Advisor (DSA) to have your group/lab added to the space
Enter the amount of the chemical, the unit of measurement, and the number of containers
For the container ID field, enter the barcode number that you have applied to this container
- NOTE: If you are adding more than one container for this chemical, make sure to specify that in Container Count
- BioRAFT will automatically populate the container IDs for any additional containers (i.e., if you are adding 5 containers of Chemical X, select 5 for Container Count, and enter the first barcode for the unique container ID for the first container. BioRAFT will automatically apply sequential numbers for the remaining 4 containers)
Additional Details section is optional: use if you need to enter more information to be able to track the chemical container
Once you have entered all of the required information, click Submit (if done adding inventory), or Add Another (if you have more inventory items to add)
Repeat steps 3 – 10 until you have finished adding all chemicals

Editing your existing inventory

Use the Bulk Edit tool to edit, adjust, or delete multiple records at once.

Navigate to your lab’s page on SciShield, and then select ChemTracker
Select Bulk Edit from top menu
Enter your search terms, (can filter by location, chemical name, CAS number, hazards, etc.), then click Submit to filter results
Or, enter the barcode/container IDs in the Container IDs field, or scan barcodes into this field to search for specific containers by ID
From the table below the filter options, select the check box for any containers you wish to edit (or Select All if editing all filtered search results)
- If you entered/scanned barcodes, those containers will already be selected, and you do not need to select the checkboxes
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Edit Selected Containers
On the next page, enter any changes you would like to make. Leave empty any fields you do not wish to change for all selected items and/or that should not apply to all items.
- NOTE: these changes will apply to all selected containers and will overwrite existing data for selected containers.
- You cannot undo this bulk edit
- If changing location (space), you will only see options in the dropdown that are currently associated with your lab/group on SciShield
Once done with edits, select Apply Changes at the bottom and then Confirm on the next page
SciShield will return you to the Bulk Edit page and you should see a green banner reading “Processed [##] containers” at the top

Reconcile your Chemical Inventory

Use the Reconciliation tool in ChemTracker to update your SciShield inventory so that it matches the physical inventory in your lab. With this feature, you’ll verify your chemical inventory space by space through seven steps.

Reconciliation Overview

Step 1: Set Parameters

Select the filters you want to use to reconcile your inventory (most common: “space” parameter).

Step 2: Check Inventory:

Locate all containers in the space either by checking them off from the list or barcode scanning all containers physically in the selected space. All marked containers will be marked as “found.”

Step 3: Remove Containers Not Found:

Confirm that you wish to remove all containers not marked as found in Step 2.

These “not found” containers were previously associated with this space on SciShield, but were not scanned or marked as found in Step 2 so will be removed

Step 4: Reactivate Removed Containers:

Review records of containers scanned in Step 2 that had been removed from your inventory during a previous reconciliation

SciShield will reactivate previously removed containers that were scanned or marked in Step 2
(This will not affect containers removed in Step 3 during the current reconciliation process)

Step 5: Move Containers

Review containers scanned or marked in Step 2 that are listed in SciShield in a different location.

SciShield will automatically move all selected containers to the current room, basically transferring the containers from Location A to your current location based on being scanned in the current reconciliation room

Step 6: Review and Finalize

Review all changes from steps 1 – 6 and finalize the reconciliation process.

Step 7: Summary

View a summary of all changes made in the reconciliation and the final inventory for that space.

NOTE: It can take 20 – 30 minutes for all the changes to take effect in SciShield.

Reconciliation Steps

Navigate to your lab’s page on SciShield and then select ChemTracker
Select Reconciliation from the top menu
At the bottom of the page, click “Start a new reconciliation”
Select the space you wish to reconcile from the Space dropdown
- SciShield will identify how many containers are currently in that space
Select whether you want to reconcile by barcode IDs or use a checklist and then click Submit.
Use your barcode scanner to scan all EHS-provided barcodes from all chemical containers in that space.
- If using the scanner, all scanned containers should show check marks next to the container as each is scanned.
- If not using a barcode scanner you will need to mark each container that is identified in that space as being found
Once done entering all containers, hit Next at the bottom of the screen to proceed to the next step
Review the data and confirm the marked inventory. Select Next when done reviewing the page, and SciShield will navigate you through next steps (you can tell which step you’re in based on the leftmost circle that is full black — anything that is in grey has already been completed):
- Remove Containers Not Found: any containers you didn’t mark as found above for this space will be removed from your SciShield inventory for this space
  - If there were no containers that were not marked as being found, there will be nothing to review, click Next
- Reactivating Removed Containers: if you entered any containers that had been removed from the SciShield inventory in a previous reconciliation, here you will review any containers that meet these conditions and confirm you want to reactivate those containers.
  - If no previously removed containers, there will be nothing to review, click Next
- Move Containers: if you marked any containers that had been listed in your chemical inventory but in a separate space, you will review these containers and confirm you are moving them to the space selected for the current reconciliation
  - If no previously removed containers, there will be nothing to review, click Next
When done reviewing containers, click Next to Review and Finalize the reconciliation.
Then, Next to see the summary. This may take up to 30 minutes for SciShield to complete the inventory update and generate the full summary.

You can also view the video tutorial of how to perform a chemical inventory reconciliation below. Please note the video demonstrates the process using a barcode scanner. For laboratories not using the EHS provided barcodes they would need to manually mark the containers as being found.