Incomplete Accessions 

Adding a new record in ZIMS so data can be collected prior to being fully accessioned.

 

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This document covers:

Creating an Incomplete Accession from the start menu , and

Associating an Incomplete Accession .

 

Quick Split and Quick Merge functionalities are covered in a separate ZIMSHelp document.

 

Creating an Incomplete Accession from the Start Menu

Incomplete Accessions are found under the Start menu>Accession. You do not select an entity (individual, group, egg) type for this kind of accession.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All fields are mandatory. Notes about the Incomplete Accession must be included to help whoever is recording the full Accession associate correctly.

 

The record is assigned a GAN that ends in IA – and you can quickly access the husbandry or medical records for this newly created record from the confirmation screen:

 

 

Incomplete Accessions will display in the Statistics field in the Animals module. The total number is indicated at the top and is divided up by time frame.

 

You can record most of the data that you can record on a full accession except:

• Collection
• Responsible Party
• Enclosure
• Enrichment
• Parents
• Cannot share with another institution
• You cannot disposition an Incomplete Accession

 

Once a full accession is created and associated with an Incomplete Accession, all data will be copied into the full accession.

 

Incomplete Accessions can be found under the Start menu search and in Animal Simple Search and Animal Advanced Search if Local Scope and All Animals and Include Incomplete Accessions is checked. They cannot be found if Global scope is selected. They can also be found in Medical module searches.

 

Incomplete Accessions do not display in most Reports. They will display on Daily Report and in Activity Reports as Transactions/IA Note.

 

Associating/completing an Incomplete Accession

The incomplete accessions are found within the Statistics tab of the animal module. Click on the Incomplete Accessions hyperlinks to open the list.

 

The list will display all of the active Incomplete Accessions. They may have been filtered if you for example chose to only see those from the past 30days.

Within the list, you can archive any Incomplete Accessions you want to hide from your list, re-activate them, complete them or remove them.

 

There are multiple ways to complete an Incomplete Accession:

1. Create a single new accession using the incomplete accession as a base
2. Associate a single incomplete accession with an already created full accession
3. Associate multiple incomplete accessions with an already created full accession
4. Create a full accession and associate one or more incomplete accession when saving

 

Creating a single new accession using the Incomplete Accession as a Base

You can now use the Incomplete Accession as a base record to start your accession. To start, from the Incomplete Accessions list select the appropriate record and Complete Selected.

 

The pop-up complete screen has the full list of accession options. Choose the correct accession type for your record.

 

The usual accession screen for your chosen option will open, and will pre-fill with any information from the Incomplete Accession. For example, here the Accession Date, Taxonomy, Sex and the Note have pre-filled from our Incomplete Accession.

All pre-filled information is editable. As with the usual accession screens, the Taxonomy field can only be edited once Parent Information has been added.

 

To finish the accession & association, fill in the remaining information and click Save. A pop-up box will alert you that the full accession has been created. If you made a mistake with the full accession, clicking “Undo Accession Transaction” will roll back the accession and allow you to edit the information.

Now you will need to click the “Associate with Incomplete Accession” button to complete the association.

 

A pop-up box will tell you the records have been successfully merged into the full accession. From here you can choose to view the animal’s husbandry or medical information. If you need to un-do the association, click the “Undo Association of the Incomplete Accession” button.

 

Associating a single incomplete accession with an already created full accession

The second way to associate the records requires a full Accession to already be in the database. This can happen if someone doesn’t realize the record is already entered into ZIMS and creates an Incomplete Accession. From the Incomplete Accessions list select the appropriate record and Complete Selected.

The application will ask what full accession to associate the Incomplete Accession with. Use the search box to search and select the record you want to associate with the Incomplete Accession. Once you save, the records will be associated.

 

If information in the two records is different, ZIMS will ask which information you wish to keep. All data recorded on the Incomplete Accession will be migrated into the full Accession record.

 

The GAN of the Incomplete Accession will become an Old Accession number in the Identifier grid of the full record. If multiple Incomplete Accessions have been associated with a single full Accession, all of the Incomplete Accession GANs will be listed.

 

Associating multiple incomplete accessions with an already created full accession

You are able associate multiple incomplete accessions to a single full accession. This may occur when you have multiple incomplete accessions made for the same animal by different staff, or multiple incomplete accessions for different animals which need to be associated with a group.

 

To associate multiple IAs with the same record, highlight the IAs you wish to associate and click “Complete Selected”. You will only be given the option to associate the records with an already established record through this menu, if you need to create a new record you can do so first by completing a normal full accession and then completing the new IAs).

Search for and select the designated record you want to associate the records with and click Save.

 

If you have already associated incomplete accessions with the record before, you will get a warning asking if you are sure you want to associate another incomplete accession with this record. If you are sure, click “Go ahead and save”.

 

If the information in the incomplete accessions and full record do not match, you will receive a warning, and ZIMS will default to keep the information from the full accession.

 

Creating a full accession and associating single or multiple incomplete accessions when saving

When you create and save a full accession, ZIMS will automatically search by taxonomy to see if there are any Incomplete Accessions which are waiting to be completed. If there are Incomplete Accessions for the same species, you will receive a message that a possible match has been found. To associate the full accession with an incomplete accession, check the appropriate Incomplete Accession box/boxes and then click Associate with Incomplete Accession.

 

If information in the two records is different, ZIMS will ask which information you wish to keep. All data recorded on the Incomplete Accession will be migrated into the full Accession record.

 

If you have chosen to associate more than one incomplete accession, ZIMS will default to keep the accessioned information.

 

The GAN of the Incomplete Accession will become an Old Accession number in the Identifier grid of the full record. If multiple Incomplete Accessions have been associated with a single full Accession, all of the Incomplete Accession GANs will be listed.

 

Incomplete Accessions generated by MedARKS

​Some of these Incomplete Accessions may have been created as non-accessioned animals in MedARKS (the medical software prior to ZIMS). These Incomplete Accessions end with an IC instead of an IA. Also, if you imported medical records into MedARKS, some of those imported records were linked to animals that did not come to your institution.  For example, you get a group prescription record that is linked to the animal you received and 9 other animals that stayed at the other institution.  If the imported record was only linked to your animal, it would appear that your animal got 10 times the dose it actually got; that would be very misleading when you look at that record.  To compensate, MedARKS created 9 non-accessioned records sourced to the sending institution, so the prescription record remains attached to 10 animals and does not mislead the new institution.

 

Revised 5 March 2025