Partner Labs

Where this page lives

Partner Labs is part of CRM. Open it from CRM > Network & Insurance > Partner Labs when you need to define the labs, reference laboratories, mega labs, or external processing partners that your company works with.

Use Partner Labs to configure who the partner is and how Kashef should treat that partner.

What a partner lab account represents

A partner lab account is the master record for another laboratory or processing destination. It keeps the partner name, code, contact information, pricing defaults, destination settings, portal users, and contract notes in one place.

This separation is important because the same partner can appear in multiple operational areas. Sample routing may use it as a processing destination, finance may reconcile balances by partner, and the public partner portal may allow that partner's staff to submit requests.

Create one account per real partner relationship. Avoid creating duplicate accounts for the same partner unless the commercial agreement is truly different, such as a separate branch contract or separate pricing list.

Creating a partner

Choose New Lab Partner Account. The page has the main settings on the left and Status and Money on the right:

• Partner: pick the type (Partner Lab, External Lab, Mega Lab, or Our Branch), then the name and an optional short code. For Our Branch, pick the branch; its name is filled in for you.
• Contact & Address: who to call about samples and results, and where couriers deliver. Internal Notes are for your team only.
• Processing & Pickup: turn on Can Process Samples when the partner performs tests for you. Then set the Expected Turnaround (the form shows it in hours too), the sample types it accepts (pick from your catalog's sample types), and its pickup days and times. Contract Rules holds any other agreed rule, such as cutoff times.
• Status: Active partners receive new work. Suspend a partner to pause it while keeping its history.
• Money: Default Cost / Test is what you pay for a listed test that has no price of its own. Payment Terms (days) sets the due date on this partner's bills. Prices This Partner Pays You is the lab-to-lab price list used when the partner sends orders to you.

Choose Save and add tests. Kashef opens the partner on its Tests & Prices tab so you can add what it performs.

Editing a partner

An open partner has two tabs:

• Partner Details: the settings above, plus At a Glance: how many tests are listed, how many have no price (those are sent but not billed), the unpaid bill balance, and draft bills waiting for review.
• Tests & Prices: the partner's test list and price list.

Tests & Prices

• Add Tests adds chosen tests, a whole category, or All partner-lab tests (every test set to Partner Lab in the catalog that is not on the list yet). You can give them all one price, or leave the price blank and type each one in the table.
• Price You Pay can be edited right in the table: type the price and press Enter. A blank price uses the Default Cost / Test, which is shown as the placeholder.
• Margin shows the patient price minus what you pay, in red when you would lose money.
• Send turns a test off for this partner without removing it. Partner Code is the partner's own code, printed on dispatch worksheets.
• Specimen & assay time (the clipboard button on each row) is optional. Use it to record what the partner asks you to send for the test: the Specimen Type and Tube / Container from your catalog, the Requested Specimen Amount with its unit (ml, µl, L, g, mg, drops or pieces), and the Assay Time: how many hours or days the partner takes to finish the result after receiving the sample. The Specimen & Assay Time column shows what you saved, and it is printed under each test on dispatch worksheets.
• Select several rows to Change prices (set one price, or raise or lower by a percentage), Set specimen & assay time for all of them at once, Stop sending, or Remove tests.
• Turn on the Without a price filter to find tests that still need a price.

A test is sent to a partner only when the test is set to Partner Lab in the test catalog and at least one active partner lists it. If no partner lists it, Kashef stops the order and tells you which tests need a partner.

Branch Priorities

When more than one partner performs the same test, Kashef picks the partner with the best priority for the branch that is sending the sample. Lower numbers come first.

Each partner has a Default Priority in the Sending Priority section (shown once Can Process Samples is on). In Branch Priorities you can give a branch its own number for this partner, for example so that the Maadi branch sends to Partner A while the Nasr City branch sends to Partner B. Branches not listed use the default priority. If two partners have the same number, the one whose name comes first alphabetically is used.

To choose by price, speed, day, time, order priority or a specific partner per test, use Send-Out Rules at the top of this page. Rules are checked before these priorities.

Using one of your branches as a partner

Choose Our Branch as the partner type when a branch (for example a central lab) performs tests for your other branches and you want each sending branch to pay it. Pick the branch, turn on Can Process Samples, then add its tests and prices on the Tests & Prices tab like any other partner.

Samples for those tests are transferred to that branch. When they are marked as sent, the sending branch gets a draft bill from this partner's prices in Finance > Bills & Expenses. A branch never sends its own samples to itself. Portal users and the lab-to-lab price list are not used for branch partners.

Portal Users

The Portal Users section manages partner staff who can access the partner portal. Each user has a name, email, phone, password setup, and active status.

Give each partner employee their own portal user. Shared logins make it hard to audit who submitted an order, uploaded information, or viewed a result. When a partner employee leaves, disable that user instead of deleting operational history.

When creating a new portal user, enter a password of at least 12 characters containing letters and numbers. When editing an existing user, leave the password blank unless you intentionally need to change it.

Existing portal users cannot be deleted from this form because their identity may be referenced by order and portal activity. Turn off Active to block access while preserving attribution.

The list page

The Partner Labs table shows the partner name, code, status, partner type (with the linked branch for branch partners), processing destination status, number of tests, portal user count, linked lab-to-lab order count, and last update time. Use it before adding a new partner to avoid duplicates.

The status, partner type, and processing-destination filters narrow the table. Search covers partner name, code, contact person, email, and phone. The edit action opens the full configuration.

Partner accounts cannot be hard-deleted from the Lab Panel because they may be connected to orders, portal users, samples, routing decisions, and finance references. Set Status to Suspended to stop new routine use while preserving historical links.

The old hidden External Labs editor has been retired. External processors and mega labs are now managed here as partner types, so pricing, routing, logistics, and portal access have one source of truth.

Permissions and access

Partner Labs uses the lab-to-lab view, create, and update permissions. No role can hard-delete partner accounts from the Lab Panel; suspend the relationship instead. In most labs, owners or operations managers should maintain this page, while reception and technicians only select existing partners during daily workflows.

If a staff member cannot find Partner Labs under CRM, check their role permissions, subscription feature access, and tenant context before assuming the page is missing.

Operating checklist

• Create one partner account for each real laboratory relationship.
• Use a clear name and short code that reception and finance can recognize.
• Set inactive or paused relationships to Suspended instead of creating duplicates.
• Link a default lab-to-lab price list before live orders are created.
• Turn on processing destination only when routing to that partner is approved.
• Add every test the partner performs to Tests & Prices, with the agreed price.
• Set Default Priority and Branch Priorities when several partners perform the same test.
• Keep accepted sample type codes and pickup schedules aligned with real logistics.
• Add portal users individually and disable users who no longer work with the partner.
• Review partner accounts whenever pricing, pickup timing, contract terms, or sample routing changes.