Lab dashboard

What the dashboard is for

The dashboard is the first screen after you open a workspace. It answers two questions in this order: what needs me right now, and how is the work going. Every number on it is a link. Click a count and you land on the page where that work is done, already filtered when the target page supports it.

There are two dashboards. The Lab overview opens in the lab-wide workspace and compares branches. Each branch workspace opens on a role board for that branch: Front desk, Lab bench, Finance desk, or Branch overview. Kashef picks the board from your permissions and remembers the last one you used.

Dashboards update by themselves as soon as work changes in your lab, such as a new order, a collected sample, or a released result, while the page is visible. If the live connection is interrupted, they refresh every minute until it returns. The Live · updated time in the top corner shows when the numbers were last read.

If you have a pending subscription checkout, Kashef sends you to checkout before showing the dashboard. Onboarding is shown only to users who do not belong to any lab or branch yet.

How every board is laid out

All four branch boards use the same layout, so staff who change roles do not have to relearn the screen.

• Actions across the top open the pages that role uses most. The highlighted one is the main daily task. A number on an action is the work waiting there.
• Today's numbers show the headline figures. Where it helps, a small arrow compares today with yesterday. Green means better, red means worse.
• Needs attention on the right lists only problems that exist right now, most serious first. Red items block patients or money. Amber items will become problems soon. Blue items are for your information. When nothing is blocked the card says All clear.
• Work lists in the main column show the specific orders to act on, worst first, with a button that opens the exact next step.

The Sample Collection Workbench shortcut appears on Front desk, Lab bench, and Branch overview when you have permission to view samples. Open it to select a waiting patient, review tubes and collection requirements, and confirm each collected sample. Collection confirmation also requires permission to update samples.

Switching boards

If you can use more than one board, tabs under the page title show them. Click a tab to switch. The address bar updates, so you can bookmark a board or share the link with a colleague who has the same access. Tabs you do not have permission for are not shown.

Front desk

For reception and patient-facing staff. The search box at the top finds an order in this branch by patient name, phone number, or order number as you type. Actions open a new order, a new patient, the cashier, and sample collection.

Needs attention focuses on what stops a patient from leaving: results that are ready but not paid for (collect before handing them over), samples the lab rejected that need a new draw, and orders that are past their turnaround time but still have no sample. Waiting for sample collection lists those orders, most urgent first. Ready for handover lists results released and paid in the last 48 hours. Largest balances to collect lists the biggest unpaid patient balances, measured the same way the cashier measures them (insurance and contract shares are excluded).

Lab bench

For technicians and operations staff. The Order pipeline shows how many active orders are at each stage: to collect, in process, to review, to release, and released but unpaid. A red badge on a stage counts the orders there that are already overdue. Click a stage to open the matching queue.

The Worklist puts critical results first, then overdue orders, then urgent orders, then everything else by deadline. The button on each row opens the next step: Enter results, Review, or Release. Staff without result-entry permission see Open instead.

Needs attention covers critical results waiting for approval, orders past turnaround, sample escalations, samples needing recollection, device results that need matching, and sample transfers on their way to this branch. The Awaiting review number always matches the Results Queue.

Finance desk

For cashiers and finance staff. It shows money collected today (with yesterday for comparison), unpaid patient balances, open cash drawers, and pending refund requests. Today by payment method breaks today's collections down by method, and Cash drawers lists who has a drawer open and since when.

Needs attention lists what blocks a clean daily close: yesterday not closed, drawers left open from a previous day, drawers waiting for close approval, cash variances waiting for a decision, and refunds to process.

Branch overview

For branch managers. It combines the other boards: orders and money collected today compared with yesterday, the on-time rate for orders in progress, the full order pipeline, and Orders needing a push (critical, overdue, and at-risk orders, worst first).

Needs attention gathers the alerts from the Front desk, Lab bench, and (if you have finance access) Finance desk boards, plus open incidents, so nothing a team is stuck on stays hidden from the manager.

Lab overview

The lab-wide workspace opens on the Lab overview. Pick Today, Last 7 days, or Last 30 days at the top right. Orders and money collected follow the selected period. Live figures such as overdue orders and critical results always show the current state.

The Branches table compares every branch you can access. Branches with the most overdue work are listed first. Each row shows orders, money collected, orders in progress, overdue orders, on-time rate, and a red badge when critical results are waiting. Branches that run Kashef Local also show when they last synced. A red sync line means the branch has not synced for over an hour, so its numbers here may be behind. Open takes you to that branch's Branch overview.

Every figure on the Lab overview counts only the branches assigned to your account. Branches you are not assigned to are left out, even if they belong to the same lab. Ask an administrator to assign you to a branch if it is missing.

Needs attention lists problems across your branches: overdue orders, critical results, Kashef Local branches that are not syncing, instruments that are down, QC failures today, low stock, and delayed sample transfers. Lab activity charts orders and money collected per day.

When you click a figure or a Needs attention item that comes from one branch, Kashef opens that branch directly. When it comes from more than one branch, a window lists each branch with its own number, largest first. Choose the branch you want to open.

Users who are not managers see Quick Links to the active branch workspaces they can open instead of the overview. Users who still need to finish setup see the onboarding notice and setup guides.

Kashef Local and Kashef Cloud

Kashef Local runs one branch on site, so its boards focus on running the current shift with that branch's own data. A strip at the top shows whether the node is connected to Kashef Cloud, when it last synced, how many changes are waiting to upload, and any sync conflicts that need review.

These parts are only available in Kashef Cloud, and the Local strip links there: trends over time, recent activity history, inventory and low stock, QC and instruments, home-visit dispatch, accounting (net this month, cash and bank accounts, supplier bills, insurance claims, reconciliation, transactions to review), and the lab-wide comparison of branches.

Using search

Search is the fastest way to jump to daily records without opening each module first. On desktop, click the search field or press Ctrl+K on Windows/Linux and ⌘+K on macOS. On mobile, open the navigation drawer and select Search; a focused search window opens above the current page. Type a patient, order, sample, doctor, or test identifier to see matching records grouped by resource, with short details below each result.

Search uses the same smart index in the Lab Workspace and every Branch Workspace. It searches records across all branches the signed-in user can access, not only the branch currently selected in the panel. Each operational result shows its branch in the result details so staff can confirm the scope before opening it.

Search uses user-facing identifiers wherever they exist. Orders are found by the readable order code such as ORD-2026-777, not by the internal UUID. Samples are found by the barcode/public sample ID such as SMP-2026-888, not by the internal UUID. Orders can also be found by patient name, patients by name or patient ID, doctors by name or doctor ID, and tests by name or code. Catalog test results open in the Lab Workspace because test setup is lab-wide, even when the search was started from a branch workspace.

Patient and doctor names are matched by how they are written and how they sound, not only by exact spelling. Searching احمد حسني, أحمد حسنى, Ahmed Hosny, or Ahmad Hosni finds the same person whichever way the name was saved, including an Arabic name searched in English and the reverse. Results that match your spelling most closely appear first; similar-sounding names can appear below them, so check the phone number or patient ID before opening a record.

Order identifiers are ranked intentionally. When the search text looks like an order code, the Orders group appears before related samples or patients so reception, operations, and finance staff land on the order page first. Open the sample or patient result only when that is the record you actually need. A sample result opens the order's Sample Log and selects that sample's detail slide-over; there is no separate sample view page.

Use this search for navigation and quick lookup. If you need to filter a large operational queue, open the relevant table after finding the module and use that page's filters for status, branch, date, payment state, sample type, or category.

Search remains available even when the Lab overview is only showing setup or branch-switching quick links. On mobile, it stays at the top of the navigation drawer so users without a full dashboard can still reach records quickly.

Using Quick Access

The Quick Access menu replaces the older single Add button. On desktop it is in the topbar. On mobile, open the navigation drawer and expand Quick Access. It shows the fixed actions the user is allowed to use: New Order, Operations Workbench, Cashier Workbench, and Inventory Dashboard. If a user does not have permission for one of those areas, that shortcut is hidden.

Use Customize inside the branch workspace menu to add personal shortcuts after the fixed actions. The customization page can add resources, pages, and dashboard views that the current user is allowed to open. Keep the list short and focused on daily work; the full sidebar remains the place for less common administration pages.

If Customize is not shown, the fixed shortcuts can still be used. Open the needed page from the sidebar and ask an administrator to confirm branch workspace access if the customization option should be available.

Using in-panel help

The sidebar Help link near the bottom opens the Help Center in a new tab, so staff can keep their current Lab Panel work open while reading the relevant guide. The Settings link appears directly above it for account settings, saved machines, logged-in devices, password, and notification preferences. Use Help when onboarding a new employee, checking a workflow step, or confirming what a setting means before changing it.

Information icons appear beside page headers, section titles, and form fields. Hover or click the icon to see a short explanation. Field icons explain what the field controls in the current record. Section icons reuse the section description when one exists, or show a short fallback explaining that the fields are grouped together. Lab Panel actions also include short hover help when a more specific action tooltip has not been defined. When a modal or slide-over opens, help popovers should stay closed until you hover, click, or focus the related help icon or action. These hints are quick guidance; the Help Center contains the full workflow documentation.

Reading numbers safely

On-time rate and overdue counts use the turnaround time configured for each test, counted from when the sample was received. A rate shown as — means no orders are in progress, not that the branch is failing. Money collected counts completed payments only; pending and failed payments are excluded. Unpaid balances use the same calculation as the cashier, so an insured patient's balance shows only their own share.

If a number looks wrong, click it. The page it opens shows the records behind it, and that page is always the source of truth.

Good operating practice

Start each shift on your board and clear the red items in Needs attention first. Use the work list buttons rather than searching for each order, because they open the exact step that is due. Managers should check the Lab overview at least once a day for branches with growing overdue counts or Kashef Local branches that have stopped syncing.