# Standardizing Sample Naming via the API

A lab may receive samples submitted from various sources. This can pose a problem with regards to sample names.There may be duplicate sample names, and/or various name formats, all of which make it hard for lab scientists to recognize a sample.

Clarity LIMS programmers often rename all incoming samples to a certain naming convention.

This section provides an example to address this problem.

### Recommendations <a href="#recommendations" id="recommendations"></a>

* When accepting a project and its samples, the receiving lab scientist runs a Clarity LIMS step named **Receive Samples**.
* The underlying **Receive Samples** process type / master step is configured with analyte (sample) inputs, and no analyte outputs.
* A shared result file output is configured to capture logging from the script.
* The sample name could be a derivative of the **Sample LIMSID**, with a prefix:
  * Because the LIMSID is guaranteed to be unique, this approach mitigates any need to maintain an external sequence of numbers.
  * The **Sample LIMSID** is derived from the **Project LIMSID**, which is configurable.

### Proposed solution

* The **Receive Samples** process is configured to trigger a script that renames the samples that are input to the process.
* This trigger also passes the **OriginatingProcessURI** to the script. This example assumes that the original submitted sample name must be preserved, and so it is saved in a sample UDF.

The following pseudo code shows how one might implement the sample-renaming script:

1. Connect to the API, using the **OriginatingProcessURI**.
2. Retrieve the **OriginatingProcessXML** and store it in a variable.
3. Iterate through the **inputoutput map** of the **OriginatingProcessXML**, and for each **InputArtifact**:
   * GET the **InputArtifactURI** and store the input **ArtifactXML** in a variable.
   * From this **ArtifactXML**, GET the **SourceSampleXML** and store it in another variable.
   * Modify the **SourceSampleXML**. To do this:
   * Rename the **SampleName** to a desired name (see Recommendations section, above).
   * Finally, PUT the **Sample XML** back.