One banner, one side menu, a job for each section.

One clean docket teaches it a new supplier.

LotWarden is not tied to one supplier. Give it one clean, unannotated scanned docket and it learns that supplier's letterhead and column structure. One layout serves every department.

• Name the supplier. Pick it from the workbook's supplier list, or type a new name.
• Drop one reference docket. It is read straight away and every section it found is shown.
• Check the columns and confirm with your initials. Until then the supplier is only pending; unconfirmed teaches are discarded at restart.

Supplier not recognised during a delivery? The review says so in an amber banner and offers to teach the supplier from that same docket. An awkward docket can be brought in as a prepared supplier file and corrected the same way.

Checks that happen the moment stock arrives.

• Condition on receipt. One selector per delivery: goods intact and cold chain OK, or NOT acceptable. Written to the logs' Condition column, audit-logged, flagged in red on the investigation report.
• Expired on arrival. A red expiry cell, an EXPIRED badge, and first place on the investigation list with a quarantine or return action.
• Short-dated. Anything expiring within 90 days is flagged amber so it can be rotated to the front or queried with the supplier.
• Non-stock lines. Freight and delivery-fee lines are removed with one click and never checked or logged.

Quantities are deliberately cautious. Only clean, confident reads are pre-filled; everything else is left blank for you. Only a human-confirmed quantity is ever written to stock.

Into the right log, with the right comment.

• Automatic routing. Chemistry: the material number against PQ's own classification, then the product name against the Cal/QC mapping and the workbook's supplier lists. Other departments: the log and sheet in their folder that name the product.
• The right columns in every workbook. Columns are found from each sheet's own headings, so Kit Insert and QC columns are never written.
• Preview first. Add to Logs shows exactly what goes into each workbook, and which sheet, before you confirm. Received by is required.
• Through Excel itself, with macro execution disabled, so validation rules and macros are preserved untouched. A timestamped backup of each workbook is taken before every write.

A “? check” badge means the product is not known. In Chemistry, pick its log once and the app remembers; elsewhere, log it by hand. Each entry also gets a DN stamp naming the delivery note it came from.

What to order, use first and take off the shelf.

Tell it how long a delivery takes and the weeks of stock to keep, then press Check the stock. Three tabs follow, one list each, with its count. Advisory only: it orders nothing.

• Order: what will run out before a delivery could arrive. Tick “ordered” with the material number; the tick clears when the logs show the delivery. Delivery times learn themselves from those ticks.
• Use these first: unopened lots expiring within 60 days, with Put into use.
• Take off the shelf: expired unopened lots; removals go into the log's Number Discarded after a preview.
• Past years' logs, read only, give a rate of use today instead of after a year of Dates in Use.
• Also: shelf counts with a printable count sheet, a supplier record for the yearly evaluation, days-of-cover charts, and expiry reminders saved as a calendar file for the team's Outlook, carried across by hand because LotWarden never connects to Outlook or Teams.

Scan the barcode, put the lot into use.

A USB scanner types what it reads, like a very fast keyboard. Open Scan in, set the date and your initials, and scan. Each scan finds its lot in the logs with its type, Reagent, Calibrator or Control, and adds it to the list. Check the list, then write the Dates in Use in one go.

• Flagged: a repeat scan, a lot already in use, a lot not in the logs, and an expiry that disagrees with the log.
• GS1 barcodes are read as they are. Any other layout is taught once from one scan and the lot and expiry on its label.
• Look up shows where a lot stands without adding it; Scanner check shows exactly what the scanner sends.

Experimental: check what it reads against the label until you trust it, and scan a second label after teaching a layout.

Reviews, signed with initials and dated.

• Weekly queue: expired and soon-expiring lots, lots in use without a Date in Use, delivery problems and lots awaiting PAT. Mark each Reviewed, then sign off the week.
• Second check: another person checks each delivery's logged lines against the note. The receiver cannot sign it.
• Supervisor report: the month in a workbook to print and sign, then record the sign-off.
• Log transfers: confirm each working copy was copied into the controlled log. A copy changed since shows again.
• Suppliers: each supplier's last 12 months for the yearly evaluation, with the outcome and any conditions.

Every sign-off is kept: dated, stored beside the app where it cannot be edited, and written to the audit log. The side menu shows how many items are waiting.

Laboratory data on the drive is locked.

The logs it stores, the register, master stock, backups, lot history, review sign-offs, stores records, answer keys and taught barcodes are encrypted at rest. The app unlocks what it needs as it works and locks it again after every write. You will not notice it.

• Readable on purpose: the audit logs and the licence files, so the audit trail and the authorisation can be checked without the key, and everything the app makes for you: received sheets, worklists, outlooks, packs and reminder files.
• Opening a log: press Export a readable copy on the review screen. Move the entries into the controlled log, sign the transfer off under Reviews, then delete the readable copy.
• The key lives on the drive so the app can work unattended. It stops anyone reading the drive's data from another computer, and it is a second lock under BitLocker.