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ABRF Lab Operations Management Software Discussions

April 7 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

ABRF Lab Operations Management Software Discussion:
What’s Your “Big Number”?

April 7, 2026
4:00 – 5:00 pm ET
Register here

Join us for the monthly ABRF Lab Operations Management Software Discussion, a recurring forum held on the first Tuesday of each month, bringing together lab operations professionals to explore software tools and best practices. Join us for this timely discussion:

What’s Your “Big Number”?

Speaker:   Rafael Toro, iLab & Research Cores Coordinator,
Medical College of Wisconsin

Core Directors are always thinking about ways to show the value of the cores to the administration. One of those ways was to calculate “The Big Number”, which is the total amount of funding awarded for payment accounts used in cores and shared resources. If a $1 million grant was used in a core, we counted the $1 million even if the transaction was only a few hundred dollars. The first pass at this calculation involved generating an iLab report to determine payment accounts used, working with the Finance Office to use Oracle to determine the total award amount from those accounts, and then present the findings as a graphic with other iLab metadata (things like the number of cores, number of PI labs, number of users, etc.). As all of the iLab transaction data is also tracked in our Data Warehouse, our Business Intelligence team was able to mine associated metadata just using the iLab report as the starting point. We now have a Qlik dashboard that links all our original data for the “Big Number” with other metadata so we can look at cores in novel ways. This is a work in progress, and all the data is being migrated to Workday. We expect to have access to even more metadata after the Workday transition that will allow us to ask even more questions about Core financial operations.

The session will include time for Q&A and discussion, giving attendees the opportunity to share feedback, ask questions, and connect with peers.

Don’t miss this chance to stay informed and engaged with the latest in
lab operations software.

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