Request a collection
The job you will do most often. In this guide we raise one collection from the dashboard to the moment it goes out to collectors, answering each question on the form as we come to it, and finish with the separate form for planning an event.
Step 1
Start the request
Both ways in are on your dashboard. Almost always you want the first one.
Dashboard → Request a Collection
This starts one now, and it reaches nearby collectors the moment you submit. Pre-scheduled Collection Request is the other card, for a planned event such as a hiring day, and we come back to it at the end. Everything between now and then is the immediate request.
Steps 2 and 3
Say who is being tested
First question on the form. Answering it narrows everything below to what applies to that person, so it is worth getting right.
Request a Collection → Donor
Pick the person being tested from your roster. The form then adjusts to them, so a driver in your DOT group is offered DOT test types only, and your company default type and panel are filled in already. Add another person being tested puts the rest on the same request.
If they are standing in front of you and not on the roster, add them here rather than leaving the form. A name and email are enough. DOT or Non-DOT decides whether the post-accident questions apply. Tick "Don't email them yet" to skip the invitation.
Steps 4 to 6
Say what they are being tested for
Next, three separate questions that people often confuse: why the test is happening, what is being collected, and what the laboratory screens for.
Reason for test → Test type → Drug panel
- How soon does the test have to happen?
- Alcohol is the urgent one: within two to three hours, and never more than eight, because alcohol leaves the system quickly. A drug test should be done as soon as possible and no later than thirty-two hours after the accident.
- What drugs are covered?
- Under SAMHSA guidelines, testing should cover the five illicit drug classes, amphetamines, THC, cocaine, opiates and phencyclidine, and alcohol. For non-DOT tests a company may test for any number of substances, as long as its own policy spells them out.
Reason is why the test is happening and changes nothing about what is collected. Test type is the specimen and whether it is DOT. Drug panel is what the laboratory screens for, and choosing one fills "Drugs to be tested for" in plain words. Alcohol testing adds a breath test to a drug collection.
This opens the full detail of every panel your chosen test type offers, including what each abbreviation covers and the confirmation cutoffs. Worth opening when your policy names specific substances and you need to be sure the panel reaches them.
Choosing Post-Accident for somebody in a DOT group opens the five FMCSA questions. Answer them all and READI Collect applies 49 CFR 382.303 for you and says whether a DOT test is required. If it is, the DOT test type is selected automatically.
Steps 7 and 8
Say where, when, and send it
Three questions left, and the last of them is the button.
Instructions / Notes → Schedule → Address → Request collection
- What if no collector is available?
- You can still submit, and READI Collect dispatch arranges coverage. If a test genuinely cannot be done in the time the rules allow, record why: the collection keeps a list of every collector the request reached, which is the evidence of what was tried.
These notes reach the collector and everyone else working the collection. They start from your company default notes, so all you add is what is specific to today: which gate, who to ask for, any equipment to bring.
Leave Schedule blank to dispatch now, or set a date and time in your own timezone. For Address, pick one of your sites and the pin lands on it, type an address and choose the match, or drag the pin for a roadside collection. Check the count of qualified collectors under the map, then send it.
Step 9
Planning ahead instead
One more form, for the other card on the dashboard. Use it when you are not asking for somebody to come now.
Dashboard → Pre-scheduled Collection Request
Tell us the company, the site, who will be the contact on the day, and what tests you need. Dispatch then confirms the date with you rather than sending somebody straight away, so allow at least 72 hours. Use it for hiring events or a round of randoms.
- Raise a collection for anybody on your roster, and for somebody who is not on it yet.
- Choose a reason, a test type and a panel, and say what each one decides.
- Answer the FMCSA questions and read the determination they produce.
- Send a collector to a site, an address, or a pin at the roadside.
- Tell an immediate request apart from a pre-scheduled one.
Your request is on its way to collectors. Topic 6 picks it up from there: following the collection and getting the results back.