Help & How It Works
How the portal works, answered questions, and a support ticket straight to Lujain and Fahd.
How It Works
Welcome to Transplant X — the unified collaborative research engine for the Transplant Surgery division at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Froedtert Hospital. We connect medical students, residents, and surgical faculty to take clinical questions from hypothesis to peer-reviewed publication.
The Research Journey
Pick your path to see the step-by-step workflow:
Sign up
Join with your MCW email and complete your research profile.
Browse the board
Find open studies by surgical organ or principal investigator.
Request to join
Write a brief note highlighting your background and availability.
PI approves
Get enrolled on the team and gain access to the private project channel.
Publish together
Execute chart extraction, co-author abstracts, and submit papers.
Feature Guides (Role-by-Role)
Detailed breakdown of every feature on the portal with exact workflows for both students and faculty:
Command Center Dashboard
Role-aware executive view: vital signs, execution queue, pending approvals, and department radar.
For Medical Students
- Log in to land directly on your Command Center: view your active studies, action items due, and conference countdowns.
- Your 'My Daily Execution Queue' aggregates all tasks assigned to you across projects alongside personal ad-hoc to-dos.
- Check off completed items in 1 click, or update task status to 'In Progress' or 'Needs Review' to alert your PI.
- If stuck on EHR extraction or IRB paperwork, switch task status to '⚠️ Blocked' with an explanation so your mentor can step in.
For Faculty & PIs
- View your vital signs at a glance: Active Projects, Action Items Due, and Delegated Tasks.
- Pending student join requests appear in a compact, collapsible banner at the top — review and approve in one click without leaving the page.
- The 'Delegated Work' tab lets you monitor all tasks assigned to students across your studies, highlighting what is finished vs blocked.
- Department Radar flags projects with no activity for >14 days so you can nudge team leads before momentum lapses.
Task Delegation & Deliverables
Breaking studies into concrete deliverables: literature reviews, Table 1 extractions, and manuscript sections.
For Medical Students
- Receive task assignments with explicit due dates, priority tiers (Low, Medium, High, Critical), and deliverable links.
- Attach your Box folder or Overleaf / Word draft link directly to the task so faculty can review your work in context.
- Submit deliverables for review by setting status to 'Needs Review'.
For Faculty & PIs
- Click '+ Delegate / Add Task' from the Dashboard or '+ Assign Deliverable' inside any project workspace.
- Set target due dates and attach institutional Box folders or draft links.
- When students flag a task as 'Blocked', you receive an immediate alert detailing the bottleneck (e.g. Honest Broker access).
Open Project Board
How to navigate public projects, understand stages, and request to join a study.
For Medical Students
- Filter by surgical organ (Kidney, Liver, Heart, Lung, Pancreas) to find active studies aligned with your specialty interests.
- Click into any project card to review the hypothesis, sample size, PI, and team members.
- Use the 'Join this project' form to send a 1-2 sentence pitch to the PI. Once approved, the project channel unlocks for you.
For Faculty & PIs
- Your new projects remain Private on 'My Projects' until you toggle them Public.
- Flipping a project Public makes it immediately discoverable to motivated medical students on the board.
- Projects without activity for 14 days turn red to signal the team needs to check in.
Project Pages & Channels
Milestone tracks, the text-only project channel, and accessing Box folders.
For Medical Students
- Approved team members gain access to the internal Project Channel to post progress updates and ask questions.
- Strict text-only rule: file uploads and image attachments are blocked by policy to prevent accidental patient data (PHI) leakage.
- Access clinical data exclusively via the institutional MCW Box folder linked on the project page.
For Faculty & PIs
- Approve or decline student applicants in one click directly on your project page.
- Toggle the Box and Teams checkmarks beside student names once you grant them institutional access.
- Post directives and chart extraction targets directly into the text-only project channel.
Student Idea Pipeline
How students pitch research hypotheses and how faculty adopt them.
For Medical Students
- Have an idea for a retrospective study? Click '+ Pitch an Idea' on the Idea Pipeline.
- State the clinical hypothesis, needed data source (Epic EHR, OPTN/SRTR, TriNetX), and your available hours.
- When faculty click 'Take up this idea', an official project is created automatically with you on the team!
For Faculty & PIs
- Browse student pitches on the Idea Pipeline to identify motivated students with viable hypotheses.
- Click 'Take up this idea' on any pitch to adopt it as a PI. The system automatically creates the project with you leading.
- Refine the student's concept into an approved IRB protocol.
My Projects Console
Managing your owned studies vs joined collaborative projects.
For Medical Students
- Displays all research studies where you are an approved collaborator.
- Quick access to project milestone tracks, Box links, and team chat channels.
- Students cannot create projects directly (pitch ideas on the Board instead).
For Faculty & PIs
- Projects You Lead (PI): full management tools to add new studies (+ Add Project), edit rows, and review applicants.
- Projects You've Joined: studies where colleagues are PI and you collaborate as a co-investigator.
- Strict privacy: other faculty cannot browse or switch into your private project sheet.
Accounts & Security
MCW single-sign-in, approval queues, and temporary password setup.
For Medical Students
- Sign up using your official @mcw.edu email address.
- Pre-seeded accounts use temporary password mcw123456, with forced password change on first sign-in.
- New signups are routed to coordinator review (Dr. Badi, Lujain, Alex, Victor) for prompt approval.
For Faculty & PIs
- Coordinators receive automated notification emails when new researchers sign up.
- Approve applicants as Student or Faculty in the approval queue at /admin/users.
- Issue password reset codes for locked-out members directly from Admin Members.
Ready to get started?
Browse active surgical projects on the open board, pitch your own hypothesis, or reach out to the research team.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I delegate a task to a student or collaborator?
From your Command Center Dashboard, click '+ Delegate / Add Task', or open any project workspace and click '+ Assign Deliverable'. Pick the project, select the student or team member, set a target due date, and optionally attach an institutional Box folder or Overleaf / Word draft link.
How do faculty approve or decline student join requests?
Whenever a student applies to join your project, an alert banner appears at the top of your Dashboard: 'N student join requests awaiting your review'. Click 'Review' to view their clinical background and note, then click Approve or Decline in 1 click.
What should I do if a research task is blocked?
If chart review access is delayed, the Honest Broker extract is pending, or an IRB amendment is needed, open the task status dropdown and select '⚠️ Blocked'. Enter the reason. The PI and task creator will immediately receive an alert on their Dashboard.
Where do I track my active deliverables across all projects?
Your 'My Daily Execution Queue' on the Dashboard aggregates every deliverable assigned to you across all studies in one unified stream. You can mark items complete, update status, and open deliverable links directly.
How do I access project files and dataset extracts?
All patient datasets and clinical spreadsheets live in institutional MCW Box folders. Once approved by the PI, the verified Box link unlocks directly on the project's workspace page.
Report an Issue or Question
Login trouble, access questions, or something broken — tell us what happened and we'll get back to you promptly.