Users can search for patients via Medical Record Numbers (MRNs), and search for studies via these patients or, alternatively, Accession Numbers (ANs). Both of these search tasks follow the same communication diagram to the left.

In mi2b2 client's Tab 1, users can enter a list of MRNs and search on the PACS to find the list of corresponding patients. Once the list of patients is found, users can use these patients to find a set of DICOM studies corresponding to these patients. Alternatively, if the users already have a list of ANs, they can enter them in Tab 2 and search on the PACS for these studies. Finally, after a list of studies is obtained, users can select the desired ones and request the studies to be copied to the remote repository (cache (below).

As the transferring of studies from PACS to mi2b2 server is asynchronous, users can check the request status by asking the mi2b2 server. This is executed whenever user visits Tab 3 the Request Log tab or click on Tab 3's its "refresh" button.