After creating your account, you need to think about how to configure eLabInventory so that it meets your lab's needs now and in the future. In this guide, you will find useful tips, tricks and best practices for organizing your digital lab workspace.

Setting up a Group


A group is a secure environment used to share information with members within that group. A group can be a small team with a single PI, a large research division, department or institute with multiple group leaders, or even just a single scientist. When setting up a group, it is important to think about what information should be accessible by which people. Besides projects, studies and experiments, eLabInventory also offers centralized samples storage and supplies ordering, shared standard protocol templates and equipment planning. This means that you should carefully evaluate how you want to set up your lab and decide who needs access to manage samples, use equipment or view experiments. A good rule of thumb is to set up the system from the point of view of the scientist or a single group leader, because these people will be the end-users and have the most to benefit from an intuitively organized system. 


There are a number of features available to collaborate with people outside of their own group. For instance, you can create a separate Project Group to exchange data with researchers outside your lab. You can also share sample information with other labs within the organization, so that they can view shared sample records in their inventories without disclosing the actual storage location.


Institute-shared devices and storage locations


In many labs, storage locations are shared by multiple groups. For instance "lab A" uses the two upper sections and "lab B" uses the two lower sections in a freezer. In case both labs share projects, studies and experiments as well, both labs could be set up in eLabJournal as individual groups. If groups act as independent groups, the most practical solution is for both labs to set up the same storage locations in their group and to only add the relevant sections or compartments within that storage unit. We are currently working on enabling the sharing of storage locations and devices with other labs within the institute.

Permissions


You can define permission-based roles to fine-tune what actions users can take. To keep permission management clear and simple, you can set various permissions to view, update or remove items within eLabInventory. Permissions that are highly specific (ex. excluding certain drawers from a freezer) are currently not possible, so keep that in mind when virtualizing your storage devices.