labElephant | Laboratory management

Use the Materials form to enter inventory items, and track them through discovery, ordering, receiving, storage, use, and disposal
Different identified users can implement each of these steps
Track Materials expenditures from different accounts
Storage locations can be specified for each item
Reorders of the same item are easily managed without the need for data re-entry
Critical items, even down to the specific lot number, can be associated with any experiment by selection on the Experiments form
Generate Reports for regulatory agencies of your inventory of Materials of a particular category

Accurate association of Materials with Experiments is essential for understanding how results can sometimes vary between experimental replicates

Use the Methods form to enter Methods, organized by Category, Method and Version
Versions enable tracking of how a Method may be modified over time, and by different users
Method version records include multiple fields for links to documents
Method versions can be associated with any experiment by selection on the Experiments form
Reorders of the same item are easily managed without the need for data re-entry

Accurate association of Methods with Experiments is essential for understanding how results can sometimes vary between experimental replicates

Investigations are the highest level of organization, perhaps a grant title or a specific area of investigation
Projects are defined under an Investigation, and could for example be a specific aim of a grant
The Principal Investigator sets Investigations and Projects, and assigns user permissions to each
Users then only see the Investigations and Projects on the Switchboard form that they are permitted to see
Experiments viewed from the Switchboard form are then specific for the Project selected

A major feature of labElephant is how it facilitates the management of lab personnel by the Principal Investigator
All lab personnel are entered into labElephant as users on the People form by the PI, or by a user with PI privileges
Each user sets their own password, digital signature image, and email address in order to use labElephant, for optimal function and compliance enforcement
Entries by users on the Knowledge form are private to the user, unless the user has granted privileges to others on the People form
Entries by a user on the Experiments form are publicly visible to all users granted access to the Project by the PI, but any changes made show up in the audit trail
Each user can easily see if they have bad or expired links to data, which greatly facilitates their maintenance of data integrity
The PI can easily see which users have bad or expired links to data, which greatly facilitates the enforcement of data integrity

With one click pull up all the experiments done by a selected student
View how each student understands and evaluates the experiments they are doing
View how each student understands and evaluates the papers they are reading
Easily ensure that each student is monitoring the integrity of data location
The PI can then easily find the data of each student, before and after they depart
Portability: The PI can create a user-specific copy of the labElephant back end database for when the student leaves
Along with a copy of the user folder on the lab drive, this enables a departing student to find all their old data
Portability gives students incentive to enter data

Local Area Networks (LANs) keep your data in-house and under your control
On a LAN, the back end (BE) of labElephant is on your lab drive on the LAN, and a front end (FE) of labElephant is on each user computer
labElephant will also function with remote access, via (e.g.) Citrix server, if Microsoft Office is installed on Citrix Server, with a FE in each user folder
While labElephant can be used on a single computer, the most useful configuration for multiple users is on a LAN
If your lab data is already on a LAN, on a lab drive, then adoption of labElephant is a breeze!
Portability: Because the only requirement for labElephant is Microsoft Office on a Windows computer, the PI is not tied to an institutional ELN choice
A copy of the old lab folder on the lab drive enables the PI to find all the data from their old lab, in their new location