Labguru

Comprehensive and flexible ELN system. Powerful rodent features

Comentarios: We have put Labguru at the centre of our day to day labwork, both for lab management and to organise experiments and data.
We migrated our consumables, mice list, etc using their template files and use it daily to log experiments, data and protocols.

Puntos a favor:

It allows to effectively organise your stocks, whether they are cells, reagents or rodent specimens. Allocate them to locations (rooms, racks, boxes) and consume reagents in the experiment records helps keep track of what needs ordering. The experiments can be created, organised, moved and even saved as protocol templates which allows flexibility, as it does the option to link resources. To import and export list of any stocks is very easy and fast using the excel templates. As a manager, is very easy to distribute roles and access to the different users.

Contras:

Sometimes the local edit plugin function to edit a document embedded in an experiment doesn't work properly and requires manual editing, which is more time consuming. Overall it requires to spend time learning how to use it, but this is because it's very comprehensive and has many functions.

Customizable ELN with amazing customer support

Puntos a favor:

We most liked how customizable most features in this ELN are. We can edit the existing inventories, create our own inventories, customize equipment maintenance, and protocols. This has made it easier to easily log and search for scientists' work. It has also made setting up consistent workflows easier.

Contras:

Uptake has been difficult especially with lab members who are not comfortable with adapting to software that requires a lot of clicking and many different steps to setup features. We also wish there was a way to integrate our purchasing with automatic inventory updates. For now, we have to manually enter new inventory stocks.

A great all in-one data management platform for Biotech

Comentarios: In a nutshell, Labguru allowed us to conduct scientific activities quickly and efficiently. The entire platform is made to offer a customized experience based on the needs of the company. It’s really interesting for young startups like Equaly to start with LabGuru, since it can evolve and adapt to our changing needs along with the development of our company.

Puntos a favor:

We particularly appreciate the Excel spreadsheet tool and the possibility to connect an experiment to any other element inside LabGuru with the Linked Resources option. In only one year of use, we experienced the platform evolving.

Contras:

The text processing is tricky, and sometimes the program crashed while working, but this last issue seemed to be solved now.

Cannot live without it

Comentarios: Amazing experience. Tracking and usage of antibodies and when any reagents are consumed. Help us to keep track of consumables and when to order items in good time. Labguru helped us to keep track of when to clean, calibrate, service and audit (etc) equipments so we don't need to rely on the use of google calendar for example.

Puntos a favor:

Labguru is very user friendly. Although there are still minor things to be tweaked, I like the appearance of the LIMS as a whole and how easy it is for our internal developers to use API and customise the LIMS to fit our needs. It is great with integration with our other sample collection system. It is very easy to import in samples and link experiment and reagent usage to each sample. All actions are tracked and there is a trail log which is super useful if needed for troubleshooting and also for the purpose of auditing and eventually accreditation of our lab. I like that we can customise to get notifications when reagents are running low and when items have expired in addition to when and what maintenance are due for each equipment. Not forgetting it is easy to set up label template and print labels to stick on our lab tubes/plates during our choice of label printer.

Contras:

At the moment it seems that moving items between storage location is not very specific but this is on their list of things to do to make it better. When we have documents to upload for certain equipment, we cannot yet upload them to specific service date that is logged but only upload to the main equipment inventory page, which is ok but would be great to associate documents to corresponding maintenance event. It would be useful to get notifications at a specified time (i.e. 1 month) prior to reagent expiring and not just when the reagents have expired. Our developer had sorted out customised emails for this (again indicating how easy to customise Labguru to suit our needs) but if this setting could be implemented in Labguru it would be very useful.

Labguru: It wears many hats at the same time

Comentarios: I feel Labguru has its own set of advantages but at the same time, it has some risks associated with it. So, I believe the company should bring about some changes in its data backup policies, most importantly, to be in the competitive market.

Puntos a favor:

Our laboratory has purchased several licenses for Labguru and we have been using it for several years now. 1. One of the biggest advantages of Labguru is that one gets to consolidate all data all content and written matter in one place. So that allows people to be more organized. 2. Besides, most people can then access other's content as well. This may sound bad but is not really, because say I need a protocol for an experiment from my colleague, he tells me exactly what to look for and from which experiment on his Labguru. I simply go and take a look at the protocol instead of bothering him for his notebook or his time. 3. Labguru can be used to maintain instrument usage, bookings, and service which was particularly useful for us during the COVID no contact protocol. 4. Also, maintaining Labguru records allows the authorities/Professor to keep a tab on the progress of their students/staff.

Contras:

The biggest con of this software is that it does not have a backup policy. You can physically store the pdf of the Labguru virtual notebook but what do you do for the data? The moment my lab or research group decides to quit Labguru, all the data will be lost. There are generations of work in Labguru that were saved by my other colleagues, all that would be gone. The second aspect of using Labguru or any similar platform is the heavy reliance on the internet. Labguru is certainly not solely to be blamed solely. If someone has a bad internet day then he/she will not be able to work on Labguru at all.