Data Elements help you organise your experiment. Define numeric and descriptive values in a structured way or use the Labregister Item to link inventory Items to your lab notes. By creating common protocols in this respect, scientists will have easy access to used materials and can repeat experiments more efficiently. All entered values can be recovered using the Advanced Search. Thanks to unit conversions you can be confident that values will show up even if the units differ, as long as the amounts are equal - Labfolder knows that 500µl is equal to 0.5ml.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Data Element toolbar
• Numerical Data Element
• Descriptive Data Element
• Data group
• Labregister Item Reference
  • Versioning

Data Element toolbar

1. Click on the Data Elements icon, in the element toolbar or drag and drop to where you would like the new Data Element to be located.
2. In the Data Elements section you can choose from 4 types depending on your needs:
   1. Numerical Data Element for physical quantities and units,
   2. Descriptive Data Element for any qualitative data,
   3. Data Group to cluster different experimental parameters,
   4. Labregister Item to reference Items from your inventory.

Numerical Data Element

1. Select Numerical Data Element icon.

2. An element with 4 text fields (Data element name, Physical quantity, Numeric value, Units) appears for you to fill in.
3. You can change the second and fourth columns with dropdown menus. The second column specifies units in the fourth column (i.e. choosing Temperature as your physical quantity will then give you the options of °C, °F, or K as Units).
4. Click the floppy disk icon in the upper right-hand corner of the data element to save changes.

Note: Physical quantity and Units are mandatory fields.

Descriptive Data Element

1. Select Descriptive Data Element icon.

2. Fill in the text fields for the Data element name and Data element description.
3. Click the floppy disk icon in the upper right-hand corner of the data element to save changes.

Data group

Use a Data Group to organize multiple Data Elements. You can either create your Data Elements first and then put them in a Data Group or create your group first and add the elements from there.

1. Select the Data group icon.

2. Name your Data Group and either drag an existing element into the dash-lined box or click blue + to add a Numerical DE.

3. You are able to rearrange elements within the group and the overall position of the group in the DE by using the crossed arrows icon at the end of each row.

4. You can delete a row or the entire group by clicking the appropriate bin icon.

5. Click the save icon in the upper right-hand corner of the data element.

Labregister Item Reference

Labregister Items are fetched from your inventory. The dropdown menu corresponds to Items in your inventory.

1. Select Labregister Item icon.

2. Find Items from your inventory by starting to type the name of the inventory Item. Either scroll or search for your desired Item. Below the name of each Item is the name of the inventory category it is from.

3. Choose the Labregister Item properties you wish displayed in your Entry Element.
4. Click on the inverted V to collapse Item and create next one or click floppy disk icon in the upper right corner to save the changes.

5. The Labregister Item will now be displayed as a hyperlink that can redirect you to the Item in your inventory. 

Tip: In order to better coordinate with your stock, we recommend having Labregister open in a tab in parallel showing the respective category. In addition to this we recommended if there are several variants of an article, to include the variation determining attribute in the name of that Item: If you e.g. have a "Lab Vessel" in different volumes (250 ml, 500 ml, 1000 ml) then call it "Lab Vessel 250", "Lab Vessel 500", and “Lab Vessel 1000". That way it will be much easier to make the right pick, even if there is only the Item name available.

Versioning

All changes made to the Items in your inventory are recorded. Although you will not have a visible history or audit trail, you can be sure that the changes are documented. This becomes obvious when you are using Labregister Items: the created hyperlink is versioned, which means that it will always refer to the original Labreg entry. But when the inventory gets updated, you will see a note at the bottom of the page saying that a newer version of the Item is available. 

Tip: Please, consider also reading the article explaining what happens to an Item reference when the Item has been updated to gain a better understanding of this functionality.