Congratulations on starting your journey with us! With Laboperator you can easily connect laboratory equipment, sensors, Connector Boxes, and other devices of various manufacturers and control them via an easy-to-use user interface. In the following article, we will give you a quick overview of how to get started and what you should know when using Laboperator.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Laboperator Introduction
• Collections and Resources
• Connector and Device Integration
• Workflows

Laboperator Introduction

Laboperator facilitates the control and data acquisition of individual devices, the combination of different devices in Workflows, and the monitoring of hundreds of devices at the same time. The device portfolio (for more information, please reach out to us through feedback@labforward.io) includes a constantly growing number of devices that can be connected (“plug-n-play”). 

Laboperator itself is not an Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) or Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) system but rather serves to fill the gap between available ELN and LIMS products. Therefore it is classified as a Laboratory Execution System (LES).

It can be combined with our ELN, Labfolder (in the figure below marked as blue), as well as our LIMS, Labregister (in the figure below marked as green) and is available in the cloud as well as on-premises. With this product suite, you can set up and expand your own “Connected Lab”.

Collections and Resources

Collections are displayed as folders and provide a structure for content, which is referred to as Resources in Laboperator.

Laboperator offers different Resources to work with: 

• Measurements
• Dashboards
• Workflow Templates
• Workflow Step Templates
• Workflows
• Connectors

Essentially, the basic actions (add, remove, move) work identically for all Resources. The approval for the respective actions is provided by the permissions.

In the navigation menu on the left-side of Laboperator, you can find the Collections and Resources you have access to. Via the ADD button on the top left, Resources and Collections can be added to existing Collections, provided the necessary permissions have been assigned.

Connector and Device Integration

Devices can be enabled access to the Laboperator environment via a cabled connetion to a Connector Box or for computer-based devices, e.g., SiLA servers, via a Virtual Connector. Once your Connector is set up, it is available in Laboperator as a Resource, to which devices may be assigned.

Workflows

With the Workflow feature, sequences of complex execution steps can be visualized in the Laboperator user interface and consequently executed. By acquiring instrument data and combining it with manual actions and other events, Workflows in Laboperator serve as an intermediate between devices and step-by-step instructions. The data can be passed on for further analysis to our data management systems Labfolder, our ELN, or Labregister, our LIMS. In this way, you can use Laboperator throughout your experiment, from inception to its conclusion. 

Workflows are defined and detailed in Workflow Templates, which can be instantiated via their execution as Workflow runs. Workflow templates are written by our Implementation Team as YAML files, and once uploaded, exist as Resources in a Collection and can be executed. If you need assistance in setting up a Workflow, please reach out to our Implementation Team through feedback@labforward.io.