Electronic Laboratory Notebook

OLF comes with an electronic laboratory notebook(ELN) and allows researchers to document their experiments and related work electronically. In the top menu just below the OLF logo one can select "Notes" which contains actions for the ELN.

##Create note To create a note, select "Notes" in the menu and select "Create new note" from the dropdown menu. This redirects to another page where one should state the title and content for this note. The content for the note is written in the rich text field just below the title. The text field provides a Microsoft Word-like text editor where you can define font size, listings, tables and much more. To actually create the note, click on the "Create" button just below the text field. This will redirect the user to the "Show" page for this note which is described in the following section.

##Show note To show a note one can select a note from the different note listings in the "Notes" menu(the last 4 items in the dropdown). The show note is also the page redirected to after creation of a note. From the list, click "show" on the note to show. On the "show" page one can choose to edit, sign, delete, share and much more which is descriped in the following sections.

##Edit note From the "Show note" page click on the button labeled "Edit" to edit a page. This redirects to a page just like the "Create note" page but with values in title and content. To store potential changes click the "Update" button below the text field to update the note with the new changes.

##Copying from Word Documents The ELN is able to keep format when copying content from word. Mark the content from the Word document and copy it to the clipboard, either by hitting ctrl+c or right-clicking and choose copy. Paste it anywhere in the content of a note by hitting ctrl+v or right-clicking and choose paste.

##Insert images The ELN allows insertion of images copied to the clipboard. Among others one can copy images to the clipboard from a browser or Word: Paste it into the ELN just as in the above section.

##Sign note (author) One of the key features of the ELN is the ability for users to sign notes when the note is finished. To sign a note, go to the "show" page for the note which should be signed. Click on finalize to sign the note. If this is the first time the user tries to sign a note, the user will be redirected to a page for generating keys which is used to secure the signing of a note. For security reasons, the user is prompted to enter the users password to generate the keys. After the key generation or if keys are previously generated the user is directed to a page for signing the note. Here the password needs to be confirmed and a user is choosen as supervisor for this note. When signing the note by clicking "Sign note" the user is redirected to the "show" page and the note is locked from editing, deletion and signing. Each time one goes to the "show" page for a signed note the signatures for the note is validated. It will show a green check icon if the signature is valid and a red cross icon if the signature is invalid. The supervisor signature will also show a red cross if the supervisor hasn't signed the note yet.

##Sign note (supervisor) When a user is selected as supervisor for a note the note will appear in the list of notes which the user needs to sign. This list is accessable from the "Notes" dropdown where the menu item is "List notes I need to sign". Clicking "show" on a note will direct the user to the "show" page for the note. Here the user can click "Sign note" in order to sign a note. Again the user will be prompted to generate keys if this is the first note the user signs. After this the user is asked to confirm the users password. The note is then actually signed by clicking "Sign note". After the supervisor has signed the note, a green check icon will appear on the "show" page just as when an author signed the note. Again the supervisors signature is validated each time the note is shown.

##Add projects From the "show" page the user can add several project to the note. Select the project which should be added to the note and click "Add to". The project is now listed just above this dropdown with a button labeled "Remove" which removes the project from the note if clicked. Several project can be added to a note by choosing another project in the dropdown and click "Add to" again.

##Add samples From the "show" page the user can add several samples to the note. Select the sample which should be added to the note and click "Add to". The sample is now listed just above this dropdown with a button labeled "Remove" which removes the sample from the note if clicked. Several samples can be added to a note by choosing another sample in the dropdown and click "Add to" again. Once a note is linked to a sample the note is listed when viewing the sample. In this exmaple cell line data sample was linked to the note. In the "List Cell Line Data" view which is found under the "Cell Line Data" menu, a list of cell line data is shown. Click on "show" on the sample which was linked to the note and scroll to the buttom of the page where a and click on the "Notes" tab as shown in the image below: This will show all notes which are linked to this sample.

##Upload attachment From the "show" page for a note, the user can upload files which will be attached to this note.

Files which have been attached to a note is viewable and editable from the bottom of the "show" page in the Attachment tab:

##Share notes In the same way as notes a linked to projects and samples a note can be shared with other users. In the "show" page for a note there is a dropdown for selecting users to share this note with. Select a user and click "Add to". After the note is shared the other user, to which the note has been shared, can find the note under "Notes" and "List notes shared with me". Click on "show" on the shared note to see it:

##List types In the "Notes" dropdown menu there are different types of list the user can choose. "List own notes" will list the notes to which the user is the author. "List notes shared with me" will list all notes which is shared with the user. "List notes signed as supervisor" will show all notes which the user has signed as supervisor. "List notes I need to sign" lists all the notes where the user is selected as supervisor and the user has not yet signed the note as supervisor.

##Create notebook ELN notes can be grouped together in a notebook. A notebook is created by going to "List notebooks" from the "Notes" menu. On this page the user will choose notes to put into this notebook, which users this notebook is shared with and a title of the notebook. After clicking "Create" the notebook is created and the user is redirected to the "show" page for this notebook.

##Add new note to notebook To add a new note to an existing notebook, go to the "List notebooks" and click "show" on the notebook.

Then click "Add new note" which will redirect to the page for creating a note. After the note is created in the usual way described in previous sections, the note is added to the notebook.

##Add existing note to notebook To add an existing note to a notebook, go to the "show" page for the notebook as in the previous section. Click on "Edit Notebook" and in the "Notes" field, type the title of the note you want to add(autocomplete will help remembering the whole title). When all notes are selected click "Update" and the notebook now contains the selected notes.

##Browse notebook When several notes are added to the notebook, the user can browse these easily from the "show" page of the notebook as shown here:

##Export note After a note is created it can be exported from the "show" page for the note. Click on "Download note as docx" or "Download note as pdf" to download a Word Document or PDF with the content of the note.

##Print note During creation and after creation of a note the user can print a note. This can be done from the text field either on the "create" page or the "show" page of a note.

##Search for notes Notes are searchable from the search field at the top of OLF above the menu. Here the user can search for a title or a keyword within the content of a note and the search function will find the notes with this keyword in it.

##Publish Notes are now publishable after is has been finalized. After the author has signed the note the note is now in the status "final". The user can now publish the note to all users by clicking "Make note available to all users".