ELabELN Electronic Lab Notebook – Modern ELN & Lab Management System

Modern Electronic Lab Notebook for Today’s Scientific Environments

ELabELN is a powerful, modern electronic lab notebook and general laboratory data management system built to meet the needs of today’s scientific, research, and analytical testing environments. Originally designed by researchers for researchers, its flexibility makes it a great fit for almost any lab, delivering a secure, intuitive, and feature-rich platform that brings structure, compliance, and collaboration to laboratory data management.

Built from Popular Components

What makes ELabELN unique is that it combines flexibility with robust functionality through a variety of popular components and systems such as ELabFTW, cloud and cyber-security components, and modules to create the most flexible and ideal solution for your laboratory. This approach makes it ideal for academic institutions, research organizations, analytical low to medium-throughput labs, and startups.

Core Electronic Lab Notebook Features

At the core of ELabELN are comprehensive electronic lab notebook features based around three main areas: Experiments for tests and assays, Resources for people, instruments, inventory items and clients, and Scheduler for coordinating laboratory activities.

Experiments and Documentation

Labs can document data using electronic notebook entries to create any tests with fully documented protocols, status management, electronic signatures, custom metadata fields, and more. Every entry is time-stamped and version controlled to ensure data integrity and traceability while preserving original data and enabling iterative updates.

Rich Text Editor and Data Management

The platform supports text formatting, embedded images, tables, code blocks, and even LaTeX for displaying equations. Custom metadata fields using a variety of field types allow tracking any data needed, while color-coding enables easy recognition of page type based on category. Tagging and categorization features make it simple to organize and retrieve pages, supported by powerful filter and search capabilities.

Templates for Standardization and Reproducibility

To help standardize workflows and promote reproducibility, users can create detailed templates that can be reused for recurring procedures, significantly reducing time spent on repetitive documentation. These templates ensure consistency across team members and experiments, helping labs produce more reliable and repeatable results.

Growing Template Library

ELabELN provides access to a growing library of experiment and resource templates, offering starting points for documentation of material testing, micro testing, inventory, equipment, customers, personnel, storage locations, SOPs, and more. Templates support QR coded labels for instant generation with QR codes, making physical sample tracking seamless.

Comprehensive Template Capabilities

Main Text Editor and Metadata

Templates can track information, tables, protocols, and mathematical notations through the main text editor. Metadata fields track data in a variety of field types including text, dropdown menus, dates, times, checkboxes, numbers, and URLs, providing structured data capture alongside narrative documentation.

File Uploads and Version Control

Users can upload, download, revise, and archive files to templates, experiments, and resources, maintaining complete version history. The platform supports steps and deadlines for creating protocols, task deadlines, and other workflows with notifications to keep teams informed and on schedule.

Related Experiments and Resources

Link resources or related experiments to templates, experiments, or resources to maintain connections between related work. This cross-referencing capability enables researchers to navigate complex experimental relationships and understand dependencies between different laboratory activities.

Advanced Template Features

Compounds and Safety Symbols

Add chemicals manually or import from PubChem and associate them to templates, experiments, or resources. Safety symbols provide visual indicators for hazardous materials, supporting laboratory safety protocols and regulatory compliance.

Containers and Storage Management

Track inventory and storage in containers within storage locations, providing hierarchical organization of samples and materials. The JSON editor allows editing metadata for each entry, while the draw tool enables free drawing on entries for annotations and visual documentation.

Comments and Collaboration

Comments can be left on each experiment or resource, facilitating team discussions and feedback directly within the context of the work being performed.

Resources for Inventory and Equipment Management

The Resources feature simplifies management of consumables, long-term assets, and more in your lab. Get creative to ensure resource categories match your unique needs with no limit to entries, from consumables to instruments, freezers, fridges, cabinets, staff, suppliers, clients, subcontracted labs—anything you need to manage.

Resource Scheduling

Users can schedule any resource on the calendar to streamline execution of workflows, preventing conflicts and optimizing utilization of shared equipment and facilities.

Security and Compliance Framework

Data Security and Encryption

ELabELN is built with data security and compliance in mind, meeting GDPR requirements for data protection and offering features to support 21 CFR Part 11 compliance such as electronic signatures and audit trails. All communications are encrypted using HTTPS, and user authentication can be configured with advanced options like LDAP and SSO, standard with LabLynx OpenSocial.

Deployment Flexibility

With the choice between local or cloud deployment, labs can maintain full control over their data infrastructure and access policies. LabLynx secure cloud hosting ensures all data are fully backed up regularly and IT infrastructure is fully secure and maintained.

Collaboration and Access Control

Effective collaboration is essential in modern research, production, QA/QC, or other laboratory operations. ELabELN is built to facilitate teamwork while maintaining precise control over data access. Admins can assign user or admin roles with different permission levels, ensuring each team member and user group has appropriate access to experiments, resources, and scheduling.

Team Coordination Tools

Teams can share entries and collaborate on projects with built-in tools like calendars and scheduling helping to coordinate lab activities efficiently across distributed teams and multiple locations.

Extensibility and Integration

ELabELN is designed for extensibility, offering a RESTful API that allows integration with other digital tools and platforms. Labs with specialized needs can use plugins or custom scripts to tailor the system to their workflows. Authentication is handled using SAML-based OpenSocial single sign-on.

Add-On Applications Available

Organizations always have the option to upgrade to the LabLynx ELabELN Enterprise Edition, which offers several other applications that can be combined with ELabELN to meet even more lab data management needs, including LabDrive for collaborative scientific data management, LabVia for laboratory automation and integration, LabVista for reporting and analytics, LabServer for on-premises deployment, sciCloud.net for secure application hosting, OpenSocial for enterprise SSO and IAM, and LIMShelp for services and support.

Technical Specifications and Deployment

ELabELN runs on a web-based platform compatible with all major operating systems through modern web browsers, supporting multilingual user interfaces. Whether deployed in a local LabServer or in LabLynx’s SSO, secure, professionally maintained, backed-up managed cloud environment, ELabELN offers scalability, flexibility, and reliability.

Real-World Use Cases

ELabELN is suited for a wide range of research and analytical settings including academic labs managing student projects, publishing reproducible research, and collaborating across departments; pharmaceutical and biotech companies ensuring compliance, protecting IP, and streamlining unique workflows; clinical research organizations maintaining regulatory documentation and protocols; and materials and environmental science labs tracking complex experiments and managing diverse inventories.

Benefits and Value Proposition

ELabELN provides numerous advantages for all laboratory environments including centralization of lab data in a secure digital notebook, enhanced collaboration through shared access and live updates, improved reproducibility thanks to templated protocols and version tracking, simplified compliance with electronic signatures and audit trails, and reduced waste and overhead via efficient inventory tracking and organization.

Licensing and Support

ELabELN is accessible to any lab, no matter the budget. Affordable subscriptions are available and scalable, whether organizations need to keep everything in-house or opt for secure AWS-based cloud hosting. LabLynx provides professional support services directly, including training on functions and features, installation assistance, and custom development.