RSpace Inventory Hub 🧪

Overview

RSpace Inventory is a sample and inventory management module that integrates fully with RSpace ELN, and is currently available as a production Beta release to Enterprise customers at no extra cost. Community users will be able to purchase Inventory as an add-on in early 2022.

Inventory development is ongoing and is directed by user feedback. You can read detailed release notes below, as well as view our open development roadmap or contact us with feedback and questions.

This page contains details on how to access and get started with Inventory Beta, release updates, and information on how to sign up for updates and feedback requests.

Features

A more detailed description of features can be found on our website, or you can watch our ELN - Inventory Integration Demo.

Roadmap

We're developing Inventory openly: you can view our planned features and follow our progress below.

Access Inventory

Inventory Beta is going to be rolled out to RSpace Enterprise customers in the next few weeks after the September 8th launch. You will know right away when Inventory is ready to use as a new tab will be available to you:

Please contact your RSpace System Administrator for information on when your system will be upgraded.

If you wish to check out what Inventory Beta looks like in the meantime, you can try out our test instance, which anyone can sign up to.

Get started with Inventory

Extensive and user-friendly documentation is available for all Inventory features:

When using Inventory, you can search and browse our documentation and contact us using the Need Help? option in the sidebar.

If you have questions, bug reports, or have trouble accessing Inventory, feel free to email us!

Get Involved

We are developing Inventory with an open approach, and greatly value user feedback as it enables us to align our process with users' actual needs. We'd love to hear from you!

Access the test instance

The test instance enables users who do not yet have access to Inventory, such as prospective customers and Community users, to check out its features. If you are an Enterprise user, Inventory is available to you on your system; please refer to "Access Inventory" section above.

Use the sign-up code: inventory2020 when creating a new user, and you're good to start exploring, whether on a mobile or on a desktop device! The features currently implemented are documented in the roadmap and release summary down below.

Note: if you had previously signed up to the Alpha test instance, your login details will still work.

Release Changelog

We maintain a detailed changelog for Inventory, complete with video overviews and documentation updates. All Inventory videos and release updates can also be found on our YouTube playlist.

Release 1.73 - December 2021

In this last release of the year, we've added more support for chemistry, by implementing a 2D/3D viewer for chemical file attachments that is available for chemistry files added to the attachments section of an item, or added to an attachment field on a sample. The latter is new: a general "attachments" sample template field that can be used to better organise attachments on samples, whether they're images, PDFs, or chemical files.

We've also made a few improvements to our import feature, as well as a few minor usability updates. We're looking forward to seeing you next year, as we have a whole list of exciting features we'll be working on: you can get a preview on our roadmap!

Features

• Chemical 2D/3D preview for chemical file attachments
• Attachment sample template field, with chemical 2D/3D preview support
• When importing samples, you can select an existing template to use
• Temperature and sample source fields have sensible default values when importing
• Deleted status shown in card view
• Various bug fixes and improvements to our testing workflow

Release 1.72 - November 2021

This release introduces a complete redesign of the advanced search: we've made it easier to discover and enable search filters by moving them to sit right below the searchbar, and we now display which filters are enabled for your current search to help you quickly understand what you're viewing. We're very happy with this redesign and hope you'll like it too!

We've also continued improving our templating functionality, by adding the ability to remove fields and options, and have also improved some of our interface visuals and communication. Let us know what you think of this release!

Overview video

Features

• Redesign of advanced search
• Ability to remove fields from sample templates, and decide whether existing samples keep or lose that field
• Ability to edit and remove options in sample template radio and choice fields
• Ability to unselect a default radio option in sample templates
• Clarified "Move all to bench" dialog when there are items in containers already on your bench
• Improved display of empty fields
• Improved visuals when viewing an empty container
• Improved search loading animation
• Various bug fixes

Release 1.71 - October 2021

In this release, we focus on essential feature updates based on user feedback we received since the launch of Inventory Beta. This includes the ability to quickly create templates from scratch, useful previewing of images and chemical files, and improved performance, among other changes. In the coming months, we'll continue working on core features such as templating, chemistry support and exporting!

Note that Inventory is now part of our normal release cycle, which includes ELN changes, hence why it is part of release 1.71! We'll continue providing detailed release notes for Inventory features here, and you can find out about the ELN updates on our changelog.

Overview video

Features

• Create sample templates from scratch (Create and Use Sample Templates)
• Improved performance for large quantities of content
• View preview and card images in full-screen
• Preview chemical files that are added as file attachments (Add a File Attachment to an Inventory Item)
• Improved visuals when starting on a fresh inventory
• Pointers to documentation in the interface
• Default landing location is now My Bench
• Information on who you are logged in as available in the sidebar
• Various bug fixes

Beta Release - September 8th! 🎉 🎉 🎉

The time has finally come! Our next-gen sample and inventory management system is now available to all new and existing RSpace Enterprise customers at no additional cost.

Inventory Beta is our first production release of the system, meaning it is ready to be used with your real-life samples. We've overhauled this page to include all the latest information on the release, and how to access Inventory Beta on your system. We hope you enjoy using Inventory, and are excited to hear what you think!

Release #8 - September 2021 - Final Pre-Beta Release! 🎉

In this release, we focused on ensuring that Inventory has a polished approach to deleting, searching, and restoring items, and added the ability to add file attachments, the final missing pieces for a usable inventory system. As this is the last release before Inventory moves into Beta and is deployed in production, we've reviewed and improved the performance of the system for a slick experience, as well as made a variety of usability improvements, such as making the owner of an item easily accessible, improving interactions with context actions, and overhauling the grouping of item fields for a more intuitive experience!

There's no video overview for this release, as we direct our focus on preparing for the Beta release! As always, here is a full list of changes:

Features

• Improved deletion flow (Edit a Sample or Container):
  • Ability to restore items from trash
  • Added filters for searching items in trash
• Ability to add file attachments to Inventory items (Add a File Attachment to an Inventory Item)
• Updated icons to more intuitively represent various item types
• Added more sample template examples, including example identifier fields
• Added owner (and parent sample for subsamples) information in the header of all items
• Added badge to select action, to indicate number of selected items
• Added explanation to disabled context actions
• Added informational toasts showing when actions are being processed
• Made item field groupings more consistent
• Improved subsample notes with better UI and HTML rendering
• Enabled finding items by Global ID in search
• Various performance improvements & bug fixes to make system robust for release
• Ability to toggle availability of Inventory through the inventory.available System Administration property, off by default for this initial release (Introduction to configuring RSpace Apps)

Release #7 - August 2021

This release introduces Benches for all users! Benches are a place for storing newly created subsamples and containers, imported subsamples, or anything else that you decide to move into it; for example, you might want to move an item to your Bench if have checked it out from a freezer and are currently working with it, so your colleagues know that this item can be found with you.

We have also made improvements to list view display: you can toggle what data is shown in the second column, if you wish to quickly scan what the value is for your list of items. Also, you can now sort entries by various properties as well, in all view modes!

4 minute overview video

Features

• Benches for you and your colleagues, for storing newly created or imported items, as well as items you are currently working on (Use Benches in Inventory)
• Easily move all the items in a List of Materials to your Bench (Using Inventory Lists of Materials in the ELN)
• Customisable list view column, so you can quickly overview and identify item properties (Search Inventory)
• Sort entries by name, type, global ID, creation or modification date (Search Inventory)
• Updated move dialog that now allows for search, advanced search, view toggling, sorting and easily navigating between benches and containers (Move Samples and Containers)
• Left-hand panel breadcrumbs only appear on mobile view to improve navigation; they are disabled in desktop view as right-hand breadcrumb trail can be used (Navigate Inventory)
• Adjusted pagination options to 5/10/25/100 (or "all" if less than 100) items (Search Inventory)

Release #6 - June 2021

This release introduces our ELN - Inventory Integration! You can now add Lists of Materials to ELN document fields, enabling you to easily associate Inventory items to experiments, as well as update the quantities of items as you use them up from within the ELN. What is more, Lists of Materials are automatically included when printing ELN documents, and can also be printed out on their own!

5 minute overview video

Features

• ELN - Inventory Integration (Using Inventory Lists of Materials in the ELN 🧪):
  • add one or multiple Lists of Materials to ELN document fields
  • Give a custom name and description to a List
  • Search and add/remove items from Inventory to a List
  • Edit the used and remaining inventory quantities of an item (Edit Quantities in Lists of Materials)
  • Include the Lists in the print version of a document
  • Print a List on its own
  • Enable users with view-only permissions to a document to open the Lists in view mode
• Filter items by specific owner, and enable advanced search everywhere: in containers, templates, Inventory Picker (Permissions and Sharing in Inventory)
• Samples can be expanded to easily browse subsamples in tree view
• Made visual container setup flow clearer
• Various bug fixes and loading improvements

Release #5 - May 2021

This release is focused on permissions & sharing! We've implemented the foundations of open lab-type sharing, where members of your LabGroup can view and edit each other's samples. Email us to set up a test LabGroup and check out these features! We have also made improvements to navigation and selection.

Also, did you know that Inventory is being developed with an API-first approach? This means you can already explore the API through our test instance, and all the actions that can be performed through the user interface can also be performed through the API. See Inventory API Introduction for more!

2 minute overview video

Email us to set up a test LabGroup: vaida@researchspace.com

Features

• Permissions and sharing:
  • All Inventory items belonging to LabGroup members are visible to everyone in the LabGroup (Permissions and Sharing in Inventory)
  • Transfer ownership of items to another user (Permissions and Sharing in Inventory)
  • Visual indicator of which items you own (Navigate Inventory)
  • Filter the main search by items you own (Search Inventory)
  • Filter container view by items you own (Select Items in Inventory)
  • Edit lock to prevent users from accidentally modifying the same item simultaneously (Permissions and Sharing in Inventory)
• Breadcrumb trail for the left-hand panel, so it's easier to find your way around (Navigate Inventory)
• In-container search, so you can find relevant items quicker (Select Items in Inventory)
• Select menu with more selection options (Select Items in Inventory)
• Stable permalink for items (Link to a Sample or Container (Global ID))

Release #4 - April 2021

With this release, we bring out a major new feature: sample templates! We have made some general user experience improvements as well, see the video for more details.

What is more, our Inventory roadmap has been overhauled, and now includes detailed information on the exact dates that new releases will come out, as well as a date for the release of Inventory Beta: 8th September!

5 minute overview video

Features

Templates

• Create a template from a sample: reuse its fields, define which fields should have default values
• Edit a template: add new fields, add or remove default values for the fields, add additional radio/choice field options
• Template versions: update all samples to the latest version of a template, view the template version used on a sample, with the ability to update that specific sample to the latest version
• View all samples created from a template
• View and search templates

Detailed templates documentation is at Create and Use Sample Templates.

General

• Replaced the location and type columns by the global ID of the item across the interface, which can be clicked to open, or right-clicked to copy a link to the item (Link to a Sample or Container (Global ID))
• Further improved info popups: added global IDs of items, made more concise for containers (Navigate Inventory)
• Added links to a subsample's sample when viewing a subsample in the right-panel, in info popups, and card view
• Added an open button in the context menu when you click an item in grid or visual container view

We've also made performance improvements for image loading and uploading!

Release #3 - March 2021

In this release, we focused on improving navigation and the interface visuals!

2 minute overview video

Features

• A tree view, for easier navigation when you have a lot of nested items (Toggle Inventory and Container Views)
• A card view, which shows the thumbnail image and more item details (Toggle Inventory and Container Views)
• We added a splash of colour to the right-hand panel, to make different item types easily distinguishable (see video above!)
• Info popups have been reworked include more useful information such as item global ID, owner, quantity for samples and subsamples, and a contents summary for containers (Navigate Inventory)
• You can now specify and toggle the row and column labels for grid containers to be your preferred combination (Customise Axis Labels for Grid Containers)
• Clearer status indicators when creating, editing, or viewing a deleted item

Release #2 - January 2021

2 minute overview video

Features

• Import samples in bulk from a CSV file (Import Samples into Inventory)
• Added info icons that enable easier item previewing and opening items in grid/visual containers (Navigate Inventory)
• Improved moving of items, being able to specify exact location where each item will be placed (Move Samples and Containers)
• Improved visual container locations editing panel (Edit Locations in Visual Containers)
• Grid containers can now contain other containers (Create a Container)
• Selecting items in grid/visual view will select them in list view and vice-versa (Select Items in Inventory)

Other feature and interface improvements based on user feedback include:

• Split subsamples are now named equally (eg. subsample.08.1 and subsample.08.2)
• Improved visual separation of fields and form sections
• changelogracter count is shown for text fields with limited length
• Columns are now sorted in ascending order

Release #1 - November 2020

Features

• Layout, navigation and mobile view (Navigate Inventory)
• Create samples (Create a Sample)
• Create list, grid, and visual containers (Create a Container)
• Add custom fields (Add a Custom Field to a Sample or Container)
• Edit, delete, duplicate and split items (Edit a Sample or Container)
• Move subsamples and containers into containers (Move Samples and Containers, Edit Locations in Visual Containers)
• Search, filter, and save search results (Search Inventory)
• Add notes to subsamples (Add a Note to a Subsample)
• Help Documentation (Get Started with Inventory)

2 minute overview video

Detailed progress video