Frequently asked questions

A place to book, run and, for facilities that charge, bill shared scientific instruments. Every instrument gets a calendar with its own rules; people get access to the ones they are trained on; admins see who used what. Core facilities add rate cards, fund codes and a monthly recharge report.

A single research group sharing a few instruments, and core facilities running dozens for the whole institution. The Lab and Lab Pro plans cover the first; Core Facility covers the second; a University site licence covers every lab at once.

Labs are invitation only. A lab admin or owner invites you by email from the lab's Users page. Open the link to accept and, if you are new, create your account. If you think you should have access and have not been invited, ask your lab admin.

• Owner: everything, including the subscription and deleting the lab. One per lab.
• Admin: instruments, users, bookings, approvals, notices and settings.
• Member: books the instruments they have access to and manages their own bookings.

Each instrument also has its own access list, so being in the lab does not by itself let you book everything.

Yes. One account can be in several labs. Switch between them from the lab switcher at the top of the sidebar; each lab has its own instruments, people and settings.

Every new lab gets 30 days of Core Facility, the top plan, with no card on file. When it ends you choose a plan, or the lab pauses new bookings until you do. Nothing you set up is lost either way.

Open the instrument, go to its Schedule tab and drag across the time you want on the calendar. Add a title or notes if you like and confirm. On a phone, tap New Reservation and pick the time. The dashboard also shows every instrument you can use, with a Book button when it is free.

Each instrument tile says whether it is free or busy right now and until when, and who is on it next. It is worked out from the calendar, so it is the same answer you would get by opening the schedule.

Some instruments are set to need an admin's approval. Your booking is held as pending, you get an email that the request went in, and an admin approves or declines it from the instrument's Reservations tab or the dashboard. You are emailed either way.

Yes, from My Reservations, the dashboard, or the instrument calendar. Some instruments set a cut-off, for example no cancellations within 24 hours of the start; the instrument's Overview tab says exactly what applies to you. Admins can change or cancel any booking and the person is emailed.

Yes. Tick Repeat this booking when you book and choose weekly or every two weeks, up to the number of repeats the instrument allows. The whole series is checked first: if any occurrence clashes with a booking or a blackout, none is saved and you are told which ones failed.

Admins can set a minimum and maximum length, how far ahead you may book, how many hours each person may book per day, week or month, and whether bookings need approval. The Overview tab of every instrument lists these in plain words, so you do not have to guess.

A core facility can split an instrument's day into blocks with their own rules: ten-minute slots at midday, seven-hour overnight runs, a walk-up-only afternoon, or a block that opens for booking at noon the day before. The Overview tab shows the blocks as a table and the calendar shades the hours you cannot book.

Admins can, when the lab allows it. The booking is made for a named person or an external user, and, where the facility charges, at the rate category the admin chooses.

Questions the lab or an instrument asks when you book, such as the sample type, a project code or a safety confirmation. Answers are kept with the booking and admins can filter bookings by them. Available on Lab Pro and above.

A stretch of time when an instrument cannot be booked, for example a service visit or a calibration. It shows as shaded time on the calendar, appears under Unavailable soon on the Overview tab, and people with access are emailed when one is added.

Open the instrument and choose Request access, with a note if you like. The instrument's admins are notified and approve or decline from its Users tab. Once approved you can see the calendar and book.

• Admin: settings, blackouts, maintenance, analytics and other people's access. Lab admins and owners are admins on every instrument.
• User: books, and sees documents and photos.
• Guest: books and sees the schedule and training only.

Yes. An instrument notice shows under the instrument's name on every tab; a lab notice shows at the top of the dashboard. Each has a style (info, warning or important) and an optional last day, after which it disappears on its own. Edited from the instrument's or lab's Settings, with a preview.

On the instrument: a Training tab for guides, SOPs and videos, a Documents tab for manuals and protocols, and a Photos tab. Guests see training only.

Every instrument keeps a service log with the type of work, the date and who did it. Taking an instrument offline is recorded as downtime, which feeds the uptime figure on its Analytics tab. The last service entry also shows on the Overview tab.

Use the Issues tab on the instrument. You can attach photos. Admins acknowledge and resolve issues, and the count of open ones shows on the tab.

Two instruments that share a resource, such as a detector or a workstation. Link them and each one's bookings appear on the other's calendar, so they cannot be double-booked. Available on Lab Pro and above.

No. Each instrument can carry its own timezone; the lab's timezone is the default. Times on the calendar, in emails and on lists are shown in the instrument's clock.

Yes. Every instrument has a calendar feed, and My Reservations has a feed of your own bookings across every instrument. Copy the link into Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook as a subscription and it updates itself as bookings change. Feeds are on every plan.

Yes. Lab admins get a Calendar page that overlays every instrument, each in its own colour, with day, week and month views. Click a booking for its details or to jump into that instrument's calendar.

Booking confirmations, approvals, reminders before a booking starts, blackout and notice alerts, and access decisions. Go to Settings → Notifications to switch each kind on or off. Cancellations and lab invitations are always sent.

For the lab and for each instrument: bookings and hours against the prior period, utilization against the hours an instrument could have been booked, the busiest hours of the week, top users, lead time, cancellations and uptime. Core facilities also see what was charged, by period, category and PI group, and cost recovery against each instrument's target. Available on Lab Pro and above.

Hours booked divided by the hours the instrument was bookable in the period. If an instrument has allowed hours and days set in its rules, those are the bookable hours; otherwise every hour counts.

Yes, on every plan. Reservations and usage download to Excel from the lab's Reservations page, and the recharge report downloads from Lab Settings and Analytics. Calendar feeds and the API read the same data. Nothing is held back if you leave.

Yes, on Lab Pro and above. Create a personal access token under Settings and use it with the API or with the Claude (MCP) integration, which lets you ask about your lab's instruments, bookings and availability in plain language.

On the Core Facility plan you switch charging on in Lab Settings. That creates an Internal category and an All hours period for you, so a facility with one flat rate can go straight to entering rates per instrument. Add more categories (who pays what) and periods (when each rate applies) only if you price differently by user or by time of day. From then on every booking is priced as it is made. Lab Settings shows a checklist of these steps.

Categories are classes of user, for example Internal and External; each member belongs to one, and members without one use the default. Periods are times of day and days of the week, for example Peak and Off-peak; hours outside every period use All other hours. An instrument can keep its own periods when its hours differ from the facility's.

A PI group holds the fund codes its members may charge to. Each member belongs to a group and has a usual fund; a booking is charged to that fund unless they pick another from the group's list. Codes are chosen, never typed, and can be given a last day. A lab can require a fund code on every charged booking.

The cost, before they confirm, split by rate period if the booking runs across two. The instrument's Overview tab shows the rate that applies to them. Where no rate is published for their category they are told to contact the facility.

Bookings that have not started are re-priced automatically. Bookings that have started keep the cost they were charged, so a month's report does not shift after the fact.

One workbook for a date range: totals per fund, group, member and instrument, the line items behind them, and a needs-attention sheet listing anything that cannot be charged yet and why. A booking that crosses a month boundary is split, so the two months add up to the booking.

Once a month, an admin closes the month (or it closes on its own on a day you choose) and every PI group gets a numbered statement: a PDF emailed to the PI and the group's billing contact, with the bookings behind it. Bookings on a closed month are locked so what was billed stays what was booked; corrections go on the next statement as a credit or debit an admin enters. Statements are marked sent, paid or written off, and each closed month has a ledger CSV, one row per fund code, for upload to the university finance system. Statements are a switch in Lab Settings, so a facility that only wants the report never sees them.

A yearly amount an instrument needs to earn, set on its Rates tab. Analytics pro-rates it to the period on screen and shows what was charged against it, so a facility can see which instruments pay for themselves.

Every plan includes unlimited users, calendar feeds and Excel downloads. Lab runs bookings, access and upkeep for one research group with up to 10 instruments. Lab Pro raises that to 50 and adds analytics, linked instruments, booking questions and the API with the Claude (MCP) integration. Core Facility is for facilities that charge for time: unlimited instruments, rate cards, PI groups and fund codes, the recharge report, monthly statements with a ledger export, time-of-day blocks, plus an onboarding call and priority support. Every lab starts with a 30-day trial of Core Facility.

Nothing is deleted. Features outside the new plan stop applying: rate cards stay saved but bookings are no longer costed, time-of-day blocks stay saved but the flat rules apply, issued statements stay readable but no month can be closed, past charges and booking answers remain visible. A lab over its new instrument limit keeps every instrument but cannot add more until one is archived. Upgrading switches everything back on.

New bookings pause until the lab subscribes. Members can still sign in and see everything. Instruments, bookings, members and history stay exactly as they were, and subscribing restores full access straight away.

Every lab at the institution runs on Core Facility under one agreement, with one contact and one invoice, priced on the number of labs and instruments. Contact us and we will put it together with you.

Plans are yearly and paid by card from the lab's Subscription page. The lab owner manages it, and past invoices are in the billing portal reached from that page.

The owner can, from Lab Settings under Danger Zone. It removes the lab's instruments, bookings and members and cannot be undone, so export what you need first.