Researchers face challenges in keeping track of reagent amounts, maintaining stock levels, checking expiration dates, and ensuring adherence to safety protocols and environmental conditions. Managing sample integrity, proper waste disposal, and ethical compliance are additional concerns. Setting up alerts with Scispot helps address these challenges by providing a proactive tool to monitor parameters such as low reagent quantities and approaching expiration dates, enabling timely actions and contributing to the smooth progression of experiments.

In the midst of these challenges, Scispot offers a proactive solution through its alert system. Customizable alerts within the platform address specific needs, serving as a versatile tool to monitor critical parameters. Researchers can set alerts to notify them of low reagent quantities or approaching expiry dates, preventing last-minute surprises and empowering timely actions for the smooth progression of experiments. The integration of Scispot's alert system complements the rigorous checks in wet lab experiments, ensuring the success and integrity of biotechnological research projects.

Integration with Notifications: Seamless Communication for Lab Efficiency

Scispot seamlessly integrates notifications to enhance its alert system. This integration goes beyond simple alerts, providing researchers with real-time updates through in-app, email or Slack. Scispot integrates with Quartzy to enhance lab efficiency, utilizing Quartzy's expertise to trigger alerts for reordering essential supplies when stock levels reach a set threshold, minimizing the risk of disruptions.

Setting up Alerts in Scispot: a quick guide

Now, let's walk through the simple process of setting up alerts on Scispot:

1. Prepare your Labsheet

Navigate to the Labsheets section of the Scispot platform.
Select the Labsheet where you want to setup an alert. For maintaining inventory levels or checking expiration dates, this will likely be your "Materials Manager" or "Equipment Manager" sheet.
For inventory levels, ensure that your Labsheet has a "Quantity Left" column, as well as a number column named something like "Reorder threshold". These columns will be used to create the Alert.
1. The "Quantity Left" column tracks how much quantity remains for a given item in your Labsheet.
2. The "Reorder threshold" column is manually configured by you or your lab. You can set the levels for each row that should trigger an alert in this column. For example, if you set the threshold to 200 in the row for a reagent, an alert can be sent out once that reagent's quantity drops below 200.
For staying ahead of expiration dates, all you need is a date column. Something like "Expiration Date" to be used to create the Alert.

2. Click on Alerts in Labsheets:

Look for the "Automation" button near the top-right of your screen, then click on it to open the dropdown menu.
Click on the "Alerts" option to access the alert management interface

3. Create a new alert:

Click the "Add" button to start creating a new Alert rule.
Name your alert something descriptive, such as "Low inventory alert".
Select all of the users who should be notified (by email and in-app notification) when the alert is sent out by using the dropdown menu.

4. Configure the alert rule:

Click the "+ Add Rule" button to create the rule that will send out the alert.
Select the column that the alert will be based on.
1. For low inventory levels, this will likely be a "Quantity Left" column or something similar.
2. If you want to be notified about an expiration date, choose the "Expiry Date" column or something similar.
In the second dropdown menu, you will select the type of comparison that will be used to trigger the alert.
1. For low inventory levels, choose the "Less Than" or "Less than or Equal to" comparison option. Select either of those options to send out an alert when the inventory quantity goes below a certain level. The third dropdown will default to "Compare to value". Open the dropdown and select your "Reorder Threshold" column instead.
2. For expiration date, you will see a different set of options appear. You should select "During" to be notified on the expiry date, or "Before" to choose how long before the expiry date you will be notified.

5. Activate the alert:

Click the "Confirm" button to activate your new alert.
Every time the rule is met, your selected recipients will be notified by email as well as in-app notification.