Wishlist of features by the community

General
1

Hello everyone,

While listening to great presentations at the UGM this year, my wish to collect and discuss ideas about openBIS with the community overcame me again. I would like to start a collection of features, suggestions for improvement, GUI design ideas and more. Maybe our ideas will one day be considered and implemented.

UGM 23 suggestions

  • Better documentation (in progress) maybe with a comment function
  • Markdown object type
  • user collaboration (simultaneous editing, “already in edit” warning, comparison and selection of multiple edits)
  • auto-save feature (maybe each object section if all requirements are met)

Personal ideas

  • ELN-LIMS GUI with tabs (like new admin UI)
  • simple way to copy masterdata from others directly from GitHub repository
  • statistics dashboard (like EMPA)
  • restricted access to admin UI
  • new property value type: description, a simple way to display constant text (instructions) on an object, perhaps connected to section
  • new property value type: image, e.g. for equipment or lab setup photo
  • more storage features: e.g. stocktaking, shelf barcodes, reminder on specific dates (e.g. to check equipment)
2

This would be possible using our tool (see community plugin list)

If I might add my desires:

  • Document the V3 API using Swagger/openAPI so that generating DTOs/clients for other languages is easier thanks to code generation. The dream would be to implement GRPc/ProtoBufs as a binary protocol would perform better for large requests

  • release a “real” V3 API for python

  • One API everywhere: use the V3 API for Dropbox and other core plugins as well as for dynamic properties

3
  • Symbol or text to show own highest role in ELN-LIMS-UI
  • Tooltips for menu and sidebar items
4

I would add the following wishes:

  • ELN-LIMS, Table view in Collections: “filter” per column for numerics to allow e.g. “>0.5”

  • ELN-LIMS, Sample: property names-values displayed as 2 columns

  • SFTP: being able to follow the links parent/child also when the linked objects are not in the same Collection

5

Another data model-related wish for the ELN-LIMS:
It would be great to be able to reference the names of registered users as metadata properties (apart from the automatic “registrator” and “modifier” fields in the identification info), e.g. as the experimenter. We have considered adding all users from the LDAP as either terms of a controlled vocabulary or as an object type PERSON, but considering that the users are already in the database anyway, it would be great if they could be re-used in this context.

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6

Another idea:

  • A CLI to test Dropbox Plugins. Ideally even with a mock server that gets populated from a metadata export.
  • selectable user roles so that users can login once and decide whether to impersonate admins or regular users. This would allow us to discontinue the use of separate admin accounts
7

Markdown support for the Rich Text Editor would be amazing.
Especially as MD is becoming the de facto standard across the internet.

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8
  • Commenting on lab notebooks with observer rights.
  • Information or warning when barcode scanning is successful but does not yield a result.
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