Most labs already have their inventory written down somewhere: a spreadsheet, a stack of vendor order PDFs, or just labels on a shelf. "Set up your lab" is the guided import that turns all of that into real inventory records, in one pass, without typing everything in by hand. If it is a spreadsheet you are moving off, what changes afterwards covers why it is worth the hour.
Nothing is created until you approve it. You review every item before anything is added.
This article is the overview. For the details of each stage, see Import files: CSV, vendor PDFs and shelf photos and Review and finish an import.
Who can run an import
Importing is available to PI and Researcher roles. If you are a Junior Researcher, you will not see the import option, and someone with one of those roles needs to run it.
How to open it
There are three ways in, and they all lead to the same place:
- In the top bar, open the Add Inventory menu and choose Import inventory.
- In the sidebar, go to Tools and open Import Inventory.
- On the Dashboard, the "Set up your lab" card has a Start setup button.
Use one of the first two if you cannot find the card. The Dashboard card is a shortcut for new labs and it does not stay on the page. It appears only while all three of these are true:
- your lab has fewer than 5 inventory items,
- you are a PI or Researcher, and
- you have not dismissed it. Dismissing is remembered per lab.
So a lab that has started filling up, or anyone who closed the card once, will not see it. The Add Inventory menu and the Tools entry are always there.
It is not just for setting up
The name says "Set up your lab" because that is when most people meet it, but this is the same tool you use every time a delivery arrives. Unpacking an order, working through a stack of packing slips, photographing a shelf you never got round to recording: it is the same flow, and it is usually faster than adding items one at a time. Nothing about it is limited to your first week.
What you can upload
Add everything you have in one batch. The import reads them together into a single review.
- CSV spreadsheets. Excel files are not supported yet, so save your sheet as CSV first.
- PDF documents, such as vendor order confirmations and packing slips.
- Photos of a shelf or a freezer box, in JPG, PNG, or HEIC.
On the upload screen there is a Download a sample CSV link. It gives you a one-row template with the columns Labsistant understands: Name, Quantity, Unit, Vendor, Category, Lot number, Received date, Expiration date, and Storage location. The single row in it is a placeholder to be replaced, not real data.
You do not have to match that template. If your spreadsheet has its own column names, the next stage handles that.
The three stages
Once your files are uploaded, the import moves through three named steps, shown across the top of the page.
1. Match columns
Labsistant reads your columns and proposes what each one is: which column is the name, which is the quantity, which is the expiration date, and so on. It also tidies up values as it goes, for example turning "grams" into "g".
You check the proposed matches and correct any it got wrong. If your column names are unusual, you can ask the AI for a closer read.
2. Confirm locations
Your files mention storage locations by name. This step collects every distinct location it found and asks you to decide what each one is: an existing location in your lab, or a new one to create.
Nothing is guessed here. Labsistant will not invent a location for a row that does not name one. If an item has no location, you tell it where the item goes.
3. Review everything
The last step is a grid of every item the import is about to create, with the values it read. You go through it, fix anything that is wrong, fill in anything that is missing, and then approve.
Items are created only when you finish this step.
You can stop and come back
An import does not have to be finished in one sitting. Your progress is saved, and the next time you open "Set up your lab" you will be asked whether to Resume import or Start fresh.
Resume picks up where you stopped. Start fresh discards the in-progress import and begins a new one.
What the import will not do for you
The import never fills in a value it did not actually read from your files. Lot numbers, expiration dates, CAS numbers, and hazard information are left blank rather than guessed, because a plausible-looking wrong lot number is worse than an empty field. You supply those during review or afterwards.
See Lot numbers, CAS, hazard and expiration for what those fields are and how to handle an item whose lot number you do not have yet.