Labsistant keeps track of what your lab has, how much of it is left, and where it is stored. Instead of a shared spreadsheet that goes stale, you get one record of your inventory that everyone in the lab is looking at. What that replaces and what the app actually does are both covered on the main site.
This article is the two-minute version. Every area mentioned here has its own article with the details.
What Labsistant keeps track of
Labsistant tracks three kinds of stored item:
- Reagents. Chemicals and biological reagents, tracked by lot so you know which batch is on the shelf.
- Supplies. Consumables like tips, tubes, plates, and gloves, tracked by quantity with a reorder threshold.
- Samples. Specimens your lab collected or derived, with their own collection and thaw details.
All three share the same basics: a name, a quantity and unit, and a storage location. They differ in the extra fields each one needs. See Reagents, supplies and samples: which is which if you are not sure which kind to use.
Alongside the items, Labsistant tracks the storage locations they live in, so "we have 4 tubes left" also tells you which freezer, which shelf, and which box.
Who uses it
Labsistant is built for a research lab as a group, not for one person. Everyone in the lab works in the same shared inventory, and each member has a role that controls what they can change:
- PI (Principal Investigator) has full access, including lab settings, billing, and managing members.
- Researcher has full day-to-day research access with limited admin.
- Junior Researcher has basic research access.
See Invite your team and what each role can do for the full breakdown.
The main areas
These are the items in the left sidebar.
| Area | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | Your starting page: what is low, what is expiring, what is scheduled, and recent activity. |
| Inventory | Every reagent, supply, and sample in the lab. Add, search, edit, and consume items here. |
| Storage | Your rooms, freezers, shelves, and boxes, and what is stored in each. |
| Audit Log | A record of who changed what and when. |
| Experiments | Experiment templates: the reusable definition of a procedure. |
| Schedule | Scheduled and running experiments on a calendar. |
| Groups | Sub-teams within the lab, used to share items with some members rather than all. |
| Edna | The AI assistant. Ask questions about your inventory in plain language. |
| Users | Lab members, invitations, and the roles and permissions table. |
| Tools | Utilities, including the guided inventory import. |
| Settings | Your profile, lab settings, notifications, and billing. |
Some of these areas depend on your plan. Experiments, Schedule, Groups, and Edna are not on the Free plan, and samples need the Lab plan. If an area is missing from your sidebar, that is why. See Plans and limits for what each plan includes.
Where to start
- Get your existing inventory in. Do not type it all in by hand. Open the Add Inventory menu in the top bar and choose Import inventory: the guided import reads spreadsheets, vendor PDFs, and photos of your shelves. It is also what you will use every time a delivery arrives, not just today. See Set up your lab: import your existing inventory.
- Set up your storage. Create the rooms, freezers, and boxes you actually use, so items have somewhere real to live. See Create a storage location.
- Invite your team. Add the people who will be using it and pick each one's role. See Invite your team and what each role can do.
What Labsistant will not do
Labsistant is an inventory and lab management tool. It tracks what you tell it about your materials. It does not give scientific advice: it will not tell you whether a reagent is safe to use, whether a protocol is sound, or how to handle a hazardous material. For that, use your institution's safety guidance, the manufacturer's documentation, and your own judgment.
This applies to the AI assistant too. Edna answers questions about your inventory and about how to use the app, and declines questions that ask for lab-science guidance.