SLIM / Product

Protocols

Which version of the protocol did you actually run?

Methods live in Word files, binders and people’s heads, and they change quietly. SLIM keeps every protocol versioned and step by step, and every notebook entry records exactly the version that was used.

The problem

Protocols drift, and nobody writes down when.

Somebody tweaks a temperature, saves over the file, and the old version is gone. Months later the results do not match, and nobody can say what changed.

protocol_final_v2_JH.docx

Five copies of the same method on three drives, all slightly different.

Materials buried in prose

The reagents and instrument a step needs are hidden in a paragraph, so preparing is guesswork.

Silent edits

A method changes, and past experiments now describe something that was never run.

Try it yourself

Build a protocol, step by step.

Add steps, pick inputs from the inventory and the instrument each step needs, reorder them, then publish a version and watch the history build up.

A live demo running in your browser. Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere.

How SLIM handles it

Versioned methods your whole lab runs from.

Solves: materials buried in prose

Every step declares its inputs, instrument and outputs

Not a paragraph with the materials hidden in it. Each step names what it consumes, the instrument it runs on and what it produces, and the inputs can be real items from your inventory.

  • Inputs can point at stock the lab actually holds
  • Instruments come straight from Equipment
  • Steps renumber themselves when reordered
Illumina library preparation · v46 steps
Step 2
Tagment
Inputs
Nextera XT DNANT buffer
Machines
Thermal cycler
Outputs
Tagmented DNA

55 °C for 5 min, then hold at 10 °C and add NT buffer immediately.

Step 3
Amplify
Inputs
Index AdaptersNPM master mix
Machines
Thermal cycler
Outputs
Amplified library

12 cycles for 1 ng input. Each halving of input adds a cycle.

Solves: _final_v2 copies and silent edits

One protocol, every version kept

Publishing creates a version. Edits wait as a draft until they are right. Every version is kept, shows how many entries were written against it, and can still be used long after it was replaced.

  • Drafts until you publish
  • Unpublished changes flagged on the list
  • Private protocols for methods that are not ready
Nanopore ligation sequencing · Versions
4v4 · wash step extended to 45 mincurrent
3v3 · pore threshold raised to 8003 entries
2v2 · loading volume corrected7 entries
1v1 · first published2 entries

Solves: “which version did you run?”

Run it, and the run becomes a notebook entry

Publish a run straight from the protocol into the notebook. The version you used is written into the entry as editable text, so the entry records what you really did, deviations included.

  • Exact version recorded in the entry
  • Deviations written down where they happened
  • Later edits never touch past entries
Publish into an entry
ProtocolNanopore ligation sequencing
Versionv3
Goes toYour notebook
AfterwardsEditable, and frozen

What changes for your lab

  • One current version for everyone, with every past version kept
  • Every result traceable to the exact method behind it
  • New people follow a method step by step, with the materials listed
Book a 30-min demoSee it working on your own data.

Keep exploring

It gets better when it is all connected.

Every part of SLIM links to the others. Here is what connects to protocols.

See your own lab in SLIM, in 30 minutes.

Send us a spreadsheet before the call. We build your inventory from it, show you around it live, and you keep it whether you continue or not.