Many organizations choose an ELN, deploy it, get it adopted, train their users in it, etc., and at the end of this effort they start again with an inventory solution. Mbook comes with inventory integrated, so you deploy and adopt a single application that fulfils both functions with no additional effort and no integration concerns.
Preliminary step: Become an inventory manager!
Any user in your group can read the information available in the inventory section. In order to add or edit entries, you will need access as an inventory manager. For this, a user assigned as a group manager can go to the user options and select “edit user” to enable or disable the inventory manager privileges.
The inventory menu
The inventory tool can be found on the top bar menu and is linked to the compound database entries. You can enter or edit new suppliers as well as searching for any compound in your Mbook database.
You can search by name (CAS Number or Acronym), code, stock or Health/Safety: by the H phrases or CMR categories, or even by searching by keywords as Lactancy, Lactation, Carcinogens, Mutagens, Reprotoxics is available using this field.
You can search by compounds available in stock, just by checking the applicable box:
Use the option to search by compound Structure to load or draw a molecule and search for it.
The search mode “By Use” allows you to search by compounds used by a group, project and/or user. Once you run the search with the 'By Use' option, you will get a new 'Used quantity' column, showing the amount used for each compound.
The inventory manager will be able to add hazards and the applicable pictograms to any existing compound from the 'Health/Safety' tab:
You can categorize compounds using the CMR (carcinogenic, mutagenic or reprotoxic) categories. The CMR categories are related with the H phrases according to the table below:
The CMR categories are automatically added to the compounds when the corresponding H phrases are added, after having clicked on the 'Edit Hazards' button:
A practical example
Let´s go to the main menu and select Inventory/Compound DB and search “n-BuLi” as an example:
(You can also search by code, stock or Health/Safety: by the H phrases or CMR categories, or even by searching by keywords as Lactancy, Lactation, Carcinogens, Mutagens, Reprotoxics is available using this field.)
Click on “n-Butyllitium” in the list and go to the “Stock” tab for this compound. Here you can see we have three different bottles. This window also displays details such as status, batch number, and remaining number for each of the bottles.
As an inventory manager you can add a new entry or edit the information relating to any of these bottles, such as the description, quantity, purity, order date, who ordered it, etc., and then just save any changes made.
You can also add bottles to the inventory from the reaction scheme just by highlighting the appropriate product and clicking on the 'Create bottle' button:
Any user can go to Mbook’s desk panel and use the inventory entries to link to an experiment. Let’s click on a recorded experiment and check the entries for n-BuLi (or your preferred reaction participant) by clicking on the “Assign consumption” icon.
You can now set the amount you have used of each chemical for any of the source entries.
Besides the available number of each of the source bottles, it also displays the “quantity deficit”. This shows you the amount of participant required for the reaction as per the stoichiometric table.
You can register a value on the “quantity consumed” box to keep track of your chemicals as shown below.
Note: If you use a bottle with a different purity than the one recorded in the experiment table, then this new purity value will be automatically updated. In this way, you can keep track of your chemicals in the lab in a straightforward manner with everything you require integrated into your electronic laboratory notebook.
When selecting a compound from the Inventory/Compound DB, the experiment tab displays the list of experiments where this compound has been used:
Warning messages
The inventory tool will also try to help you avoid mistakes when recording your entries.
•If the value of the quantity consumed is greater than the number of bottles you have available, you will see the following error message:
•If the quantity consumed is less than that required according to the stoichiometric table, the warning message below will be displayed on your source panel with an exclamation mark symbol.
If this is the case, you will just need to edit the value to a suitable one and the warning message will disappear.
Hovering the mouse over the source entry will display information about it:
