Sent April 2011
Dear Quartzy Members,
Another month and another set of awesome updates! Some of the updates have been requested so many times that I am sure a lot of you are going to be very pleased. Here they are then:
Customizable Inventory Columns: Thats right! You can now choose which columns get displayed in your Lab Inventory. Just select the 'Inventory Columns' from the drop-down on the left of the 'Inventory Module' and select what you would like to see and reload the page. Easy peasy.
Facilities Module: More and more scientists and universities use Quartzy to manage their facilities and we have been hard at work to make this module user-friendly. Right now almost a 1000 facilities are shared on Quartzy. That's right. One Thousand! So here are the updates for the Facilities Module:
- Favorite Facilities: A lot of you are members of many facilities but you only use a small subset on a daily basis. You can now 'Favorite' a facility and view your Favorites quickly from a separate page. And you can choose the 'Default View' for the Facilities so that the module opens on the right page every time. Less clicks are good karma.
- Manuals/Maintenance Records: Also now Administrators of Facility upload manuals/warranty agreements etc for a Facility and can attach notes on maintenance so that they manage the facility more efficiently.
- Notes: Finally, notes that you add while signing up for a slot are visible from the weekly calendar. Makes it easy for you to communicate with other members of that facility!
But wait. There is more!:) We also made several minor updates:
- Tweaked the home-page so you can log-in from your smart phone
- Opened up upload to .nucl, .doc, .docx, .xls and xlsx files
- We are now showing the showing the Quantity field in 'Recent Lab Orders.'
- Finally when you view details of an item from your inventory we show when it was last ordered and who ordered it.
And thats it for this month. But we will have more updates soon. And if you want to get your requests in the queue, you know what to do! Send me an email!
Have a great week.
Best wishes,
Adam Regelmann
Quartzy
Sent March 2011
Dear Quartzy Members,
Another month, another set of improvements. Lets get right to it:
- Email Notification on Adding a Protocol/Facility: It is a good thing but we did not expect that users would create 10 protocols at a time. So what happened was that when you shared these protocols your lab-mates they got 10 emails from you via Quartzy. Oops. We have fixed this excessive notification issue so that now when you create a protocol you can choose if you want the people you are sharing the protocol with to be notifed by email. Same changes have been made to the Facilities module.
- Attach .gb files: You can now upload *.gb files to your inventory. We are working on approving other file types as well. Next week we along with other changes you will be able to upload '.seq' files as well.
- Site Speed: We have made several changes to the site so that it should responds more quickly and we aim on investing more resources into this aspect in the coming months.
- Webinar: This Thursday we are hosting a webinar to present Quartzy to the larger scientific community. In this quick and breezy demo we will show how you and your lab can use Quartzy to save time and money by managing your shared resources including reagents, facilities, protocols, and more. Details:
Date: Thursday, March 3, 2011
Time: 4:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time (Chicago 3:00 pm, California 1:00pm)
Duration: 30 minutes
Click here to register: https://quartzy.webex.com/quartzy/j.php?ED=148946347 &RG=1&UID=0&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D
- National Postdoctoral Association Annual Meeting Announcement: Finally, we would like to share details about the annual NPA meeting. The NPA has goals similar to Quartzy, about improving the academic experience for scientists so we thought we would give them a plug. Here are the details:
The National Postdoctoral Association (www.nationalpostdoc.org) invites you to attend its 9th Annual Meeting this March 25-27 at the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland. This event provides a venue for networking and education on the latest topics impacting the postdoctoral experience in the United States. Faculty, administrators, postdoctoral scholars, and others interested in improving the U.S. research enterprise are invited to attend. The Meeting will feature panel discussions, plenary sessions, and hands-on workshops. REGISTRATION CLOSES THIS FRIDAY, MARCH 11. For more details and to register visit http://www.nationalpostdoc.org/annual-meeting.
Thanks and as always if you have any questions just send me an email!
Best wishes,
Adam Regelmann
Quartzy
Sent February 2011
Dear Quartzy Members,
Another month another set of new updates. There were several behind the scenes tweaks to improve the Quartzy experience so that you can get more done faster. We also got several suggestions from you and the latest updates to the site are:
- Add New Order: We have not set up the Order's Module so that you can submit an order for an item that is not in your inventory. When you place this order we give you the option of placing it in your inventory as well.
- Email All Lab-mates from Dashboard: Several users wanted the ability to quickly notify their lab-mates of mission critical updates with an email from the Dashboard. Done.
Some of the other minor updates are: The name of the person in the second drop-down is now remembered across your sessions, the 'Orders email' generated by the system when an Order is place carries more detail, and several design tweaks across the site.
Thanks for all the wonderful suggestions. If you like Quartzy help us spread the word by inviting your fellow scientists and lab-mangers across the world!
Best wishes,
Adam Regelmann, MD/PhD
Quartzy
Sent January 2011
Dear Quartzy Members,
Exciting new developments from Quartzy to report this new year that will help you get more work done quicker so that you spend less time looking for things and more time getting things done!
- Manage Types: The biggest change is that you can now manage your inventory-types from one easy to use section. As you know, Quartzy allows you to fully customize the types that you have in your inventory. We also suggest common types like Plasmids, Antibodies etc. The update allows you to have a *clean* and clutter-free inventory!
- Add/Edit/Delete Lab-mates Inventory: This one is going to be huge since it is a feature that a lot of you requested! Namely, the ability to edit items in your lab-mates' inventories. Lab-managers asked for this the most so that they could add items, update them as they were delivered, assign ownership and what-have-you. Well, this is all possible now. Your lab-mates need to first set editing privileges to enable you to edit their inventories. This is done from the 'Editing Privileges' section in the Inventory Browser.
- Ordering Multiple Reagents at Once: We noticed that a lot of you place multiple orders at once and checking an item off at a time and then placing an order is unnecessarily cumbersome. You can now check-off multiple items and click 'Order' and submit all orders at once. Less time ordering means more time experimenting!
- 'Add More' Button in Inventory Browser: A few of you made this excellent suggestion: 'How about if you introduced an 'Add More' button so that after I added one reagent to my inventory I could go on quickly to add more.' Done and done! Less clicks= more fun!
- Dashboard: Quite a few of you loved the dashboard but were not super pleased to see activity from a thousand miles away popping up in the dashboard. You saw the dashboard more as a quick and easy way to communicate with your lab-mates. Sounds good to us! We have split up the Dashboard feed into two sections: LabMate feed and Quartzy feed. So now you can ask questions of the larger Quartzy community while keeping in touch with your lab-mates.
These are just some of the changes we have made. You will discover more subtle made to make you more productive. The one thing common to all these changes is that they came from you. So thank you to everybody who sent in feedback and suggestions to make Quartzy a more awesome experience for the entire community!
Happy Experimenting!
Adam
Team Quartzy
Sent: November, 2010
Dear Quartzy Members,
Hope that things are going well in the lab. I had a few quick but important updates to share with you:
- Quartzy Feed: We have opened up the Dashboard so that you can now post questions/comments to the entire Quartzy community of thousands of users. Hopefully this will allow you to find the resources that you need quickly.
- Shared Facilities: While we have for the most part emphasized Quartzy as a way to manage your lab supplies and place orders, over the last few months we have seen a significant number of facilities being uploaded to Quartzy. As you know you can use the 'Facilities' module to look for shared facilities at your institute and neighboring institutes and to manage scheduling on Facilities that you administer. Here is a snapshot of the location of a few shared facilities in the New York region: http://blog.quartzy.com/?p=173
Some of you have written to us in the last few months and asked for tweaks to make the site more useful and we have launched several such minor features. For example, if you order multiple items at once now you can submit all orders in one go without having to cycle through them. Another example, is the new button 'Add More' in the Reagents Browser so that you can quickly add several reagents one after the other.
There are several other tweaks as well and I guess the point here is to let you know that we are very responsive to member feedback. So keep sending us your wonderful suggestions!
Happy Experimenting!
Adam
https://www.quartzy.com
Sent: October, 2010
Dear Quartzy Members,
At Quartzy we keep innovating to improve your life in the lab. You might have noticed some recent changes to the site. If not, log in (www.quartzy.com) and you'll see what I mean! Here's a quick summary:
- LabFeed: This makes communicating in your lab a breeze. All your information including reagent orders, reagent uploads, facility appointments are centralized here.
- Recent Orders: Now you can see who in your lab is ordering what! You can also check off when things have been delivered and notify your lab manager.
- Upload old orders: Do you have an excel file of your lab orders from 2007 collecting dust on your hard drive? Go to your orders section and upload it onto the site, so now you can search all orders past and present!
- Download to Excel: Now you can download your entire inventory or just a subset into an Excel file. Just search or filter your inventory and then click "Download" and voila! You can even restrict the download only to checked-off items!
We regularly update the site and with each update, our goal is to decrease the pain of administrative red tape, so you can focus on your research! Please let us know how we're doing and where we can improve. Email: info@quartzy.com
Finally, as you know, the services we offer will ALWAYS BE FREE, but we do need your help to spread the word. Please email your friends, colleagues, faculty, or department offices and tell them about Quartzy.
Happy Experimenting!
Adam
Team Quartzy
Sent: December, 2009
Dear Quartzy Members,
We hope that you had a great Thanksgiving holiday! We are pleased to announce several new features on Quartzy based on the feedback we received and we have also redesigned the workspace to make it easier to navigate. We are also pleased to announce Quartzy's Holiday Member Referral Reward Program where you can earn gift cards from Amazon.com by spreading the word about Quartzy.
- Filters: Many members asked for the ability to limit results displayed in their inventories. If you are in a lab with 10 people, but you collaborate with only John and Mary, there is no reason why you should have to sift through the entire lab inventory! Or what if you want to see only items in a particular location? The newly launched 'Filter' feature allows you to do this and more with ease (click on the filters link beneath the Search). Your filter settings are remembered across sessions and each inventory has its own filter. Filters also work with searches. For example, if you search for 'Mouse' and have set a filter for 'John' you will see only items which John owns with the term 'Mouse' in them. Filters also function in the Orders section. For example, if you only want to view 'Pending' items in the Orders section, check off 'Pending' in the Filter and hit Apply.
- Other additions to the Reagents Browser:
- Drop-down to select number of items displayed per page (now you can browse up to 250 items at once)
- Set your 'Default Inventory View' to Private or Lab (left panel of Reagents Browser)
- You can 'allow' LabMates to edit your reagents in the Lab Inventory (left panel of Reagents Browser)
- 'Rated Reagents' can now be browsed and searched using a tab on the left panel
- Searches can be cleared and the inventory can be reloaded quickly by clicking the "X" next to the search bar.
- 'Delivered Orders:' When an ordered item has been delivered to the lab, you can click the "Delivered" button and the appropriate LabMate is notified.
Date delivered is also tracked. Many of you requested this specifically, and we hope you like it!
We wish you a Happy Holiday season. If you have any other requests or suggestions about the site, please email us. Santa will try to deliver.
Happy experimenting!
Team Quartzy
Sent: October, 2009
Dear Quartzy Members
First, we would like to thank all those who participated in our survey. Your feedback is extremely valuable as we make plans for future development. And, congratulations to Prasanna Ramachandran from Washington University, the lucky winner of the Quartzy survey raffle! Your new iPod Shuffle is on its way.
We have new features to announce in response to your feedback:
- Invite Lab: Using this feature (accessible from the Network Tab) you can now quickly invite your entire lab to join Quartzy. Each person you invite using this method will be able to connect to the other lab members you have invited directly during account activation. This feature makes it very easy to set up your lab on Quartzy!
- Guided Login: We have rolled out a 'Guided Login' process which takes you through the steps of connecting with others on Quartzy, including inviting your lab and more. You will be taken through this guided login only once - so take a moment to check it out (login: https://www.quartzy.com).
- Location field for Reagents: The Container field is now a dropdown menu. Any entries you make (by selecting "Add New") will also be available to your LabMates - making organization in lab even easier!
We are continuously working to make the site better, so keep the suggestions coming. Please email us at info@quartzy.com or click the "Suggestions?" link at the bottom of the page on the site.
Thanks.
Team Quartzy
Sent: August, 2009
We have exciting news and updates to report! Already hundreds of scientists are using Quartzy to inventory tens of thousands of reagents. And more and more labs are using Quartzy's innovative Streamlined Ordering feature, which allows lab members to quickly place orders with their lab manager.
Over the last few months we received excellent suggestions regarding the Orders section and have updated several features to help you save even more time and money:
- Enhanced Search for the Orders section: You can now search through your orders by the name of a reagent, person who placed/received the order, name of a vendor, catalog number, PO number, price, and also by the action taken “Accepted / Pending / Denied.” You can also restrict your search to a particular date range. For example, to find all Invitrogen orders which were accepted within the month of June you would search for 'Invitrogen Accepted' and specify the dates 6/1/2009 to 6/30/2009 from the calendars.
- Enhanced Orders Section Downloads: You can now download your entire ordering history, just a few selected orders, or particular search results to an Excel file. This downloaded Orders report will enable you to get greater insight into your spending and will help you find new ways to save money.
- Sending Orders to 2 LabMates: Many of you work in labs with 2 lab managers. To address the needs of such labs we have introduced a new feature by which you can now place orders with up to 2 LabMates and either one can act on the placed order. To place an order with a second LabMate simply select the 2nd LabMate in the Order form.
- Edit LabMates' Reagent details: As LabMates often share reagents, you can now edit the details of each others' reagents (e.g. the Location field). However in keeping with Quartzy's commitment to security, you first need to activate this feature from the Account Settings: Modules tab to permit your LabMates to have editing privileges over your reagents. Editing privileges are denoted by a pencil symbol in the Lab Inventory section.
Stay tuned as we launch more features in the near future. And as always, please keep sending us your suggestions and feedback. At Quartzy, we want to help you research quickly so that you can focus on that next scientific breakthrough or enjoy a beautiful summer day!
Thanks,
Team Quartzy
Sent: April, 2009
Dear Quartzy Members,
Quartzy has grown tremendously over the last 2 months. We received many suggestions from you and have launched some key developments for the Reagents Browser:
- Improved and Faster Search: You can now search through Reagent name, Vendor name, Catalog number, and Reagent type. Results are returned in less than a fraction of a second.
- Modified Orders Section: Many members requested a P.O. # column, which we have now introduced in the Orders section. You can add additional order details by clicking on the reagent name in this section. The Price, Quantity, and PO# can be edited directly from the Orders section making it a breeze to place and follow-up on reagent orders!
We are also pleased to announce the launch of two NEW MODULES:
- Protocols: The Protocols module is fully integrated with your Reagent inventory. In a few clicks you can attach reagents, citations, figures, files and more to protocols! Protocols have multi-tiered privacy settings, so you can keep some completely private, share some with a few lab-mates, and share others with the entire Quartzy community. You can add tags, rate and comment, search for reagents associated with a protocol and more. The Quartzy Protocols module is a truly unique offering and we hope that you find it useful!
- Facilities: Have you ever wondered if a neighboring lab has a piece of equipment you need to use? You can search for facilities at your university and at other institutions. The Facilities module allows you to set-up an online calendar to share resources, and you can receive email reminders for upcoming appointments.
Quartzy aims liberate you from the many mundane activities that are involved while doing research, freeing you to make the most efficient use of your resources. We are constantly evolving and developing new features for your convenience.
We are always interested in your feedback.
Regards,
Team Quartzy
