CERF is more than just an e-lab notebook. Think of it as an all-in-one ELN, EDMS, LIMS & LIS, plus a unifying, secure, shared operating system and total replacement for MS Sharepoint, files kept hidden on personal machines, non-compliant cloud-based file storage systems, and ad-hoc document management systems your various departments have cobbled together.

If you have already seen the architecture, security, and compliance aspects of CERF ELN, let’s take a virtual tour of just some of the capabilities that set CERF ELN apart from other e-lab notebook products. With CERF, your organization can do more, spend less, keep your data safe and enjoy hassle-free GLP, ALCOA best practices and true 21CFR11 compliance for all your lab records and data files. Contact us today to learn how you can replace MS Sharepoint, your current old-fashioned non-compliant ELN and risky storage on personal computers and ad-hoc, disjointed lab and office solutions across your organization.

Customizable look and feel

Make CERF your own by choosing the colors, icons and font sizes that work best for you.

Add content fast

Get started fast by adding single files or entire hierarchic folder trees to CERF. For maximum efficiency, you should trust CERF completely and resist the temptation to keep copies of files on your local computer. You can drag straight from the Mac finder or Windows Explorer if you like, but you can also avoid cluttering your desktop by using CERF’s own built-in Local Files panel to navigate to data on your local machine.

Automated data capture

Use the CERF Automaton to monitor folders for the arrival of important data files and move them instantly to CERF. This helps organizations demonstrate a compliant chain-of-custody for all data files they collect. The CERF Automaton runs on Windows, Mac OS and Linux machines and can be configured to ingest data from any location on your network, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Use it for collecting files from instruments, off-site collaborators, data loggers, timed exports from third party systems or databases and more.

Innovative, secure email integration

Use email-to-CERF to send or forward important emails or attachments to CERF where it instantly becomes part of your official 21CFR11 compliant record and can no longer be accidentally deleted. This is a great way to capture key data quickly for researchers who work in the field with mobile devices.

Role-based access control

CERF includes 10 different user roles, plus a range of additional add-on capabilities that can be granted to specific users. This means that access and ability to view, annotate or edit specific resources can be configured with a high degree of granularity. Resources are owned by workgroups, and different users can have different roles in different workgroups, further empowering your organization to decide exactly who can see what and which individuals should be working together collaboratively. Understanding your access to any resource is easy to determine using the Resource Info window.

Organization and traceability

CERF lets you organize your work in notebooks and file cabinets just as you would in the paper world, but CERF’s ability to use familiar tools like enhanced Copy and Paste allow users to create and locate multiple links to the same work and establish logical relationships between resources and reference databases, preventing accumulation of replicates and improving traceability. CERF lets you choose whether a file used in multiple contexts should exist as independent copies, distinct versions, or links to the exact same file, and CERF automatically offers you appropriate options.

At-a-glance details

The ubiquitous CERF Resource Info panel gives users tremendous awareness of the provenance and meaning of the data they work with every day. Users can generate on-the-fly metadata to improve searchability and CERF can even reach into your files to convert embedded file properties into CERF metadata that that tells your downstream audience everything they need to know about your data and its origin and significance,

View all your files inside CERF

CERF includes a number of viewer plugins that allow you to see many common documents and scientific data files inside CERF without having to open an external application. MS office files, text, html, PDF, AB1 trace files, Chemical structure files of all kinds, GB sequence files and all your images and SVGs can be viewed using CERF.

Secure, compliant round-trip editing of specialized files

CERF uses feature-rich desktop apps for Mac and Windows, not a browser. One of the key advantages of this approach is that browsers cannot interact with your local computer’s OS, so seamless round trip editing of files using your preferred applcations is not possible using a browser alone. CERF uses a check out > edit > check in workflow to make sure that files are only edited by one user at a time. This is an important part of maintaining a comprehensible audit trail that shows WHO has made changes and precisely when they made them. If a file is checked out for editing, other users can still see the content of that file, but they can’t make changes until the file is checked in and once again becomes available for editing. The round-trip editing ability of CERF works with ANY file type and makes use of common, or highly specialized applications you already have on your local computer. With CERF, it is not necessary to create data in strange proprietary formats that only your ELN can use. Instead, CERF lets you use the workflows and tools applications and file types you already use today.

Compare resources and instantly see differences

Built-in “diff” tool allows users to instantly see differences between versions of documents, images and metadata. Your auditors will thank you and your legal team will be empowered to fully protect your intellectual property.

Best-in-industry semantic search

CERF’s powerful semantic search engine is simply the best available. You can use any one of dozens of possible search parameters, and combine them together to form powerful Boolean queries that can define dynamically updated bundles of specific sets of data. Export results as .csv reports that can keep your team informed of trends and problems.

Offline Mode

CERF’s check-out-and-edit functionality means that users can check out files and then edit them offline, even if no internet connection is available. When you return to an environment where you can once again connect to your network, you can then check your edited files back into CERF.

Easy export and server-to-server migration

CERF supports optional drag-and-drop export of individual files, but also supports more substantial export of bundled .ZIP files containing entire collections of data and associated metadata. These can be migrated to other CERF servers or converted back into native files using the CERF Exporter App.

Contact us to schedule a demo or request a free trial.
To learn more about the architecture and security aspects of CERF, see our CERF Overview page.

Intersted in reading about more CERF ELN advanced features? Download “Getting Started With CERF” to learn more.