LabKey Custom Solutions

LabKey software is a privately held software development and professional services company based in Seattle, WA. Originally formed to build a solution for managing high-volume mass spectrometry data, the LabKey team has extensive experience in biomedical software. LabKey builds and maintains data management solutions for large-scale research projects using LabKey Server, an open source platform. of APIs allowed the LabKey team to develop a solution more quickly, and being open source allowed the two labs to share the cost of development. The platform provides APIs to quickly create views for inserting, updating, and browsing the data in the reagent database. The reagent module consists of a small set of tables to track locations of reagent vials, orders of lots, and titration experiments performed on the lot. Users can insert, update, and view details of records using a web browser and track their inventory directly on their LabKey Server website. If the built-in tables are not enough, additional fields may be added and customized by the server administrator. For example, one lab chose to add the purchase price of the lot as an additional field. Other customizations include formatting, highlighting, and input validation. Just like other grids in LabKey Server, the reagent tables can be queried, customized, exported, and used to generate graphical reports. As detailed in the next section, grids can be accessed or updated externally using the LabKey API client libraries and new views can be added. LabKeys built-in security allows an admin to grant read only or read and write access to any folder containing data. Deploying the reagent module is simple: an admin drops the reagent.module file into the servers modules directory and restarts the server.

CUSTOM SOLUTIONS: REAGENT DATABASE

The reagent module is an example of a custom LabKey Server module designed to replace two labs existing reagent inventories. One lab was tracking their inventory with several Excel files, the other with a FileMaker Pro database. Each of these homegrown solutions had become unmanageable; the data was hard to find across multiple files, and the database tables had become denormalized with multiple concepts represented in a single table. The replacement solutions considered were either too rigid or too complicated to meet the institutions new data management requirements. While the labs could have used LabKey Servers APIs to build a solution themselves, they engaged our team to implement this project. The reagent module was built using simple SQL scripts to create tables, and JavaScript and HTML for presentation without using any Java programming. Here, the use presentation

LABKEY SOFTWARE

2226 EASTLAKE AVE. EAST #101

SEATTLE, WA 98102

T: 206.701.9975

F: 206.667.4831

WWW.LABKEY.COM

EXTENSIBLE PLATFORM
LabKey Server's deep support for customization and rapid application development frees labs to independently adapt their servers, interfaces and analyses to lab-specific needs. Client libraries in a range of languages, plus a user interface for R scripting, allow investigators to use familiar tools to build custom applications, interfaces, assays, reports and analyses. Developers can add larger features by packaging them together in modules, create individual data views in R or simply add API-enhanced dynamic content to wikis or HTML pages in the file system. LabKey Server's client libraries are well-documented and designed to be accessible to developers with varied skill sets, from Java programmers to R scripters. The client libraries provide programmatic access to LabKey Server modules and services through through familiar languages such as JavaScript, Java, R, SAS and Perl. Familiarity with LabKey Server's object model is not necessary to quickly produce useful applications. All client libraries allow users with appropriate permissions to select, insert, update and delete records on a LabKey Server. The JavaScript library also includes APIs for building user interfaces and executing actions commonly performed through the user interface. These include adding web parts, checking permissions, executing SQL queries, populating datasets, sorting and filtering grid views, requesting specimens, building charts and interactive grid views, among many other actions. To obtain the reagent module and for help with installation or usage, contact info@labkey.com.

LABKEY SOFTWARE

2226 EASTLAKE AVE. EAST #101

SEATTLE, WA 98102

T: 206.701.9975

F: 206.667.4831

WWW.LABKEY.COM