🌟 Summary of the Community Meeting on October 1st, 2026

In the eLabFTW Community Meeting, we focused on templates and the ways in which they can help improve the consistency, efficiency, and quality of research documentation.

First, Nicolas Carpi gave an overview of how to use templates. He showed how to add categories, statuses, tags, text, custom fields, grouped fields, units, steps, attachments, links, and permissions. He also showed how some steps or permissions can be locked, and explained that entries created from templates can be set to inherit permissions automatically. Finally, he discussed creating a template directly from an existing experiment or resource, duplicating templates without edit access, and loading additional custom fields into existing entries.

Neele Drobnitzky then presented how templates are used in her research group at Heidelberg University. She emphasized that well-designed templates help researchers record more complete and consistent information, use standard terminology, and create data that is easier to search and reuse. She recommended using clear instructions, consistent custom-field names, accessible formatting, linked resources, and meaningful relationships between entries. She also suggested planning interconnected template systems in advance, creating landing pages to help users find the right templates, and involving researchers in template development so that the system remains practical and relevant.

The final discussion covered future improvements and community resources, including batch editing, better display of custom fields, API-based template editing, and possible use of LLMs and MCP integrations, with attention to data security and permissions. We also announced the official opening to the public of our ELN Community template-sharing hub, which is intended to make it easier for researchers to share and discover templates across institutions and disciplines. Overall, the meeting highlighted templates as a powerful way to standardize documentation while still allowing flexibility for different research workflows.

Video recording

Thanks so much to everyone who attended. See you at the next community meeting!

• elabftw
• community meeting