Labforward has announced a new app which aims to streamline the process of regulatory compliance in the laboratory by making it easier for scientists and researchers to obtain sign-off for their work. Compliance is an important issue for many regulated lab-based industries, but getting the necessary signatures can slow down progress and productivity. The new app provides additional functionality called, ‘Signature Workflows’, which streamlines reviewing and signing entries within collaborative projects so that the workflow isn’t slowed down unnecessarily by the validation process.
'With this app, we're allowing laboratories in regulated environments to speed up their workflows and do the work they usually would need a separate document management solution for,' says Florian Hauer, CPO and co-founder of Labforward. Labforwards first paid extension option, ‘Signature Workflows’ is available to everyone on their labfolder ELN advanced plan and can be purchased as an add-on. Standard prices start at around 11€ per user per month added to the advanced plan prices. More information about the new labfolder ‘Signature Workflows’ app can be found on the Labfolder website.
When it comes to projects in the lab that require complex validation for content, a simple validation system is not sufficient. Feedback from scientists working in regulated environments showed that it became complicated when many signatures had to be acquired to validate laboratory results and reports. When multiple people were involved and the process wasn’t clear this could significantly slow down the workflow.
To address this issue, Labforward has created an optional feature in addition to their current ‘Sign & Witness’ feature in the labfolder ELN. The aim of the new ‘Signature Workflows App’ is to take the functions of ‘Sign & Witness’ a step further. By giving more freedom to customise and have more control over who signs and witnesses, the validation process does not interfere with the entire workflow of the project.
The new functions found in the ‘Signature Workflow’ include:
● Creating workflows with several reviewing steps, each containing multiple reviewers.
● Assigning workflows to specific projects.
● Moving entries to different projects after workflow completion.
● Status of approval or rejection for an entry.
● Associating different tags & comments to each action.
