Clustermarket Erfahrungen

Best Lab Management Solution

Vorteile:

This product is a great lab management tool. Many nice features for instrument management, many different roles/access level to instruments and easy to deploy/scale. I highly recommend.

Nachteile:

The only downside but I really hope it will be implemented in the near future is that it currently has no solution for inventory management, so I have to rely to alternative products

Great software package for academic institutions

Vorteile:

We use Bookit to book equipment internally across all our research platforms, including high-spec and day-to-day equipment. They have a great offer for academic institutions and we have found the system easy to use for lab administrators and users. I would also note that the customer service provided has been great, they are very responsive and open to making updates to the system when we have suggestions. The updates provided have allowed for a sophisticated and robust set of permissions available to tightly control bookings on heavily used equipment. We also have plans to start charging some external users for access to some equipment and Bookit is equipped to manage this.

Nachteile:

The reporting provided is comprehensive in that all data can be easily exported into a csv file and manipulated into your own reports. However, I think lab managers/administrators would benefit from some quick reporting directly in the system (e.g. usage of equipment across a facility or over time).

Works well for managing a small number of users but becomes more difficult as our user base grows.

Kommentare: 5/10

Vorteile:

1. This is a good way to manage equipment bookings. 2. This is reliably way to ensure we are complying with most of the university regulations.

Nachteile:

1. Hard to manage covid-19 restrictions - e.g. limited number of people allowed in each lab. There is no feature to help with this. 2. Users can book multiple equipment and lab spaces simultaneously. Currently, I am forced to spend lots of admin time daily checking and re-arranging people that have "double-booked". If they have double-booked, we cannot reliably say how many people were in that specific lab at that time. 3. It would be nice if I could track consumable usage/costs on top of equipment bookings for each user. For instance, some users will use very expensive consumables (e.g. gold deposition). 4. It would be good to incorporate a feature for users to request training on specific equipment/labs on top of this booking software. 5. One of the tabs on the left could be labelled "Rules" where the admin can list the equipment/lab/bookings rules. 6. There should a clearer hierarchy showing which setting overrule similar settings elsewhere. For instance, booking hour settings in a group overrule the booking hour settings given to an individual user. 7. It would be good if there was a way to confirm whether a user has had training on the equipment and submitted a risk assessment before being allowed to book the equipment.

A customizable program for instrument and personnel management that is a must for research.

Kommentare: Streamline equipment and personnel management in one software, improving efficiency across the board.

Vorteile:

The ease of use of this software, easy implementation across all staff members, customizable nature, and the online nature of the data are all amazing pros for this software.

Nachteile:

There really isn't anything I dislike about this software. Very easy to use and a great addition to our research group!

Awesome support from ClusterMarket Bookit Employees

Kommentare: We enjoy using bookit especially during the pandemic, we needed to control for social distancing and this software helped us do just that. Users rarely need to be taught how to use the software, so the user interface is exceptional.

Vorteile:

The software is easy to use! The support is awesome!

Nachteile:

Sometimes there are more than one way to influence settings in the system, via user settings or instrument settings or group settings.

Amazing management software for your research institution

Kommentare: It is the best management software I have tried for booking instruments, rooms and spaces for research institutions... and I evaluated quite a few for the institute I am working in. It can easily handle more than 100 users and over 200 different equipments/spaces! AMAZING SOFTWARE!

Vorteile:

Extremely flexible customisation for specific instruments. It can handle large number of users with different policies. Very advanced options to manage external bookings. Easy to administer.

Nachteile:

Not easy to make multiple or repetitive bookings. Sometimes it is not extremely responsive during bookings.

Fantastic software for managing research labs

Kommentare: We used it to manage space and occupancy of it during the pandemic and restarting the labs. the customer support was excellent and they set up what we needed straight away. Further queries have been resolved immediate no matter how small the query way. All the researchers have had a positive experience of using the system and we have had no complaints. We have used this for over 500 researchers and the feedback has been excellent.

Vorteile:

I particularly like the way the information is displayed, it makes it very easy to see what to book and how to book it. Far better than other platforms I have looked at

Nachteile:

I have not found anything that I would fault it with to be honest, especially compared to similar products on the market

Game Changing

Kommentare: After looking to improve the way the labs were run and remove ‘the way we’ve always done it’ I came across Bookkit (Clustermarket)

What was initially a way to manage approx. 30 pieces of equipment, this then became a real game changer for managing ‘space’ – I took it to the next level of creating bookable space to manage fair usage of lab space following our return to the lab after lockdown. Without Bookkit, this would have been impossible to manage efficiently!

Vorteile:

• Easy to setup, use and train end users on all of the booking functions. • Simple yet effective communication with the announcements section • Managing chargeable equipment is a timesaver. • Generating reports on usage of equipment to allow us to develop strategies for the future.

Nachteile:

• I would like to see recurring bookings for those regular weekly timeslots • The ability to structure pricing in custom settings (i.e £20 for the first hour, £10 an hour thereafter) • Linking to Outlook calendar would be hugely beneficial • No mobile compatibility due to the ‘click and drag’ functionality of the calendar.

Bookkit for the win

Kommentare: Due to the pandemic we needed an option to replace the antiquated paper & pen sign in sheet option for reserving shared/departmental equipment. I was quickly able to offer up an easy to use system and the price was right: FREE!

Vorteile:

The was an easy to roll out product. Customer support is excellent; they are quick to respond to an inquiry, and equally fast is a resolution. I provided Clustermarket/Bookkit staff an Excel list of our equipment, with the important details for each, and in a very short time (a day) we were up and running. It saved me a lot of time. All the pertinent information regarding a piece of equipment (including an owner's manuals and helpful documentation) is conveniently located in one place and is accessible to all users. End users have not complained about the new system. Control options for admins are sufficient and, again, easy to use.

Nachteile:

I wish the mobile interface was better; the GUI needs a little help. I've been told they are working on that.

Simple and powerful

Kommentare: It did in a pinch, but the product is improving rapidly

Vorteile:

Easy to configure laboratory equipment and groups. Wide-ish range of user permissions. Simple interface.

Nachteile:

The calendar view doesn't make it easy to book a group of equipment together, e.g. a room, a centrifuge and a specific rotor set. The responsive interface is somewhat limited - best used on a desktop version.

High Tech, High in Customer Support

Kommentare: Excellent, highly recommend!

Vorteile:

The software has many nuances in which you can explore and fine tune to suit your needs. I love how much time it has saved us as a rather small organization, but we have to manage many residents. Using Bookkit has made our booking practices seamless for the users, and easy for us as management - it was really a no brainer.

Nachteile:

Anything I had issues with have been resolved, or they were able to accommodate for us!

Lab Management Magic!

Vorteile:

Clustermarket is extremely easy to set up and both essential & helpful in managing labs with a high volume of team members. It makes scheduling a breeze!

Nachteile:

The methodology of scheduling and making edits to the reservations can be a bit rigid at first, but the learning curve is relatively low. Once you get the hang of it, its smooth sailing.

Great product but needs to be mobile-friendly

Vorteile:

From desktop the website is very intuitive and easy to use, especially after the later updates allowing multiple bookings.

Nachteile:

I would appreciate a mobile-friendly website or a smartphone app as often I found myself trying to edit bookings with my smartphone and it's quite complicated.

Easy software to reserve equipment

Vorteile:

This software is easy to use and implement. We like having all the information about our equipment in one place. We share our facilities with two other companies, so this software is useful to keep track on equipment reservations and usage.

Nachteile:

The integration with ELab journal requires debugging

Scheduling Equipment made easy

Kommentare: Overall experience is good. But the booking interface cab be made more user friendly

Vorteile:

Easy to schedule the equipment with multiple groups

Nachteile:

Interface can be cleaned up a bit. Booking module timers are not that user friendly

Superb Lab management software

Kommentare: fantastic!

Vorteile:

It makes the lab management - booking, approval, and track record easier.

Nachteile:

a few things could be improved: 1. create phone apps 2. assign trainer automatically/selecting option upon booking by an untrained user. 3. one click the approval page as an option for booking request

Bookkit is a very nice product.

Kommentare: Bookkit is a very nice product, so useful to manage the usage of shared equipment of our research center. Is a very friendly platform, with a large number of options to customize the services according to the needs of each laboratory. Their customer support are really efficient.

Vorteile:

The feature that I really find useful is that we are able to manage different laboratories, with different users on the same platform.

Nachteile:

I would like to have more options to customize the schedule of equipments. For example, set more than one time-block at the day where the equipment will be out of service.

Decent tool for scheduling shared equipment and space usage

Kommentare: I think it is a good tool so far. With the recommended improvements it could be better.

Vorteile:

Click and drag to select time ranges for reserving space and equipment. Straight-forward to navigate the pages Dropdown menu for different lab spaces with different sets of equipment to reserve. Ability to have pictures of equipment for the users to know what they are reserving.

Nachteile:

The approval process seems a bit intensive - each time chunk for each space has to be approved unless the user is an administrator, at least with the settings we use. This can be a lot to manage and approve if each user uses a lot of different space and equipment each day. A very useful feature for users that I recommend implementing would be something like saving a reservation profile so that if a user has to use the same set of equipment/space multiple days in a row they don't have to click and reserve so many things for every day - a single click option to repeat a prior days reservation, and be able to give it a title like "DNA Extractions" or "Library Preparation" would make it easy as a user to reserve space day after day.

Research assistant review

Vorteile:

Great software overall, although mobile interface is not the best

Nachteile:

As mentioned above, the mobile website is very hard to navigate and book times in

Great FREE software for general equipment scheduling and maintenance!

Kommentare: We were having trouble with instrument scheduling and asking colleagues individually who was using what instrument when. This software has streamlined our scheduling process and reduced down time of high volume instruments.

Vorteile:

We use the groups functionality a lot for permissions and the calendar view is very useful for high volume instruments.

Nachteile:

The calendar sometimes gets stuck on a previous date/view and does not default to "today"

Useful Tool

Kommentare: It is a useful software and was rolled out well in our department.

Vorteile:

I like that it is easy to see what equipment is available, and what I can book. It is also convenient that there are email reminders that a booking is upcoming.

Nachteile:

It can sometimes be a little difficult to get the exact timing, and it would be nice to be able to edit or cancel a reservation after it has begun. Sometimes things finish early and we want to indicate that the equipment is free.

Using Bookkit to manage equipment booking in a university research lab

Kommentare: Whenever I've had issues with the system, I have been able to contact the customer support team and get a response within hours. This has been immensely helpful!

Vorteile:

It is perfect for managing shared equipment, especially now that social distancing requirements are in place. Also the customer support is great.

Nachteile:

Getting everyone in the lab signed up as a user was a bit of a difficult process, but I think this was exacerbated by the fact that I set our lab up on the system during the update between versions.

Human Performance Laboratory

Kommentare: Support has been great and the software has been easy to set up and launch

Vorteile:

Easy to use user interface for students. customisable user groups and booking rules is really handy

Nachteile:

The calendar visually could do with tweaking to make it visually more intuitive

Versatile but difficult to navigate

Kommentare: Good product but the navigation could be more streamlined and categorized better.

Vorteile:

Versatile features that comprehensively cover almost every aspect of managing lab equipment.

Nachteile:

Booking equipment is easy and the confirmation email is very useful.

A good instrument management tool

Kommentare: It has been quite a good experience to use this, I have been able to manage using the instrument at any time. It ensures the workflow is smooth.

Vorteile:

A couple of research groups use this in my institute, it helps multiple teams to effectively manage their time and plan the usage of instruments connected to the software. It offers flexibility by helping to plan well in advance and also accommodates making changes to the plan if there is something.

Nachteile:

The User portal can be made much more simpler. It sometimes takes extra time to navigate and get to the action.