Getting Started

Create your account, set up your first group, and start managing research data in minutes.

1. Create an account

Go to the Sign Up page. The registration form asks for:

Field	Description
Full name	Your real name — this appears on processes, protocols, and your public profile
Email	Used for login and account recovery. Use your institutional email if you plan to join an existing group
Lab or group name	A personal or team group is created automatically and you become its Leader. You can invite collaborators later
Password	Must meet the complexity requirements listed below the field
Confirm password	Re-type your password to prevent typos

Password requirements

• At least 12 characters long
• At least one uppercase letter (A-Z)
• At least one lowercase letter (a-z)
• At least one number (0-9)
• At least one special character (!@#$%^&* etc.)
• Not a commonly used password

After clicking Create account, you are automatically logged in and taken to the onboarding wizard.

2. Complete onboarding

The onboarding wizard helps you set up your profile in three steps:

Step	What you do	Required?
Complete Your Profile	Add a short bio and your institutional affiliation	Optional — can be added later from your profile page
Your Interests	Select expertise tags (genomics, bioinformatics, ecology, etc.) or type your own. These appear on your profile and help others find collaborators	Optional
Get Started	Overview cards pointing you to protocols, discussions, and projects	Informational only

Click Complete Setup to save your profile data, or Skip for now to go straight to the dashboard. Either way, you land on your dashboard.

3. Your dashboard

The dashboard is your home page after login. It is organised into tabs:

• Group tabs — One tab per group you belong to. Each shows your active work (in-progress processes), tasks, pipeline status, and team activity for that group
• Community tab — Activity from people you follow, popular protocols, and latest news

If you are a new user with no data yet, the dashboard shows a welcome banner with step-by-step instructions and quick-action buttons to create your first investigation, browse protocols, read the documentation, or take a training course.

4. Navigate the platform

The main navigation bar provides access to all areas:

Menu	What it contains
Research	Investigations, Studies, Processes, Samples, Pipeline view — the core ISA data model
Protocols	Protocol library — browse, create, fork, and version community protocols
Compute	Analysis pipelines (CWL workflows), runs, and results
More	Groups, Projects, People directory, News, Training
Account (dropdown)	Your Profile, API Keys, Notifications, Logout

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
/	Focus the search bar (from any page)
Esc	Close search suggestions

5. Your first project

When you sign up, a default project is automatically created within your group. Projects are where day-to-day lab work happens — they contain processes, samples, and tasks.

You can see your projects on the dashboard. To create additional projects, click New Project on the dashboard or go to More → Projects.

6. Record your lab work

The typical workflow starts with processes and samples inside a project:

1. Create a process — click "New Process" on the dashboard or from within a project. Choose a category (extraction, sample prep, sequencing, measurement, etc.), link a protocol, and set a date
2. Register samples — create output samples from your process. Set organism, material type, and a consistent label (e.g. MOUSE-BRAIN-001)
3. Add ontology annotations — annotate samples with standardised terms from 13 ontologies (NCBITaxon, UBERON, OBI, etc.)
4. Build sample chains — on downstream processes, link earlier samples as sources (e.g. tissue → DNA extract → library → sequencing)
5. Record measurements — attach QC measurements (concentration, RQN, fragment length) with Unit Ontology terms via assays

7. Formalise with an investigation

When your research is ready to be organised for publication, data sharing, or export, create an investigation:

1. From the dashboard Investigations section, click + New Investigation (or go to Research → Investigations)
2. Enter a title, description, and set visibility (Private, Group, or Public)
3. Add a study — a specific experimental campaign within the investigation
4. Define study factors — the variables you tested (genotype, treatment, tissue)
5. Link processes from your project to the study — this connects your lab work to the formal ISA structure
6. Enrol samples into the study — select which samples from your processes belong to this study

Once structured, your investigation can be exported as ISA-Tab, ISA-JSON, ML-Ready data, or Data Cards — all standard formats for repositories and machine learning pipelines.

Group roles

When you sign up, a group and a default project are created automatically. You become the group Leader. You can create additional groups or be invited to join others.

Role	Permissions
Leader	Full control — manage members, create/delete investigations, change visibility
Manager	Create and edit content, manage processes, invite members
Member	View group content, create processes and samples, upload files

Your account and identity

Your account has two linked records:

• User account — Your login credentials (email and password)
• Person record — Your identity (name, affiliation, ORCID, bio, expertise tags). This is what appears on processes, protocols, and contributions

These are linked by a permanent ID, not by email address. If you change institutions and get a new email, all your existing work stays linked to your account.

Changing your email

1. Go to your profile → Edit Profile
2. In the Email Address section, enter your new email
3. Enter your current password to confirm the change
4. Click Save Profile

Adding your ORCID

Go to your profile → Edit Profile and enter your ORCID iD (format: 0000-0002-1825-0097). This provides a persistent identifier that follows you across institutions and appears on your public profile.

Quick reference: from signup to structured data

1. Sign up — a group and default project are created automatically
2. Create processes in your project — log each lab activity (extraction, library prep, sequencing)
3. Register samples — create output samples, annotate with ontology terms, build lineage chains
4. Create an investigation — when ready to formalise for publication or data sharing
5. Add studies and enrol samples — link your processes and samples into the ISA structure for export