Bika Mail 7. The Chief, a fellow and SaaS
Finally, LIMS 2 Inkosi. Hosting an IAEA fellowship. What the SaaS?
Dear Reader
We hope that by now you've settled into 2008 comfortably. Getting
there ourselves, improving our newsletter routine and setting up
THAT release ...
In this copy:
Releasing Inkosi. Bika LIMS 2 and Bika Calendar 1
Releases
Out in the open by 26 May if not earlier. We'll be testing the final alpha from Monday and continue work on the manual, training videos, installation guides and packaging to include Bika Calendar and the Reportlab graphics required for QC graphs
Quantum Analytical Services, Inkosi development sponsors, passed through their configuration and acceptance on the latest alphas, greatly sharpening look and feel. The development team now returns to Quantum's specification on worksheet templates. These enhancements will be available in the next minor release
First release version is 2.1 and includes a number of enhancements on the original 2.0 specification. Download from the LIMS 2.1 project page. On-line demonstration installation
Bika Calendar 1.0
Bika Calendar was developed as standalone product for adoption and further enhancement in other Plone projects. It is used to configure the true working hours for an organisation, excluding non-working hours over night, weekends and holidays to make for accurate scheduling and efficiency reports
Deployed with Inkosi, Calendar uses lab hours for late analysis alerts and turn around reports
Manuals
Work on the manuals is under way and dynamic versions can be found in the Bika help Centre
Bika is hosting a fellowship
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Technical Cooperation Group is sponsoring a fellowship for Juan Salvador Chin Pampillo at Bika Lab Systems in Cape Town from 12 to 23 May
Juan will be trained on the installation, implementation and use of Inkosi, for implementation at the University of Costa Rica's CICA laboratories performing ISO 17025 accredited pesticide residue, water and air quality analysis, integrated with assessment of pesticide practices, field monitoring and mitigation strategies. More here
Inkosi 2.2 specification. Give us your feedback
Please review and comment on the Inkosi 2.2 User specification after analysis and design sponsored by Benchmark Laboratories, Calgary, Canada, a full service CAEAL accredited laboratory analysing soil, water, air, animal manure and feed
General parts of the specification, Instrument management, for one, are good candidates for co-development, interested labs please come forward. More on the 2.2 Project page
Software as a Service. SaaS
Benchmark is running their pilot as Bika SaaS. You'll recall that Bika Lab Systems offers LIMS either installed as on-site server or this freshly hyped software rental model
As SaaS, Bika's powerful and feature rich LIMS and Interlab systems are offered at low capital risk and not requiring any on-site technical skills. For a once-off set-up fee and monthly subscription
The staying power of SaaS, as opposed to other software delivery models, comes about for several reasons. It is easy to set-up and customise at low cost of entry. Overhead and upgrades come at predictable expense. Since blanket Internet coverage and PDAs, many mobile applications of the future will be delivered in this way
For more about Bika Lab Systems' SaaS, please contact Joris at joris@bikalabs.com
Client update
Advanta Laboratories went live with their lab portal. As did Quantum who is attracting new clients through their internet presence. Quantum is also using their Knowledge centre to great effect
The SA wine lab association, SAWLA is growing their inter-laboratory proficiency testing rounds with more participants and analyses month after month. The new ranking portlet is well liked and is a great incentive towards the association's goals
In all my years of laboratory management I have rarely come across a similar situation where
mutual trust and an honest desire to look after the interests of a client
is placed before financial gain
Patrick Griffiths CEO, Quantum Analytical Services
Partner update
StartIT is our new implementation partner in Hungary, adding Bika LIMS support and hosting to a portfolio of open source group ware solutions, Intranet platforms and secure applications
On the road
Bika Lab Systems presents a self contained 'Light' version of Bika Health intended for rural clinics treating TB, Malaria and HIV patients, at the 2008 OpenMRS/OSCHA/HISA Conference from 17 to 20 June in Durban, South Africa. We are also taking part in inter-operability sessions to establish open standards for Electronic Medical Record keeping and Hospital system interfaces
Best regards, The Bika Team
Python fastest growing programming language
Press Release: Bika LIMS 2.1 Inkosi open source release
