Hi Anne,
I'm currently on Faces and have previous mid-level experience with ilabs. I
think ilabs is the more powerful tool, but is it better? The individual
circumstances and preferences for everyone's labs vary too much to say. Here's
a comparison from my own observations.
Faces strength's are it's reliability and ease of use. In the past year I think
I've noticed a single system interruption, and that for no longer than 1-2 hours.
Whereas with ilabs the service would regularly go down for hours or run slowly
enough to drive users to frustration. Faces is also remarkably easy to configure.
There's virtually no learning curve, all the options are immediately in plain view.
For anyone still using an exclusively paper/pen system I'd highly recommend Faces
as a first entry into online scheduling. Unfortunately, its simplicity shows and
the users criticize it as outdated and clunky.
Regarding ilabs, it has an equivalent feature for everything Faces provides
and expands beyond that. It's compatible with interlocks for computer access,
and can autocancel reservations as "no-show" when users fail to login within
a chosen timeframe. Users can select appropriate funding sources from drop-down
lists with every reservation. The entire interface is much newer, smoother, and
provides a better user experience. But for whatever reasons the service would
frequently become sluggish or unresponsive, and the lab temporarily had to rely
on physical logbooks and then later digitize that data.
Billing is tricky to pindown, and personally I don't bother with Faces' billing
tools, I track and compile instrument usage in other ways. Both Faces and ilabs
can log and report on reservation lengths. ilabs can get closer to actual usage
if using interlocks and start/stop reservation options. Neither monitors what the
instrument actually does, so automation would probably demand a completely separate
scheme anyway. I think most of us pull information from the Inmracct.brief log file,
and if an instrument is split time between automation and manual acquisitions then
there's additional effort to untangle everything for accurate billing.
Kind regards,
Luke
Luke Fulton, PhD
CHEM BLDG R003
NMR Core Facility Director
Unit 3060
COR2E & Department of Chemistry
55 N Eagleville Road
University of Connecticut
Storrs, CT 06279
email: fko24003_at_uconn.edu
(alias): luke.fulton_at_uconn.edu
mobile: (603) 953-5275
Office: (860) 486-4069
________________________________
> From: main_at_ammrl.groups.io on behalf of Anne Rachupka via groups.io
> Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2025 4:41 PM
> To: main_at_ammrl.groups.io <main_at_ammrl.groups.io>
> Subject: [AMMRL] Another iLab question
Hello!
UNM has a site agreement for iLab, several Cores here use it, and I am being
asked to implement iLab in the NMR Facility. We currently use FACES, and
while it isn’t perfect, it has been working so far.
I’ve used iLab in the past and, to be honest, hated it. The website
was frequently down, users complained about it constantly, and it wasn’t
flexible enough for our needs.
Anyone else using it? Love it? How do you like for billing? Do users cancel
reservations if they do not show up? Complain if they do not cancel and get
billed? How do you handle autosamplers?
Thanks!
Anne
_______________________
Anne Rachupka
NMR Director
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
Dept. of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
505-277-4031
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Received on Fri Oct 24 2025 - 08:57:27 MST