Parse Existing .Docx Protocols into SciNote Protocols Instantly

Streamlining Experiment Protocol Creation with SciNote’s Protocol Parser

Effective and precise experimental protocols are essential for successful research endeavors. In SciNote, you can create interactive, step-by-step protocols to help you navigate complex experiments, ensuring consistency and reliable results. However, manually converting static protocols from documents can be time-consuming, limiting your ability to fully utilize SciNote’s interactive and content-rich protocol feature.

That’s why we’re excited to introduce a new beta feature in SciNote that allows you to import your static .docx protocols and convert them into interactive protocol steps. In this blog post, we’ll explore the reasons behind the Protocol parser and its numerous benefits for your lab workflows.

* This feature will be made available to all Premium users after October 11th, 2023. The feature needs to be turned on by the instance’s organization admin before users have access to it. Free users will gain access to this feature in a forthcoming release, while Platinum users can expect to enjoy this update in spring 2024.

Creating a step-by-step, interactive protocol in a few clicks

The new Protocol parser feature is designed to tackle the challenge of converting static, text-based protocols into interaction versions. With the release of this feature, we aim to save your time and effort, so you can focus on what truly matters – your experiments.

The feature is being released as a beta in SciNote Premium as we continue to fine-tune the feature to better capture various protocol formats and structures.

Benefits of the Protocol parser

Time-saving and enhanced efficiency

With the .docx import feature, protocol creation becomes a breeze. You can import existing protocols and convert them into interactive protocol steps within SciNote. Once in SciNote, you can enrich your protocols further with supplementary materials and essential metadata, and take advantage of all the other SciNote benefits.

Seamless transition to promote knowledge retention & collaboration

Importing existing protocols into SciNote is a quick and straightforward process, ensuring a smooth transition. All your protocols are conveniently stored within SciNote’s Protocol repository, streamlining data management, improving searchability, and ensuring data safety and complete traceability.

Improved collaboration and protocol sharing

The Protocol parser can help promote easy sharing and collaboration among your team members. You no longer need to send various versions of .docx protocols via email, and you can start tracking various protocol versions within SciNote. Working with standardized protocols fosters greater consistency and synergy within teams, facilitating teamwork and accelerating discoveries.

Reduced errors in manual transition

While the Protocol parser is currently in beta, the ultimate goal is to eliminate error-prone manual data entry. This is why we will be utilizing AI learning to help improve this feature. As transcription errors can have significant consequences in scientific research, we hope that future enhancement through AI learning will allow us to minimize the risk of such errors, enhance the quality and reliability of your protocols, and open up the possibility of importing protocols of other file formats.

Getting started with the Protocol parser

To get started with the Protocol parser in SciNote Premium, the organization admin user must first turn on the feature on behalf of the organization and allow AI learning. Once turned on, users on the instance will have access to this feature. For SciNote Free, you can access the feature directly in the Protocol repository.

As mentioned, AI learning will be used to train SciNote to better recognize and predict protocol patterns. Only the protocol structure will be used, not the protocol content. This information will not be used for other purposes.

Members with access can then head over to Protocol repository and use the import function to upload the .docx format protocol file.

You can explore the feature further through the step-by-step instructions within the knowledge base article. A template/guide is also available there to help improve the reliability of the import process. If your protocol is in an older Word document format (.doc), make sure to save it as a .docx file first. Finally, take a minute to review the protocol after it is uploaded to check for errors and issues.

Streamlining protocol creation – one protocol at a time

Incorporating the .docx import feature into our ELN represents a significant leap forward in streamlining experiment protocol creation in SciNote.

The rationale behind this feature is rooted in addressing the challenges SciNote users face daily – and our goal is to improve efficiency in your lab, while ensuring consistent protocol documentation and data collection. As the feature is currently in beta, please feel free to reach out to your Customer Success Manager or via premiumsupport@scinote.net.

Try it out, save time, and make your lab workflows more efficient.