Update: LabArchives released a new iPad app version on August 16, 2013. More information on version 2.0 can be found here.
By Camy Anderson, ITG Summer Intern
LabArchives is laboratory notebook software Yale will be implementing this fall which allows professors and students to share and store their laboratory work online. Using the software on the iPad can be a little complicated due to Yale’s Central Authentication Service (CAS), but it possible using the following workaround steps.*
1. Yale uses the classroom edition of LabArchives. In order to use the software, first go to the company’s website, http://www.labarchives.com. In the top right corner, click the Customer Login button. In the Select Institution bar choose Yale University. Click Go to Your Institution’s Login and you will be directed to the Central Authentication Service (CAS) Login page. After entering your NetID and password, you will be taken to your LabArchives homepage, which shows all of the notebooks that you have made or have been shared with you, as well as their contents.
2. While this login process is fairly straightforward on a desktop, it becomes trickier when using the iPad app. First download the LabArchives app from the iTunes Store – it’s called LabArchives. The app opens to a login screen which requires a login name and password. It does not support Yale’s CAS login page. To get around this, go back to the LabArchives website and sign in via CAS there. In order to make this whole process easier, you may want to do this in Safari on your iPad itself.
3. Once back at your home page, notice the User Management tab on the top dashboard. Hover over it and click LA App Authentication in the drop-down menu. There is a box titled Password Token for External applications, and in it you will notice two bars, one which shows your email address, and another which displays a long string of letters and numbers. This string is the password you will use to access LabArchives using the iPad app.
4. Go back to the LabArchives app login screen and put your email address in the login field, and the string in the password field. You will be directed to a modified version of your LabArchives homepage, which allows you to see the contents of your notebooks, but does not allow any settings changes.
5. Although you cannot make new notebooks using the app, you can create new pages and folders by clicking the Edit button on the top right corner of the screen, and then the + button on the top left. To add pictures from your iPad to a page (it is not possible to save an image directly to a folder), go to the page where you would like to store the picture and press the camera icon on the top right corner. You can either take a picture or choose an existing one from your library. You can add a description of the picture before you upload it.
To add images via the iPad app.
Click images to enlarge.
1. Tap the Edit button. 
2. Select Add Page from the menu.
3. Title and save the page.
4. Tap the camera icon to select an image from the photo roll.
5. Tap the image to include in the page.
6. Give the image a description and save. |
To add images via Safari browser
| 1. Tap Add Entry > Attachment from the Page menu.
2. Tap the Add Files tab.
3. Select an image from your photo roll.
4. Tap the Save to Page button.
5. Use the editor to supplement the image with text. |
Note: It is only necessary to retrieve a password key from the LabArchives website once. The integration of the CAS single sign-on is on the LA developers’ road map and will hopefully be made available in a future update.
*LabArchives is due to release a new iPad app version in August which will hopefully address some of the issues mentioned in this post. More info here.
