eLabFTW Template Package for Life Sciences

This user guide accompanies the eLabFTW Template Package for Life Sciences, a structured collection of templates for biological materials management, instrument documentation, and experiment recording in life science research groups. The templates are openly available at https://github.com/sfb1638/elabftw-templates (Zenodo publication: 10.5281/zenodo.21103853). The guide covers the design rationale and architecture of the template package, practical guidance for creating and managing resource entries, deployment and customisation instructions. It is intended both for research groups at the University of Heidelberg adopting the package and for the wider community considering adoption or adaptation for their own eLabFTW instances. This package gives eLabFTW users a ready-to-use starting point: structured templates that lower the blank canvas barrier to getting started, alongside practical workarounds for features not yet natively supported in eLabFTW, including parent-child entry relationships, research stream tracking, and navigation customisation. It is offered as one working option, not the only way to structure an ELN — some groups may adopt it largely as is, others may prefer to take specific templates, fields, or approaches and adapt them into a system of their own design. Either use is welcome; the aim is for the underlying thinking to be useful even where the specific implementation isn't. Templates are distributed via a companion GitHub repository (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21103853), which also covers the contribution workflow and tooling for community review and adaptation. This effort exists in parallel with, not in competition with, Deltablot's eln.community template hub. The package was developed on eLabFTW version 5.5 and is applicable from version 5.3 onwards, which introduced the separation of categories and templates for resource entries. Compatibility with earlier versions has not been tested. Developed within the SFB 1638 / CRC 1638 INF project (DFG GEPRIS 511488495) at the Biochemistry Centre (BZH), University of Heidelberg. The templates reflect practical experience in wet-lab research, laboratory management and research data management and are offered as a structured starting point, not a definitive solution — expert review and community input are welcomed and will be acknowledged. Developed with AI assistance (Claude, Anthropic); all content reviewed and validated by the author. We gratefully acknowledge Caroline Kolenda (ORCID iD: 0009-0004-0860-6258) and her colleagues in the Meinecke Lab (led by Michael Meinecke, ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1414-6951), as well as Jochen Baßler (ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7441-7867), for contributing feature ideas, testing the templates, and providing valuable feedback throughout their development. This publication was prepared as part of the final project for the Certificate of Advanced Studies Forschungsdatenmanagement (CAS FDM) offered as part of the Baden-Württemberg Research Data Management Initiative (Landesinitiative bwFDM).