Navigating the App
Conspecta is built around a left sidebar that gives you one-click access to every workspace, plus global tools for search, inbox, and settings.
Full app view showing the left sidebar with the project picker, workspace list, and utility icons
The Left Sidebar
The sidebar is your primary navigation. From top to bottom it shows:
- The Conspecta logo that takes you home
- The project picker with your current team and project, click to switch
- The workspace list for the current project
- Utility actions at the bottom for search, inbox, trash, settings, and feedback
The workspaces, in order, are:
- Planner for task boards and protocol-driven planning
- Notes for the rich-text notebook with templates and approvals
- Samples for sample cards, plate maps, and the samples table
- Figures for multi-panel publication and presentation figures
- Analysis for image and flow cytometry analysis (with Imaging and Flow as sub-items, plus Spectra and Chromato as upcoming additions)
- Genetics for DNA, RNA, and protein sequence work
- Facility for freezers, shelves, and physical spaces
- Inventory for reagents and equipment, with sub-items for Items, Orders, and Suppliers
Switching Between Teams and Projects
The project picker at the top of the sidebar shows the team and project you're currently in. Click it to open the picker:
- Projects are grouped by team, with your private team listed first
- Pick a different project to switch instantly
- Use the picker to create a new project or accept a team invitation
Each project is a focused line of work (an aim from a grant, a research program, a study, or anything else you'd otherwise track separately) with its own samples, notes, analyses, figures, and inventory. You can be a member of many teams, and your private team is always yours.
Global Search
Press Cmd+K (Mac) or Ctrl+K (Windows) from anywhere to open the global search dialog box. Search reaches across:
- Notebook pages and tables
- Samples, inventory items, locations, suppliers, and orders
- Image analyses and flow analyses
- Genetics items and plan tasks
- Figures
- Teams, projects, and users
Press Esc to close. Search returns the project you're in by default; switch projects from the picker to search inside a different one.
Tip: Search by what you remember about the item: a partial title, a sample ID, a date. You don't need to know which workspace it lives in.
Workspace Layout
Most workspaces share a common shell:
- A toolbar at the top with search, sort, filter, and view controls
- A content area in the center showing your items as cards, table rows, or an editor
- A details panel on the right with metadata for the selected item (in workspaces that have one)
View Modes
Most workspaces support more than one view of the same data:
- Grid for visual cards, useful for quickly scanning images, samples, or figures
- Table for spreadsheet-style rows with sortable, filterable columns
- Specialized views in some workspaces, like the Board in Planner, the Sequence viewer in Genetics, and the Figure editor in Figures
Folders
Most workspaces support folders. Create a folder to group items by experiment, paper, or topic. The breadcrumb above the content area shows where you are and lets you click back out.
Starred Items
Click the star on any item to pin it to the top of its workspace. Starred items appear in their own band on the workspace landing page so you can get back to in-progress work without digging.
Next Steps
- Plan your experiments to set up your first task board
- Track your samples to begin sample management
- Keyboard shortcuts for the full list of shortcuts across workspaces