Lab Operations – Obsidian Edition

A complete operational layer for your laboratory — integrating maintenance, inventory, orders, installation and responsibilities inside Obsidian.

🧭 Overview

The Lab Operations Tools turn Obsidian into a structured operations hub for applied sciences and technical labs.
It connects all core workflows — from instrument upkeep to inventory and purchasing — into one linked, data-driven workspace.

Built entirely in Markdown with Dataview and Tasks, the system provides live dashboards, role-based overviews, and visual clarity for real lab work.

Key Features

🔧 Instrument & Facility Maintenance
Track inspections, calibrations, and repairs with full service history and automated dashboards.

📦 Inventory & Ordering System
Manage consumables, stock levels, and supplier links. Flag low items and track orders until delivery.

👥 People & Responsibilities
Assign roles and visualize each person’s open workload across maintenance, orders, and issues.

📊 Operations Dashboard
Real-time overview of open work, upcoming tasks, and overdue items across all modules.

🧩 Dataview KPIs & Analytics
Auto-generated summaries of task counts, workload balance, and maintenance performance.

🎨 Polished Interface
Custom CSS snippets for clean, modern dashboards and consistent formatting in both light and dark themes.

Used Plugins

💠 Dataview / DataviewJS – powers dashboards, KPIs, and dynamic tables.
🗓️ Tasks – manages to-dos, due dates, and recurrence.
📅 Mermaid – provides static Gantt charts and process overviews.
🧾 Advanced Tables (optional) – enhances readability and editing of inventory and order lists.

All dashboards and queries are visible Markdown blocks — no hidden scripts or external databases.

Ideal For

• Scientists maintaining instruments or facilities

• Laboratory and operations managers

• R&D teams linking experiments, inventory, and logistics

🚀 Free download 

The lab tools were developed alongside my book The Organized Lab: A Note-Taking System for Research Teams. They remain available free of charge to anyone who finds them useful — please email HeronSpecs to request access. If the tools resonate with you, the book goes deeper into the ideas behind them.