Welcome to UniteLabs
Welcome to the UniteLabs documentation.
UniteLabs is building automation infrastructure for biotech and pharma companies. The integration layer connects laboratory hardware and software systems across vendor barriers and enables seamless integration within minutes. With the Connector Development Kit (CDK) lab instruments can be integrated into the platform, leveraging the SiLA Standard. Our Python SDK provides full programmatic access to the lab to rapidly build and deploy automation workflows and supercharge existing lab software. The open-source integration tools, growing connector library, and SDK unite the digital lab and enable gradual and sustainable digitalisation and automation.
Quick Access
First steps
The UniteLabs Integration Platform is a cloud application that can be accessed with any conventional browser such as Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Safari. Each tenant is assigned a unique ID to which the platform and its API are linked to: the tenant UUID.
00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000.Each tenant has their own UniteLabs instance which can be reached on their UniteLabs sub-domain. The sub-domain contains the tenant ID and follows this convention:
https://<tenant ID>.unitelabs.io
Visiting this URL will lead to the main screen of the UniteLabs platform web frontend.
The UniteLabs Connectivity Platform uses OAuth for authentication. Authentication is required to access any tenant-specific menus, such as the UniteLabs connector browser or the Jupyter and workflow engine workspace. OAuth (short for "Open Authorisation") is an open standard for access delegation. Therefore, any IAM software (short for “Identity Access Management”), such as Google IAM, Shibboleth or others can be used to manage access to the UniteLabs application. The default configuration uses the UniteLabs IAM. If another IAM should be used, please contact the support for further instructions.
Navigating to an access-restricted menu will redirect to the login page. Users and passwords are set by UniteLabs and distributed during the onboarding process.
High-level overview
The key concept behind the UniteLabs architecture is the clean separation of concerns that results in a reduction in point-to-point integrations and allows building a foundation for digitalisation step by step. By decoupling the application logic from the generalisable parts, such as device integration and the overall infrastructure, each new project can reuse the existing parts and extend it with new functionality, be it new connectors, workflows, or third-party software integrations.
The core of the UniteLabs Platform is the Integration Layer. The Integration Layer integrates every laboratory instrument, sensor, and device-specific software application by means of a Connector making the interface available in our API and SDK. A Connector consists of a driver, based on the standards SiLA 2 or OPC-UA LADS, and an edge gateway. While the driver is running on a machine that is physically connected to the lab device and handling the communication with the proprietary vendor device interface, the edge gateway establishes the connection to the cloud endpoint of the platform, providing full bi-directional access to the lab devices through the API.
The Integration Layer has an open REST API, that can be consumed directly or using our UniteLabs Python SDK. With the open API, third-party systems, such as LIMS, ELN, or scheduling software, gain access to all connected hard- and software systems. The UniteLabs graphical user interface enables direct interaction with all integrated devices. You can use our Python SDK to seamlessly integrate our API into your own software solutions and to write workflows in our automation environment or your own.
The Python SDK is one of the main features of the UniteLabs Platform and the go-to tool for building automations, be they simple data acquisition tasks or complex process automation. The SDK provides all functionality to interact with the connected systems and contains a growing library of utility functions and classes for labware, liquid classes, etc.
