Category Archives: 2025

Managing a genomics laboratory requires specialised tools to handle complex workflows, large volumes of data and highly specific integrations. Selecting the right Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) can transform the way genomics labs operate, helping them streamline processes, reduce errors and scale efficiently. However, not all LIMS are created equal, and the needs of genomics labs go beyond the basics of traditional LIMS capabilities. In this guide, we’ll explore the critical factors 10 tips for choosing the right LIMS in genomics.

Here’s a streamlined guide to the key features and capabilities you should consider when making your decision:

1. Sample Management

• Tracking and Identification: Support for barcode/QR code integration to uniquely identify and track samples.
• Metadata Capture: Ability to store detailed metadata for each sample, including origin, preparation, and storage conditions.
• Batch Management: Handle batch processing of samples for high-throughput sequencing.

2. Workflow Automation

• Protocol Configuration: Configurable workflows for DNA/RNA extraction, library preparation, sequencing, and data analysis.
• Pipeline Integration: Integration with bioinformatics pipelines and data analysis tools.
• Quality Control: Automated checks and reporting for sample quality metrics (e.g., RNA integrity, library concentration).

3. Instrument Integration

• Device Compatibility: Connectivity with sequencing platforms (e.g., Illumina, Oxford Nanopore) and ancillary equipment (e.g., PCR machines, spectrophotometers).
• Data Import: Automated data retrieval and parsing from instruments into the LIMS.

4. Data Management

• Raw and Processed Data Storage: Capability to store raw sequencing data (e.g., FASTQ files) and processed results (e.g., BAM, VCF files).
• Data Versioning: Maintain a version history of processed data and analysis results.
• Scalability: Handle large datasets typical of genomics studies.

5. Regulatory Compliance

• Data Security: Secure data storage with access control and encryption.
• Audit Trails: Maintain detailed logs of user actions and data changes.
• Compliance Standards: Support for standards like ISO 17025, CLIA, and HIPAA.

6. Reporting and Visualisation

• Custom Reports: Generate reports on sequencing quality, variants, and sample statuses.
• Data Visualisation: Built-in tools for visualising data.

  7. Collaboration and Communication

  • User Roles: Define roles and permissions for team members.

  • Data Sharing: Facilitate data sharing with collaborators while ensuring privacy.

  • Real-Time Updates: Notifications and updates on sample or project status.

  8. Configuration and Scalability

  • Flexible Configurations: Configurable fields, workflows and reports to align with specific laboratory requirements.
  • Growth Support: Scalability to support an increasing number of samples, instruments and users.
  9. Training and Support

  • User Training: Resources for onboarding and training lab personnel.
  • Technical Support: Dedicated support for troubleshooting and system updates.
  10. Integration with Cloud and SaaS Platforms

  • Cloud Compatibility: Ensure the LIMS supports cloud-based deployment, providing secure access to data anytime, anywhere.
  • SaaS Benefits: Take advantage of subscription-based models, which offer automatic updates, reduced infrastructure costs, and scalability.
  • Third-Party Integrations: Seamless connection with platforms like AWS, ensuring advanced data storage and processing capabilities.

  Choosing the right LIMS tailored to genomics ensures smoother workflows, compliance with regulations and the ability to scale. A system like QLIMS provides these features and more, helping your lab achieve operational excellence.

  Contact us today to book your personalised demo!

Laboratories face the challenge of keeping up with growing data volumes, evolving workflows and increasing demands for efficiency. How do the most successful labs thrive in this environment? The answer lies in adopting systems that offer flexibility without complexity. Enter configurable low-code LIMS—a game-changer that empowers labs to adapt quickly, reduce costs and streamline operations like never before.

Gone are the days when laboratories needed extensive custom coding to tailor their systems. With low-code solutions like QLIMS, labs can achieve the perfect balance between configurability and simplicity. But what makes configurable low code LIMS the secret weapon for modern laboratories? Let’s explore.

What is Customisable and Configurable LIMS for laboratories? 

Before diving into the specifics, if you are new to “LIMS”, you can click here to learn more about it. Let’s continue with what we mean by “customisable” and “configurable” when it comes to Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS). While both terms refer to adapting the system to a lab’s needs, they offer different approaches.

• Customisable LIMS typically involve deep modifications, often requiring developers to write complex code to meet unique laboratory requirements. While this offers a high level of flexibility, it comes with significant time, cost and resource investment.
• Configurable LIMS, on the other hand, empower users to make adjustments without the need for coding. Through simple tools like drag-and-drop interfaces and intuitive settings, lab managers can configure workflows, data fields and user permissions to meet the specific needs of their laboratory. This flexibility enables labs to adapt quickly to changing demands without the overhead of custom coding.

In essence, a configurable low-code LIMS combines the best of both worlds—giving labs the power to shape their system while keeping it simple and efficient. With QLIMS, this configuration is not just a one-time task but a continuous, seamless process that evolves as your laboratory does.

Why Choose Configurable Low-Code LIMS?

While the right LIMS choice depends on your laboratory’s specific needs, configurable low-code LIMS are increasingly preferred by lab managers. The reason? Configurable LIMS do more than simplify workflows—they offer a range of benefits that can significantly enhance laboratory efficiency, adaptability and scalability. Let’s explore the key advantages.

1. Rapid Implementation

Unlike traditional LIMS, low code solutions are quick to implement. Labs can adapt their systems within the weeks, keeping pace with changing workflows and needs.

2. Empowering Non Technical Users

Low code LIMS reduces dependency on IT. You don’t even need IT employees or technical expertise. It gives you flexibility with the changes in your lab. This approach allows non-technical users to create custom reports, workflows and data fields with ease. They can modify their systems to better fit the laboratory’s evolving requirements without waiting for a developer or IT specialist.

3. Cost Effective Solution

As laboratories face tighter budgets, reducing costs without compromising quality is essential. Configurable low-code LIMS significantly lower the cost of development and maintenance. With less custom coding required, laboratories save on costly developer time and can allocate resources to more strategic areas of their operations.

Imagine changes occur in your laboratory. With a customisable, complex code LIMS, you’d need to modify the code and implement major changes, which can be costly. However, with a low-code configurable LIMS, you can make ongoing adjustments internally. The less you rely on external technical support, the more you save.

Choose the Right Solution for Your Laboratory

In an increasingly complex and fast-paced world, laboratories need tools that can keep up with their evolving needs. Configurable low-code LIMS like QLIMS offer the perfect solution—providing flexibility, ease of use and scalability while reducing costs and improving operational efficiency.

With QLIMS, labs no longer have to choose between functionality and simplicity. The power to adapt, integrate and scale is at your fingertips, without the complexity of traditional custom development.

Are you ready to see how QLIMS can transform your laboratory? Get in touch with us today for a personalised demo and start your journey toward a more agile, efficient and future-proof laboratory.

In the first part of this series, we explored how a robust cloud governance strategy is essential for labs to maintain data security, compliance and operational efficiency in the cloud like QLIMS. In this second part, we dive deeper into the critical components of cloud governance: visibility, configuration, operations and risks.

1. Visibility: You can’t govern what you can’t see

In terms of cloud governance, visibility means having an accurate, detailed and up-to-date view of all the activity an organisation has in the cloud. Labs often operate in complex environments with numerous users, departments and third-party integrations, making it challenging to maintain visibility.

Practically speaking, that includes:

• Cloud assets such as applications, platforms, infrastructure, VPC, and buckets.
• Data stored in the AWS Cloud
• User access controls, so only authorised users can access sensitive data.

Although this sounds straightforward, it’s actually quite challenging, particularly in a hybrid or multi-cloud environment or in a global organisation with multiple users and departments. In these environments, it’s especially easy for unmanaged IT to proliferate—which includes the use of IT-related hardware and software by a department/individual without the knowledge of the organisation’s IT department. By definition, unmanaged IT is invisible and therefore ungovernable.

2. Configuration: Setting the stage for success

Misconfigurations are one of the leading causes of data breaches in the cloud. Labs often face challenges in ensuring that their cloud infrastructure is configured securely to meet compliance standards.

AWS services can help:

• The AWS Foundational Security Best Practices standard is a set of controls that detects when deployed accounts and resources deviate from security best practices.
• AWS Config Conformance Packs provide a collection of AWS Config rules and remediation actions that can be easily deployed as a template to evaluate an organisation’s AWS environment.
• AWS IAM Access Analyzer helps organisations identify the resources or accounts, such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) buckets, that are shared with an external entity.

3. Operations: Managing the processes that manage your cloud

As labs scale their operations in the cloud, managing security manually becomes increasingly difficult. A robust governance strategy must include automated processes to identify, report and address operational issues before they become security risks. AWS offers several solutions to help:

As you deploy policies and procedures to more effectively and securely manage your operations in the cloud, AWS can help:

• AWS Systems Manager provides a unified user interface that allows organisations to view operational data from multiple AWS services and automate operational tasks across AWS resources.
• AWS Control Tower provides the easiest way to set up and govern a secure, multi-account AWS environment, ensuring that all accounts conform to company-wide policies through built-in best practices.
• AWS Organizations helps users centrally manage and govern their environment as they grow and scale AWS resources.

4. Risk: Where the governance meets the bottom line 

In a lab setting, cloud governance is essential to mitigate risks that can affect data security, compliance, and overall operations. Risks like data breaches, regulatory violations, and unauthorised access can severely impact your lab’s financial position, reputation, and trust with customers.

AWS services can help assess, manage, and mitigate risk throughout the cloud:

• AWS Config provides the means to assess, audit, and evaluate AWS resource configurations. It continuously monitors and records those configurations, automating the evaluation of recorded configurations against desired configurations.
• AWS Audit Manager continuously audits AWS usage to simplify how organisations assess risk and compliance with regulatory standards.

Better Together: Cloud Governance takes all of us 

Cloud governance is based on a shared responsibility model, in which both AWS and your organisation share the responsibility for data security and compliance.

AWS is responsible for the security of the cloud. That means AWS is responsible for protecting the infrastructure that runs all of the services offered in the AWS Cloud, which includes the hardware, software, networking and facilities that run AWS cloud services.

Your organisation is responsible for security in the cloud. Your responsibility is determined by the AWS cloud services you select, which then determines the amount of configuration work you must perform as part of your security responsibilities.

Your lab can ensure the highest level of security, compliance and operational efficiency, all while maintaining focus on delivering exceptional results in your work with QLIMS on AWS.

Contact us to secure your lab data today!

For laboratories, data integrity, compliance and operational efficiency are paramount and cloud technologies offer critical opportunities. However, we know that with the move to the cloud comes the critical need for robust security and governance strategies to ensure that sensitive data remains secure and compliant with industry standards. In this blog post we’ll explore how adopting a comprehensive cloud governance strategy on AWS can help labs mitigate risks, optimise operations and achieve the highest level of data security with the power of QLIMS.

What is cloud governance?

Cloud governance enables customers to define requirements for security, cost and ongoing oversight of their cloud journey and ensure processes are optimised and consistently followed, especially in sensitive environments like laboratories. A robust cloud governance strategy helps you run your business well and keep it safe.

For labs handling sensitive research, clinical or test data, cloud security is non-negotiable. Imagine a scenario where a lab unknowingly exposes patient data or proprietary research due to improper cloud configuration. In the lab world, these kinds of oversights can lead to costly data breaches, loss of trust and non-compliance with standards like ISO 17025, HIPAA or GLP.

What do all these real-life situations have in common?

• A lab exposed confidential patient or research data due to misconfigured cloud infrastructure.
• A company realised that it failed to protect a server with a password, leaving a database of customer information unprotected.
• An organisation discovered a misconfiguration that left it open to data breach.

All of these organisations -and dozens more like them in a variety of industries, including highly regulated ones like healthcare– had a cloud computing strategy that took advantage of cloud benefits, but left out a critical component: cloud governance.

In practical terms, a robust cloud governance strategy helps you run your business well and keep it safe, offering a level of protection against a number of avoidable risks: data breaches, intellectual property theft, damage to brand and reputation and financial loss, as well as the risk of being out of compliance with mandates like HIPAA. In fact, Gartner, the leading IT research and advisory firm, predicts that “through 2025, 99% of cloud security failures will be the customer’s fault.”

Creating effective cloud governance is a two-step process:

1. Understanding the four pillars of cloud governance: visibility, configuration, operations, and risk.
2. Developing best practices for continuously monitoring, assessing, and optimising each of these.

In this blog post, we explored how a robust cloud governance strategy is essential for labs to maintain data security, compliance and operational efficiency in the cloud like QLIMS. In this second part, we will dive deeper into the critical components of cloud governance: visibility, configuration, operations and risks.

We understand how crucial laboratory data is. If you’re looking to keep your data secure and in trusted hands, reach out to us today to learn more about how we can help.

Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) are crucial tools for managing the complex workflows and the vast amounts of data generated in laboratories. While traditional customisation methods involved writing custom code, a newer approach leveraging low-code platforms has emerged, offering significant advantages over traditional methods. In this blog post, we will explore the differences between low-code and custom code for LIMS.

Understanding the Contenders

Custom Code:

• Requires writing specific code to adapt the LIMS to precise requirements.
• Offers maximum flexibility but demands skilled developers and significant time investment.

Low-Code Platforms:

• These platforms allow users to create custom applications with minimal coding, using drag-and-drop interfaces and pre-built components.

The Low-Code Advantage

1. Rapid Deployment:

• Faster Time-to-Market: Low-code platforms significantly accelerate development cycles, reducing the time it takes to implement new features or workflows.
• Agile Development: Quick iterations and adaptability to changing requirements are facilitated by the low-code approach.

2. Reduced Development Costs:

• Lower Labour Costs: By minimising the need for skilled developers, organisations can reduce overall development expenses.
• Efficient Resource Allocation: Low-code platforms empower domain experts to create solutions, freeing up IT resources for strategic initiatives.

3. Enhanced User Experience:

• Intuitive Interfaces: Low-code platforms often provide pre-built UI components and templates, resulting in user-friendly interfaces.
• Improved User Adoption: A well-designed, intuitive interface encourages user adoption and reduces training time.

4. Greater Flexibility and Scalability:

• Adaptability to Changing Needs: Low-code platforms allow for easy customisation and configuration, accommodating evolving laboratory requirements.
• Scalability: As your laboratory grows, low-code solutions can scale seamlessly to handle increased data volumes and complexity.

5. Reduced Risk of Errors:

• Pre-built Components and Validation: Low-code platforms often include pre-tested components and validation rules, minimising the risk of errors.
• Improved Data Quality: By enforcing data integrity and standardisation, low-code solutions contribute to higher data quality.

Utilising Existing Resources

A critical benefit of low-code platforms is the ability to leverage existing team resources. With intuitive interfaces, teams can make routine updates—such as minor changes—independently, eliminating the need for developers. These minor changes often represent up to 75% of the adjustments laboratories require, saving both time and cost.

QLIMS is user-friendly, and creating your fields and columns is very easy—just drag and drop, change the text. Just click on the Modify Page button and that is it:

Making the Right Choice

While custom code offers maximum flexibility, low-code platforms provide a compelling alternative for many LIMS configuration needs. By balancing speed, cost-effectiveness, and user experience, low-code empowers laboratories to adapt to changing demands and achieve operational excellence.

Key Questions to Ask When Choosing a LIMS Configuration Strategy

Consider the following questions when evaluating your LIMS configuration strategy:

• What is the complexity of your laboratory workflows and data requirements?
• How quickly do you need to implement new features or customizations?
• What is your budget for LIMS development and maintenance?
• Do you have in-house development expertise?

By carefully considering these factors, you can make an informed decision about whether a low-code or custom code approach is best suited for your laboratory’s specific needs. In many cases, the agility and cost savings of low-code make it the clear choice for laboratories looking to future-proof their operations while maximising efficiency.

Contact us today for a low-code LIMS and book your demo!