Getting Started in D.LAB
DECTRIS D.LAB · Workshop guide
In the next hour you will set up an account, join your group's project, upload data, run an analysis and comment on someone else's work — the same loop a research group uses every week, just faster.
Step zero
Open your group's project
You have been assigned to group A, B, C or D. Each group shares one project. Create your account first (step 01 below), then come back here and open the link for your group — it grants you the project, the software environments and the job templates in one go.
Open only your own group's link. The four projects are identical copies, but your group's work — and your trainer — will be in yours.
Part 1 · Get in
Account and access
Two steps, about three minutes. Do them in this order — the share link needs an account to attach itself to.
Create your account
Go to app.dectris.cloud and sign up. Use the email address you would normally use at your institution, then confirm the verification message before continuing.
Join your group's project
Signed in, open your group's share link from the card above. Accepting it adds you to the project and gives you everything the exercises need: the shared data, the software environments and the job templates. You should now see the project on your dashboard.
Nothing appears? Check that you are signed in with the account you just created, then open the link again.
Part 2 · Make yourself at home
Your folder, your files, everyone's view
The project is one shared space. What you put in it, your whole group can see — immediately.
Create a folder with your name
Open the project and navigate to /project/work/. Create a new folder named after you, without spaces — you will already find CamillaLarsen, FabianEisenstein and LudmilaLeroy there as examples. Follow the same pattern: FirstnameLastname.
Upload a file
Inside your own folder, upload any image you have to hand — a photo, a screenshot, a figure from a talk. The content does not matter; the point is to see how data gets into the platform. Real experiments arrive the same way, straight from the detector.
Look at everyone else's folder
Go back up to /project/work/ and open a colleague's folder. Their upload is already there — no sharing, no sending, no copies. This is what "one shared platform" means in practice: the project is the single source of truth for the whole group.
Part 3 · Run something
Your first analysis
Job templates are ready-made analyses. Nothing to install, no environment to configure.
Pick a public job template
Go to Library → Public job templates. Start with something light: Fourier Fun or Ultimate Question. Open the template, run it, and let it finish — these are quick.
Over thirty community-built tools sit in this library. Today's two are the toy versions; the rest are the ones you would use on real data.
Find every run in the project
Open Analysis → Overview. The table lists every job anyone in your group has run, with its status and result. Your run is there — and so are your colleagues'. Nobody had to report anything.
Part 4 · Work as a group
Tag, discuss, rerun
A list of runs is a record. Tags, comments and reruns are what turn it into a working method.
Tag your run
Add a tag to the job you just ran — your name, your group, whatever your team agrees on. Tags show up as a column in the Overview table, so a project with fifty runs stays readable.
Comment on someone else's run
Open a run from a colleague and leave a comment on it. This is where the conversation belongs — attached to the analysis, not lost in a chat thread or an email. It is also how a supervisor gives feedback without asking anyone to re-explain what they did.
Rerun a job you did not create
From the Overview table, rerun a colleague's job. It works because the run carries its own data, software and parameters as a snapshot — you are not rebuilding their setup, you are re-executing it. Change a parameter and run it again to see it fork.
What you just did
Four habits, in about an hour
Small exercises, but each one maps to something a research group struggles with for years.
Steps 02–05
One shared platform
Data, tools and analyses in a single project instead of scattered across laptops, drives and clusters. You saw a colleague's file without anyone sending anything.
Steps 06–07
Community tools, preinstalled
You ran an analysis without installing software or configuring an environment. The same is true of the thirty-plus real tools in the library.
Steps 08–09
Real-time mentorship
Tags and inline comments keep the discussion attached to the work, so feedback happens where the decision is made rather than after the fact.
Step 10
Rerun, don't rebuild
Every run is a snapshot of its data, software and parameters. Anyone with access can reproduce it, fork it or extend it — months later, or after the person who ran it has left.
Quick reference
Everything on one screen
- Sign up
- app.dectris.cloud — use your institutional email.
- Your project
- Open the share link for your group from the card at the top of this page. Groups A–D are identical copies.
- Your folder
- /project/work/FirstnameLastname — no spaces.
- Job templates
- Library → Public job templates. Start with Fourier Fun or Ultimate Question.
- All runs
- Analysis → Overview — status, tags, comments and rerun, all from the table.
- Stuck
- Ask your trainer, or write to dlab@dectris.com.