We have collected questions and answers about iLab that occur to both old and new users of the system. Click on a bold-faced question in order to see the answer (and click again on the question to make the answer vanish). If you have other items that should be here, please contact David Morgan at dagmorga@indiana.edu.
Frequently Asked Questions about iLab
Go to the reservation calendar and double click on the reservation you want to edit. This opens the page with reservation details, where you can change the reservation times, add or remove a linked reservation, change the account to bill, etc. To save the changes, click the Save Reservation button. To cancel the changes, click the Cancel Changes button. If you want to delete the reservation completely, click the Delete Reservation button (but remember that you cannot do this during the 24 hour window before the reservation starts). If the reservation is scheduled to start within 24 hr of this editing process, the Delete Reservation button turns into a Cancel Reservation button. Most cancelled reservations will be billed at 50% of the usual costs, but the fee can be completely waived under certain circumstances.
At the end of each month, every previously unbilled event reservation is listed as 'ready to be billed'. Events are both 'confirmed" (an action that ensures that the iLab event record does match what actually happened, e.g., that a reservation did cover the times shown in iLab) and 'queued for billing.' At this point, all of the events to be billed are separated according to PI and put into PI-specific invoices that aggregate all the events associated with a particular PI and that contain the total costs for the included events. The invoices are sent to the PI's for approval. This allows PI's to check that the proper accounts are being billed, that the work described is what was expected, etc. If there are questions or errors, PI's have several days to contact the EMC and ask for clarification, changes, etc. At the end of this time, the invoices are officially sent to the IU financial system, and money in the appropriate accounts is transferred to the EMC. These last actions (officially sending the billing invoices to the financial system and the subsequent transfer of money) occur more or less simultaneously and are difficult to undo.
The iLab website and the actual iLab database are in centralized locations that serve all the iLab installations across the nation. Since most core facilities do their billing around the end of a month, the system sees a huge amount of traffic then. This slows down all iLab operations, including making reservations. iLab is aware of this issue and doing things to alleviate the situation.
Yes. On the reservation details page, there is a Split Charge button in the Payment Information area. Each time this button is clicked, a new box to enter both a percent of total and another account number appears. The total percentage must add to 100% (shown in green in iLab) and if the total does not, the actual total is shown in red. Save the reservation as usual (or cancel the attempt to split the charge). If you are attempting to split the charge between different PI's, you must be authorized to use each PI's account.
Invoices list the time and date of everything the EMC does for a specific lab. This includes the use of equipment by both EMC staff and by lab personnel and any fee-for-service work by the staff for a lab. Each item shows the amount of time involved and the total cost. In addition, items shown in the invoice is broken into monthly units that reflect the individual within iLab who is responsible for the item. There is a sub-total associated with each of these groups and a lab total at the bottom of the invoice.