News
Bika Mail 2/23. Onwards
Nothing momentous, just the standard Open Source momentum progress thing, powered by clients, coded by pros. Mid year edition Bika Newsletter
Billing returns to Bika LIMS. Batch Invoicing
Many new functions have been added to Senaite since forking from Bika, it performs exceptionally well and is much easier to maintain, the new modularity making it easier to build add-ons. Some functionality was considered not critical and Bika 3’s Invoicing was left behind. Now it is back
The Undeniable Benefits of Professional Open Source
High quality peer reviewed code, robust and secure, scalable, flexible and customisable, affordable
Water and Gold
Three certified and accredited labs have taken Bika into production the past few weeks
Training Videos by Test It Lab
Embracing Open Source, Test It laboratory publishes their Bika training videos for wider consumption
Sample Point Location Feature sponsored by HydroChem Australia
Work starts on expanding Senaite Sample Points to be grouped per Client Location
Bika demo installations upgraded
Three new Bika demonstration installations are now running the latest Bika Senaite 2.2 code
Inventory management. Use Case and Functional Specification
In response to a requirement in the pharma industry, Vis Magnetica (Uruguay) and Bika Lab Systems (Cape Town), combined to document Functional Specifications and Use Cases for managing reference samples and consumables in Bika
The End for Open Source evangelism
Do you remember the skirmishes with narrow sighted closed source promoters of the 2000s? And how easily they were concluded from the efficient Open Source high ground... It has been quiet for a while now and sampling a few recent surveys, preaching Open Source does not seem necessary anymore
Blistering Covid LIMS performance. Virologist testers required
Any LIMS worth its salt should perform well under the light loads of single test Covid analysis requests, no big deal. Open Source LIMS does it with the very best, and with much more freedom, less outlay
Covid Opportunism
Shameless. Rather transparently in the Open, it is easy already... Pop-up labs, here
Actually. That took a bit longer
Re Economic slowdown. Thank you Angels, Sponsors, Supporters and Clients
Open Source doing well in the slowdown. As always
First witnessed post 2008 bank burn, clever labs search for better value in difficult times, turn to Open Source, never to look back, the benefits are good...
May day. Not Mayday. All well
I was not going to write this post until prompted by more returning visitors enquiring about Bika LIMS development 'ending'... As per click bait title in News item of 4 January. Thanks everybody for your consideration, heartening. Bika is here, sweet sixteen*, and all is very well.
Bika LIMS development stops. Long live
Reports on the passing of Bika Open Source LIMS are premature. Endorsing Senaite
Bika Health in Open Source HMIS integration at the Dr. Akbar Niazi Teaching Hospital, Islamabad
Manager of Software Development, Khurram Shahzad and his team at the Dr. Akbar Niazi Teaching Hospital, Islamabad, customised and implemented a fully integrated Health Management Information System, comprising of GNUHealth as EMR, Bika Health LIS, Tryton ERP and Orthanc DICOM server as PACS, all Open Source.
LIMS 3.2 Beta. Upcoming features
Much brewing in the Bika pot. Advances in branches Bika Cannabis, Bika Water and in Bika Health, distributed customised lab implementations in Zimbabwe and post Ebola outbreak surveillance, Liberia. Bika LIMS 3.2 is up for public Beta testing, please assist with your feedback.
Zimbabwe Bika Health building steam
Ambitiously hatched in 2014, the Bika Health project by the Zimbabwe Ministry of Health and Child Care overcame initial challenges and five provincial laboratories were implemented so far. Follow-up customisations are well under way. To improve prevention and care, the system is initially used to monitor HIV cases through early infant detection, but its scope is to expanded to include TB and other infectious diseases.
Bika LIMS 3.2 curation
Ramon Bartl at Riding Bytes generously volunteered to do Bika LIMS 3.2's release management, and curation is currently under way. Backed by core Bika developers at Riding Bytes, Naralabs and Bika Lab Systems.
Riding Bytes clears final MBA fence like a master
Certified Bika Professional and Riding Bytes MD, Ramon Bartl, graduated his MBA Masters cum laude at the Professional School of Business and Technology at Kempten University of Applied Sciences, Germany. His thesis on the impact of Email Netiquette will be published in the Journal of Applied Leadership & Management this Autumn. Download.
Bika Biobank 0.9 Frisky Francolin
A proto-type biobank extension to Bika Health LIS was demonstrated by SANBI and Bika Lab Systems to co-sponsors B3Africa and enthusiastic reception at the Stellenbosch University Medical School over 3 days earlier this week.
Bika LIMS Training in Europe and the US
Lead Bika developer Campbell Mckellar-Basset is available to present training to interested parties on his return from PloneConf 2016 in Boston on 23 October. In Europe, he will be joined by developers from certified professional Bika service providers Riding Bytes and Naralabs. Training content and locations will be flexible to suit sponsor participant's requirements and could include hands-on sprinting on required functionality.
Certified Bika Professional: Plone API and Odoo specialists, RIDING BYTES
Experienced Odoo, Plone API and JSON engineer Ramon Bartl formally joins the Bika Collective's core of certified Bika professionals.
Bika Open Source LIMS 3.1.11
We're proud to announce the release of version 3.1.11 of the Bika Open Source LIMS, a bug-fixes release for 3.1 Long Term Support series.
Bika LIMS 3.1.10 released
Bika LIMS 3.1.10 bug fix launched, many issues resolved for the most stable LIMS release yet. More to come in Bika Health soon
Open Source LIMS in Namibian and Zimbabwean Health Care
Talk to be presented by Bika at Pycon Namibia 2016
US Bika Training Workshop
Bika core developers Campbell McKellar-Basset (Bika Lab Systems, Cape Town) Jordi Puiggené (Naralabs, Barcelona) and Michael Williams from Limelyte Technology Group (USA) are training users and coders in 2nd week of November, Spokane WA.
Bika LIMS 3.1.9 in the Open
Bika LIMS 3.1.9 was released last week, and the online demonstration installation upgraded. Open Source LIMS rules
Bika presentation to the CDC Georgia uploaded. In Georgian
The Bika Open Source LIMS presentation at a country of Georgia LIMS and lab information flow workshop by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been uploaded, and thanks to the CDC Georgia office, in both English and Georgian!
Bika LIMS 3.1.8, Health LIS 3.1.7. Released
Our May sprint saw great contributions from a number of project participants, no less our Google students. Thank you all. Downloads are climbing already as users start to upgrade.
Welcome Bika 2015 GSoC students!
After reviewing 25 proposals, projects and students were matched. All of the latter have been very active in functional designs and much appreciated bug fixing and feature coding from the Bika tracker, all of it in the Gaob Bika LIMS 3.1.8 release
Bika LIMS in the 2015 Google Summer of Code
This year, the Bika Open Source LIMS Collective is 1 of 137 organisations mentoring in the Google Summer of Code initiative, GSoC 2015
Bika Health LIS 3.1.6 released
Following the release of Bika LIMS 3.1.7, our LIS for health care laboratories, Bika Health, has been upgraded to 3.1.6 too, inheriting the new LIMS code and adding more health care enhancements.
LIMS 3.1.7 and new Graphite theme released
Bika LIMS 3.1.7 and the exciting new Graphite theme 1.1 were released and are available for download. 3.1.7 Is a minor release, but features enhancements and eight new instrument interfaces. Graphite improves usability and user experience, moving Bika away from the standard Plone UI towards an even cleaner design. Exciting times!
LIMS in town. Bika Health LIS
Valuable discussions are developing at the new LinkedIn LIMS Circus, and the Bika Health project page was published at Plone.org last week
Bika LIMS 3.1.6 released
We are proud to announce the Bika LIMS 3.1.6 release. Though mainly a bug-fix version, some small features and enhancements are included too. The release saw a sharp spike in downloads, at the writing of this, more than 1000 a day since its release 17 December.
Bika at University. UW. UWC. SUN
Bika Open Source LIMS is hitting it off at educational institutions around the globe, partnering UWC SANBI in biobanking and proud to announce first customisations for the University of Washington Department of Environmental Health & Occupational Health Sciences included in next LIMS 3 release. CAF at SUN has joined the fray with three implementations and requirements analysis for more.
Bika Roadmap 2014 II. Wish list
We were approached last week by a development team asking for technical assistance with functions they have been coding on for a number of weeks - an 80% match to what we have started on for bioinformatics now. We hope to see their code released but it looks very much like we'd be following a different, and given the difference in Bika experience, more sustainable route.
And so is Bika Health 315
Following the release of Bika LIMS 3.1.5, our LIMS for health care laboratories, Bika Health, has been upgraded to 3.1.5 too, inheriting the new LIMS code and adding more health care enhancements
SANBI kicks off Bika Open Source Biobank customisations
The South African National Bioinformatics Institute is partnering Bika Lab Systems in customising an Open Source Bika LIMS branch for genomic lab disciplines and biobanking, including the management of sample and data distribution. The current Bika branch for health care laboratories, Bika Health 3.1, which already fulfils clinical subject requirements, is the starting point for this venture
Bika Open Source Biobank. Call for Participation
The Bika Open Source LIMS Collective is currently extending Bika Health for fully fledged Biobank management in collaboration with SANBI, funded by B3Africa, a European Union Horizon2020 project. Workflows for Sampling Kit Assembly, Document Management and Sample Preparation, and Qubit, Biodrop and Biorad interfaces have been completed and will be released as Bika Biobank in the not too distant future and integrated into the Biobank-in-a-Box platform at B3Africa.
Bika Health 3.1.8 released
Bika Health Open Source LIS adds CLIA conformant health care functionality to Bika LIMS: Patients, Doctors, Referring Institutes, Clinical Cases, interfaces with clinical instruments and EMR or hospital systems. It is also used in veterinary settings with animal subjects and veterinarians in these roles, and forms the basis for Bika applications in bio-informatics and biobanks.
The Elusive 3 month LIMS Implementation Project
In an optimum scenario, it is possible to implement Bika LIMS in three months, from start-up to going live with trained and confident users. Just that such an environment hardly exists
