Features

CERF 6.0 Documentation

Go to CERF 5.3 Documentation

CERF is a feature-rich application designed to efficiently capture data, locate resources, and improve workflows in collaborative research organizations or other environments where compliant, formal record keeping is required.

CERF Desktop App

CERF Desktop App has three main panels that can be adjusted in size

  • Left panel: Navigation Tree, Checked Out Documents, Bookmarks, Saved Searches and Local Files.
  • Middle panel: Notebook Viewer, File Viewer, Data & Forms (SDIMS), Controlled Documents, Inbox/Email, Notifications, and Search.
  • Right panel: Resource information.

Notebook Entry Types

  • Text entries, tables and seamless roundtrip editing of any file type using the desktop applications you already use.
  • Audio File – creates Entries from existing audio files or record and save as a new Entry.
  • Mind-Map – Entries can be viewed inline. If the Mind-Mapping software is installed on the user’s computer, they will easily be able to edit the Notebook entry. Mind-Map entries can also be edited with your default system text editor.
  • Drawing – drawing tools for free-hand drawing of scalable vector graphics.
  • Inline viewer for chemical structures, sequence files, AB1 trace files and more.
  • Quickly invoke new entries based on user-created templates that make common tasks faster to complete, more consistent and highly reproducible.

Notebook Viewer

  • Office documents (Word, Excel, and Powerpoint) are automatically displayed inline as PDFs and the source files can be edited with your default system Office editor (Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, or others).
  • “As you type” spellchecker in the Notebook text editor, with an adjustable custom dictionary.
  • The user can copy more than one Notebook Entry at a time and paste them into another Notebook
  • The user can drag more than one document at a time from a File Cabinet or your system file explorer to a Notebook
  • The printout of a resource that has been struck out will display a red X over the text or image. The printout of a Page, Section, or Notebook will also show a red X over any struck out text or images.
  • In addition to PDF printed copies of Notebook resources, PDF printed copies can be created from files in a File Cabinet.
  • Official print copies can be used for any Notebook entry where CERF does not already have a dedicated print handler plugin. For example, a user can provide a PDF of a specialized resource type where CERF does not yet provide an inline viewer plugin and the provided PDF will be used in the resultant printed Notebook Page.
  • If a Notebook Page has multiple Entries that are shown as links, these can be changed simultaneously to inline views with the “Show All Inline” action where CERF has an inline viewer plugin. This option is located in the right-click Notebook menu.

File Viewer

  • View common file types within CERF in the Center Panel or in a new CERF window
  • View Tree structure of File Cabinets or Folders
  • Bread crumb links at top of window with full right-click menu options

User Preferences (Tools > Options)

  • General: Default Document Edit Status, Double-click action, Drag and Drop Will Quick Add, and Online Help Browser
  • Notebook: Autosave Interval, Default Entry font, Show/Hide Full Placeholders
  • Applications: Set file types to be opened by a specific application
  • Themes: A new feature of CERF 6.0 lets you switch to various light and dark themes, classic or modern icons, and three font sizes of normal, large or extra large.
  • Logging: Debug Mode, Log Network Traffic

Signature Workflows

  • Signing initiator can sign Notebook Page that has multiple contributors and co-contributors will get notifications to cosign or to cancel/reject
  • Users can finalize all their work on a Page, Section, or Notebook, allowing main contributor to initiate signing on a Notebook Page that has multiple contributors.
  • Signer can add new signature groups at the time of cosigning.
  • CERF displays signatures on printed copies of signed Notebook resources.

Workgroup Management

  • Nimble, hierarchically delegated oversight mechanism allows for any project management scenario with appropriate assignment of workgroup and admins.
  • Flexible and granular control over data access in any type of collaboration or oversight scenario.
  • Filter and add members to instantly grant, revoke or adjust data access workgroup in the Edit Workgroup dialog.
  • The System Administrator can grant users the ability to create new Workgroups or manage (create/edit) controlled vocabularies or grant suitable capabilities to other users.

Other well liked features include:

  • Inbox, Email – users can email content and attachments to CERF through regular email
  • Saved Searches – Ability to save commonly used search criteria. Saved Searches can be quickly found in the left panel
  • Network file links to your SMB storage systems.
  • Audit Trail of user actions
  • Advanced Tagging – any resource can be tagged with a combination of text/user-created vocabulary terms
  • Edit Metadata inline – user can edit and save metadata within the metadata pane of the right-hand Info panel.
  • There are hot keys to Show/Hide the side panels and other hot keys for the main menu items
  • Metadata are automatically extracted from MS Office documents, images, and many other text-based file types.
  • Deleted, Inactivated, and Archived items in File Cabinets will disappear from view immediately and still searchable by Admins as needed.
  • New labels are used for source and destination relations in CERF.
  • Automated, code free data file ingestion via the separate Automaton application
< CERF Desktop App up Log in >

Last modified: December 2, 2025 at 9:22 pm by Lab-Ally LLC