Laborbuch — user manual
Logging in, the dashboard, entries field by field, limits, commits, reports and week closes.
The day-to-day manual for Laborbuch — for everyone who keeps records. System configuration is covered by the separate administrator manual.
Logging in
Open your instance’s address, then the Journal (/dashboard/). The login form has three fields: User, Password and One-time code (2FA).
- If the administrator has not enabled 2FA for you — leave the code empty.
- 2FA via app or hardware card: type the current 6-digit code.
- 2FA via e-mail: enter login and password, click Send code by e-mail, then enter the received code and log in.
- After 5 failed attempts the account locks for 15 minutes — protection against password guessing, not a malfunction.
The dashboard — what you see after logging in
- Your week — your R&D hours this week against your own cap (40 h by default; an administrator can set it to your contractual hours). The cap is personal and covers all projects combined.
- Team — week — R&D hours of all authors.
- Unclosed weeks — weeks whose entries await closing and timestamping.
- 12-week chart — your R&D hours (excluding “outside R&D” entries); the dashed line is your weekly cap.
- Below: project commits (with Refresh commits), recent commits, the team’s recent entries and week closes.
A new entry — field by field
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Project | The project the work belongs to (you only see your projects) |
| Vorhaben | The undertaking code from the BSFZ application (e.g. B5) — your R&D lead knows it |
| Work date | The day the work happened (not the day of typing it in) |
| Hours | Working time, e.g. 2 or 2.5 |
| From / To | Optional time range — strengthens credibility |
| off-computer | Tick for conceptual/paper work — a switched-off computer then disproves nothing |
| outside R&D (continuity/routine) | Tick when the work is NOT research (maintenance, routine) — the entry documents continuity but its hours do not count towards R&D totals, the weekly cap or reports |
| Activity (R&D core) | What exactly you did — the auditor will read this sentence; be factual |
| Result / note | Close the block with one result sentence: a decision, a rejected alternative, a conclusion |
| Commits (evidence anchors) | Tick the commits the entry covers — the list narrows after choosing a project; commits not yet described are marked “no entry” |
| Evidence files | Scans, instrument printouts, photos, measurement data; in hash-only mode the file is not uploaded — the browser computes only its SHA-256 fingerprint |
Click Save entry. It appears immediately under “Recent entries”.
Rules the system enforces
- A weekly R&D cap per person (all projects combined) and max 20 hours per day — entries beyond the limit are rejected with a message. The default cap is 40 h (Eigenleistung, § 3 (3) FZulG); for an employee the administrator sets their contractual hours, because an employee’s hours are eligible in the amount actually worked.
- Zero-hour entries are not allowed; negative hours only as a storno (see below).
- After the week is closed an entry is irrevocably locked (🔒 in Status) — it can be neither changed nor deleted. That is the foundation of the evidential value.
Made a mistake — what now
- Week still open: tell your administrator — they can correct the entry in the admin panel.
- Week already closed: the only way is a storno — a new entry with negative hours pointing at the corrected one (done by the administrator). The original stays on record; this is exactly how accounting works and exactly what an auditor expects.
Commits — where they come from and why
Commits of the project repositories are fetched automatically every 15 minutes (Refresh commits forces it immediately). A commit attached to an entry becomes an evidence anchor. The commit table has an Entry column: ✓ means “described”, highlighted no entry is your to-do list. Describe routine commits too — with “outside R&D” ticked.
Reports
Menu: Auditor report (Stundenaufzeichnung — entries by week, with close status) and BSFZ basis (activities grouped by project and Vorhaben).
- Filters: project, date range, order and Entry language —
Polish (original),German (translations),English (translations). Translations are prepared by the administrator; entries without one show the original. - Download PDF — the print/send version; Download CSV — data for Excel (opens straight into columns).
- Colleagues’ hours from projects where you only have viewing rights are masked (“—”) — in exports too.
Week closes
The administrator closes the week. Closing computes the cryptographic fingerprint (SHA-256) of all the week’s entries and timestamps it through two independent channels. From then on entries carry 🔒 and the Week closes table shows status and fingerprint. For you it means one thing: record as you go — nothing can be added after the close.