OpenIRIS is a free, non-commercial platform for research to manage and book shared resources, in particular laboratory equipment. Resources have a booking calendar and can be flexibly customised and provided with individual booking conditions.
As a provider admin, you have the option of creating resources and making them available to users. As a user, you can make use of the resources offered and make your bookings conveniently online.

The following screenshots show examples of booking calendars, the booking process for a resource and - from the provider admin's perspective - the configuration of resources and the creation of booking restrictions.

The platform is managed and hosted externally by the OpenIRIS Association. It is constantly being further developed with the participation of its members. The University of Oldenburg has been a member of the Association since 2024 and is therefore authorised to use the platform to an unlimited extent. The FDM Service Centre assumes the role of system administrator and contact to the Association.

School VI bears the costs for its members. If other Schools are interested in sharing the platform, please get in touch with us

Advantages of the OpenIRIS service

• Flexible booking system (e.g. for laboratory equipment)
• Broadly applicable due to many customisation options
• Support for cost accounting through statistics and accounting function
• Widely used in the research environment (see Members of the Association)
• Data protection compliant hosting
• Centrally funded by School VI - free use for members of School VI

What do I have to do to use this service?

• You can register at https://uol.openiris.io/ with your university account. Registration is not necessary.
• If you would like to use the service as a provider to offer resources (e.g. laboratory equipment) to users, please send an email to and let us know for which core facility, department or laboratory the provider should be created.
• Please adhere to the following requirement regarding groups: All users should be assigned to a group. The groups are used for the statistics and the billing function and thus facilitate the administrative work for the providers. As a rule, the groups are created according to chair/AG (naming convention: AG-professor*name). The administration of the groups must be guaranteed by the user who creates them (self-administration). This is usually either the provider admin or a working group or lab leader. Additional admins can also be added. If necessary, the FDM service centre can assign authorisations.
• Further important information for provider admins can be found in the quick guide.
• If you are not a member of School VI, please contact us (). Membership of the OpenIRIS Association is a university membership and the software is therefore generally available to all members of the university. However, the membership fee is currently paid by School VI, so if other faculties use the software, the cost sharing must be arranged in advance. We can of course provide you with free access to test the software.

Where can I find instructions and help for OpenIRIS?

• For a quick start there is a quick guide for users and provider admins.
• In the official OpenIRIS Wiki contains instructions in English for users and provider admins.
• In the community forum you can ask questions and exchange ideas with the community.
• Feel free to contact us if you have any problems or questions.