IrisBG
Product · Coming soon
Your collection, out in the garden
IrisBG Lite is a companion to IrisBG that runs in the browser on a phone, a tablet or a computer. Since it works on the same collection data as the desktop, you can look a plant up and record what you find while you are standing in front of it.
Status: in development
IrisBG Lite has not been released yet, and we are not putting a date on it while it is still being built. Everything described on this page is what the first release is being built to do.
If you would like to hear the moment there is something to try — or to help shape it by telling us how your garden actually works out in the field — please get in touch. Gardens that do are the ones we ask first.
What it is
A companion, not a second system
IrisBG stays where it is: on the desktop, running your collection. IrisBG Lite is the part of it you can take with you.
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Any device, nothing to install
IrisBG Lite runs in the browser, so it opens on a phone, a tablet or a computer. Add it to the home screen and it launches like an app — with no app store, and no version to keep up to date on each device.
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Your own collection data
Lite works on your garden’s own IrisBG records, not on a separate list that somebody has to keep up by hand. How the data reaches it depends on where your database lives — directly if we host it, by a synchronization from the desktop if you host it yourself.
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The sign-in you already have
Staff sign in with their existing IrisBG user. The roles your garden has already set up decide what each person can see and change, collection by collection, exactly as they do on the desktop.
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Built for one hand outdoors
Lite is designed for the walk round the garden rather than the desk: large touch targets, a light and a dark theme, and screens that work while you are holding something else.
The part that is genuinely new
Fix a plant's position standing in front of it
IrisBG has mapped living collections for years — but at the desk, afterwards, working from a scribbled note, a handheld GPS file or somebody's memory of which of the three Acer it was. That round trip is where positions go wrong, and it is the one thing the desktop cannot do for you when you are standing looking at the plant.
IrisBG Lite closes it. Open the map out in the garden, find the plant in front of you, and record where it actually stands — drop the point by hand, or let the device average several GPS readings rather than trusting a single one. New plantings, plants that have moved, plants nobody ever got round to mapping and the ones whose coordinates have been quietly wrong for years: all of it can be dealt with on the walk, by the person who can see the plant, instead of going on a list for later.
Planned for the first release
What you will be able to do
A deliberate subset of IrisBG: the things you need in your hand while you are out among the plants, and nothing you would rather do sitting down.
In the garden
- Set or correct where a plant stands, at the plant — by hand on the map, or averaged from the device GPS
- See your plants on a map, and switch between the map and the results list
- Search accessions with the filters you use on the desktop
- Open an accession and edit its details
- Browse the items under an accession, with status, place and measurements
- Create a new accession, with the next accession number in line
- Search taxa, including synonyms
- Work through tasks and mark them done
- Photograph a plant and attach the picture to its record
Out of signal
- Download the part of the garden you are working in before you set out
- Keep searching, reading and recording where there is no signal
- Map tiles are cached, so the map still draws out of range
- Changes queue on the device and sync themselves when you are back in range
- A clear indication of when you are offline, and how old the data on screen is
Reports, labels, data import, the seed exchange and administration stay on the desktop. IrisBG remains the full system — see everything it does.
How your data reaches it
Two ways in, depending on who hosts
IrisBG Lite reads your garden's own collection data. Which of the two arrangements below applies to you is decided by something you have already settled: where your IrisBG database lives.
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If we host your database
Nothing to arrange. Gardens on our cloud database service are already running on a database we manage, and Lite goes straight to it. What your staff record in the garden lands on the same record a colleague opens on the desktop, with no step in between and nothing for anyone to remember to run.
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If you host it yourself
IrisBG Lite cannot access a database hosted on a server within your internal network, and, for security reasons, we would never ask you to expose it. Instead, you keep irisBG and IrisBG Lite in sync by transferring data from the desktop application to IrisBG Lite and back again. Your garden initiates and controls each synchronization from its side of the firewall.
This is a different thing from the offline queue above, which is about one device catching up after a walk out of signal. We will publish how the synchronization is run, and how often it needs running, before release. If your database is already hosted with us, none of it applies to you.
What it costs
Included in the Standard Package
IrisBG Lite is included at no extra cost in the Standard Package. As long as your annual fee is paid, your garden can use it — there is nothing further to buy.
Questions
What we can tell you today
Does IrisBG Lite replace IrisBG on the desktop?
No. Lite covers the work that happens away from a desk; everything else — reports, labels, imports, the seed exchange, administration and the full editing surface — stays in IrisBG. A garden that never leaves the office would not need Lite at all.
What will we need to run it?
On your side, a recent browser on whatever phones, tablets or computers your staff already carry, and an IrisBG user account each. There is no app to install and no web server for you to set up — we run Lite as a service.
Beyond that it comes down to where your IrisBG database lives. If we host it, Lite reaches it directly and there is nothing more for you to do. If you host it yourself, you will synchronize your data from IrisBG on the desktop — see how your data reaches it above.
Who in our garden will be able to see and change what?
Whatever you have already decided. Lite reads the same user roles as the desktop and applies them per collection, so a volunteer who may record observations but not edit accessions has exactly that in the field too. You will not have a second set of permissions to maintain.
Is it a native app for iOS and Android?
It is a progressive web app: a website that a phone or tablet can install to the home screen, where it opens full screen and keeps working without a connection. That is what lets one version serve every device your staff bring, and it is why there is no app store to go through when we improve something.
Can we try it?
Not while it is being built — there is nothing to hand out yet, which is also why this page does not offer a demo. What you can do now is put your garden down for the beta: send us an enquiry saying you would like to help test IrisBG Lite, and we will come to you when there is a build worth your time.
Beta testers get it in their hands first, and they are the ones who get to argue with how it works while that is still cheap to change — so tell us how your garden does things out among the plants when you write. In the meantime the free 60-day trial of IrisBG is the full desktop system.
Hear when IrisBG Lite lands
We are building it now. Tell us how your garden works out among the plants, and we will let you know as soon as there is something to try.