You’ve just successfully implemented Benchling across your organization and now it’s live — cue the celebration! Now you're working on getting your teams engaged so they can get maximum benefits from it. As Global Program Managers at Benchling, we’ve seen many of our 1000+ customers roll out Benchling successfully. In this article, we provide practical take-home advice designed to help you engage with your end users throughout their entire journey with Benchling. Let’s take a look at how you can use Benchling resources to make training accessible, plan your own Benchling event, and cultivate a thriving community. 

Why engagement matters (more than you think)

Measuring user engagement — the quality and frequency of your team's interactions with Benchling — is the top way we've seen companies get value from Benchling right away. High engagement shows that your users feel confident and well-equipped to navigate the platform. Enabled users work more efficiently and tend to find solutions on their own. By providing ongoing resources you can prevent frustration and encourage continued adoption of the platform.

Measuring user engagement takes the guesswork out, helping you identify super users, spot teams that are falling behind, and tailor your recommendations accordingly. There are several ways to measure user engagement on Benchling. Within the platform, there are Insights SQL dashboards to help you track key metrics like entity creation, template usage, and sample registration. For more information on setting up dashboards, reach out to your Benchling account team.

Outside of the platform, it's helpful to initiate discussions within your teams to determine their confidence with the platform. Consider:

• Do your users have a solid grasp of Benchling basics?

• Are your users in the loop about the latest Benchling updates?

• Do your users feel empowered to find answers to their Benchling questions (like who to ask or where to look)?

• Are your users familiar with your organization's specific Benchling guidelines?

Combining platform metrics with these indicators of user competency paints a clearer picture of how well your teams are adopting Benchling. 

Don’t start from scratch, Benchling resources have you covered 

As you get started with Benchling, we have a ton of resources to jumpstart your admin experience. From the Benchling Community to our Learning Labs platform, we’re here to support you each step of the way. Below are our top tips to get the most out of Benchling:   

• Join the community: The Benchling Community, fueled by users around the world, provides an impactful way to collaborate with your peers, share learnings, discuss best practices, and see upcoming events. 

• Share the latest Benchling updates with your team: Check out our What’s New page and Benchling Webinars to stay informed on the latest product offerings, releases and panels on how other companies are using Benchling to get ahead. Once you’re up to date on new features, it’s time to relay these exciting features to your team:

  • Think about the diverse teams that make up your audience — researchers, lab managers, data scientists, IT, and leadership — and customize your messaging to address their distinct needs.

  • Make your Benchling announcements pop by using catchy titles, graphics, and videos to simplify complex topics and appeal to a variety of learning styles. Great news — Benchling already has these resources! Check out our best practice guides, including step-by-step slides, graphics, sample newsletter templates etc. 

  • Ask for feedback through accessible channels like surveys, polls, and quizzes to help you adjust your strategy, and confirm user understanding.

• Expand your skills: Whether you’re a user or admin, Benchling Learning Labs provides your team with on-demand courses that will help get them up to speed and thriving on Benchling. 

• We’re here to help: For additional support on all things Benchling, please contact your Benchling Representative to explore how a Customer Success Package could meet your needs.

Plan your own Benchling Enablement Day

A Benchling focused day is a prime opportunity to get your team to explore new features, get trained up, and ask each other questions. We've seen this work time and time again. These days carve out crucial time for users to focus on building their skills, mastering new features, and troubleshooting challenges together. Users walk out of these sessions feeling better equipped and ready to apply their knowledge to improve their work.

If you want to put on a Benchling event for your company, you can reach out to your Benchling account team to explore how Benchling can partner with you. Together, we’ll help you craft a Benchling Day tailored to your organization’s needs. When planning your Benchling Day, consider:

• Audience: Identify your audience (end users, super users, bioinformatics stakeholders, etc.) and estimate attendance numbers.We recommend inviting subject matter experts (SMEs), or for business leads to nominate attendees from their department. Have users register to keep track of attendee numbers and gather relevant information. Send reminders and provide event details in advance.

• Sessions: Define the session goals — whether it's showcasing new features, enhancing user skills, or fostering collaboration. When developing sessions, think critically about what content your team needs. Do they need a high level overview? A deep dive into a specific feature? Or just a general Q&A? Determine what you’ll own and what content you would like to partner with Benchling or super users with. 

• Logistics: Ensure that you have arranged food and beverage options, along with breaks throughout the event. Find a space to accommodate your group and allow for virtual attendees if needed. Make a schedule for the day that includes your agenda (see example below). Build in breaks and arrange for food or refreshments.

Build a culture around Benchling, not just a user base 

As an admin, you can’t be everywhere at once — which is why it’s important to empower users to support and collaborate with each other. In our experience, the key to a vibrant and engaged community is an environment that enables dialogue and constant learning. This can look different for every organization. Umoja Biopharma, an immunotherapy company hosts a regular Benchling State of the Union, where their data strategy team recognizes major milestones and as they accumulate data, notebook entries, entities, etc. LabGenius, a drug discovery company, puts a creative spin on this concept with their Benchling Wrapped awards which celebrate user accomplishments. When teams are encouraged to share wins and learnings with each other, the result is a more engaged user community.

Here are a few ways you can help build that culture at your company:

• Set a goal for your community: Why are you using Benchling? Whether it’s developing highly structured data, improving collaboration across departments, or automating manual lab processes, clearly define how Benchling can help your team achieve these goals. We’ve noticed that top performing teams tie these goals to company priorities,  securing support and resources upfront from leadership. 

• Identify and empower super users: Enable super users — those who are absolutely jazzed about Benchling — and encourage them to join the official Benchling Community! These individuals can also serve as champions, providing support, answering questions, and driving engagement in their departments.

• Create an environment to gather: Establish a centralized platform for company-wide Benchling information, such as Teams, Slack, or SharePoint. This site will serve as a hub for Benchling announcements, training resources, discussions, and community meetings. Determine a regular meeting schedule and plan community activities to get people talking. 

Get started 

Now you’re ready to support your teams on Benchling! Our favorite tips are to take your time, start small, and use pre-existing available content to get started. If you’re seeking email and newsletter templates or an extensive guide on planning your Benchling Day event, read up on the Best Practices for Engaging Benchling Users.

We can’t wait to see how you bring these strategies to life in your communications. It’s not just about building better systems, it’s about enabling better science. By using these three methods, you’ll free up your users to focus on what they do best — driving breakthrough innovation.