Organization
Your institution or lab’s home. Holds projects, members, and storage.
Project
A workspace for a study, grant, or effort.
Collection
A nestable container that groups assets within a project.
Asset
A file (or bundle) plus its metadata, notes, and relationships.
Dataset
A versioned, analysis-ready view of your data.
Transfer
An upload or download of file content.
The hierarchy
Data nests from broad to specific: Organization → Project → Collection → Asset → Content An organization contains projects; a project contains collections (which can nest inside one another); collections hold assets; and an asset holds its file content. Access granted higher up cascades down, so a person who can read a project can read the collections and assets inside it — unless you override access on a specific item.Organizations and members
An organization is the top-level home for your institution, lab, or company. Every member of an organization has a role:| Role | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Member | Work within the organization’s projects according to the permissions they’re given |
| Admin | Manage the organization and its members |
Projects
A project is the primary workspace — typically one per study, grant, or effort. Within a project, members have a role:| Role | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Member | View and work with project data they have access to |
| Manager | Create and manage content in the project |
| Admin | Full control of the project, including sharing and membership |
Collections
A collection is a folder-like container that groups assets inside a project. Collections can nest, so you can mirror how your team already thinks about its data — by experiment, instrument, sample, or date. See Collections.Assets and content
An asset is the core unit of data. It combines:- Metadata — title, description, tags, and structured fields (often extracted automatically from instrument files).
- Content — the actual file or files. An asset can exist before its content is uploaded, which is useful for metadata-first workflows.
- Notes — a Markdown note or README describing protocols, settings, and caveats.
- Relationships — links to other assets that capture provenance (which data produced which).
Datasets and versions
A dataset is a curated, versioned view of data prepared for analysis. Each new version is an immutable snapshot, and DataErai can analyze a version to infer its structure (for example, the columns and types in a table) so it’s ready to explore and visualize. See Datasets.Transfers
A transfer is the movement of file content — an upload or a download. DataErai is built for large scientific files, so transfers are high-throughput and resumable: if a transfer is interrupted, it picks up where it left off. You can transfer in the browser, or with the desktop app and CLI.Storage: repositories and allocations
Your data physically lives in a repository, and your team is given a storage allocation (how much space you can use) within it. Most of the time this is set up for you; you’ll mainly notice it when choosing where new data goes or checking how much space you’ve used. See Storage.Groups and permissions
Access is controlled per object — project, collection, asset, or dataset — using three roles:| Role | What it allows |
|---|---|
| Read | View metadata, content, and notes |
| Write | Read, plus edit metadata, content, and notes |
| Admin | Write, plus share the object with others |