UMN Nanofabrication Center

Common Object Representation for Advanced Laboratories (Coral)

FAQ

What is Coral really?

From end-user point of view, it includes the following key capabilities:

Reserve Equipment.
Software engage and disengage of equipment.
Allow only trained users to operate equipment.
Track maintenance records.

Without using Coral, a lab user cannot operate equipment in the lab.

There are two versions of Coral. Local Coral is a client/server version that can be run from any Sunray Appliance in the NFC laboratories. We will call it Coral in our documentations. Remote Coral is a web-based version of Coral that can be from anywhere on the internet using a web browser that supports Java Web Start. We will call it Remote Coral in our documentations. Real-time updates are disabled for Remote Coral.

What do I need to run Coral?

You need an NFC Coral username and password before you can run Coral and remote Coral (these are obtained from the NFC office). See the Install Guide for more detail.

How to report a bug or make suggestions in Coral?

Please email us at coral-issues@coral.nfc.umn.edu. Make sure you check the bug list frequently for updates.

I get Unable to connect to Admin Mgr.

There are two possibilities here. First, if you are using Local Coral, it's probably because Coral servers are down. Second, if you are using Remote Coral, you probably have a firewall issue. Remote Coral uses IIOP protocal and most ISP will support it. However, there are some ISPs with stricter firewall rules that does not allow IIOP traffic.

Coral comments and questions to coral-issues@coral.nfc.umn.edu