Blog Viewer

Select Rows Tool

By Archive User posted 07-10-2015 07:04

  

     There are many points throughout the workflow process where a user may want to apply processing tasks, assign data or report on a particular subset of specimens in an editor. Manually selecting the desired specimens may not be a daunting task when the batch contains only 10 or 20 records, however, batches often contain many hundreds or thousands of specimens. In this case, selecting records by hand can be frustrating and highly inefficient. BSI's Select Rows tool helps to streamline this process by highlighting rows according to user defined criteria.

     The Select Rows tool appears as a dialog presenting users with an array of options. Some of these, like 'Select All', 'Select None' or 'Inverse of Current Selection', are straightforward options. While they don’t provide the user with a great deal of customization, being able to ‘Select Parents’ or ‘Select Children’ at the click of a button can prove to be greatly helpful when working on aliquoting, for example.

     Other Select Rows options are far more configurable. For example, users may elect to highlight a particular 'Random Percentage' of the specimens in the pool. This option is particularly helpful for eliminating bias and returning users a broad distribution of the available specimens.

     Users may have very specific criteria dictating the specimens they wish to select. In this case, the 'Select by Search' option is best, and prompts the user with the standard search dialog so that only specimens matching various field values are highlighted. For example, perhaps the user knows they need to select all specimens from a particular study, of a particular material type, and from a small list of subjects. The 'Select by Search' option can identify and select only those specimens, in a fraction of the time it would take to do so manually.

     The Select Rows tool also includes drill down functionality through the use of the 'Select From Current Selection Set' option. Here, users may employ the tool many subsequent times to slowly narrow down the pool of selected specimens.

Select Rows tool

     ‘Select Rows’ is just one more example of how editing tools in BSI can help resolve user pain points and provides options to mitigate inefficiencies and streamline the workflow process. Available in every table editor in BSI, try out the Select Rows tool next time you’re working with a batch!

0 comments
7 views

Permalink