Note: Guided search is a part of Benchling Intelligence. See the Benchling Intelligence page for information on how to enable guided search and other AI-based features. This feature is in open beta, so it may be enabled via the tenant admin console, though keep in mind that it is a work in progress.
You can use guided search to pick search filters for you after entering a query in natural language.
Benchling’s search system is powerful, and it supports a large variety of built-in filters as well as filters based on schema configuration. Because of this, it’s sometimes easier to describe a more complicated query than it is to manually select all of the filters. With guided search, you can describe what you are looking for, and it selects the appropriate search filters.
Using guided search
To use guided search:
- Click the lens icon to open the search side panel.
- Click the Guided search button.
- Enter your query into the search box and click Update search settings.
The AI system looks at all available search filters/settings and your prompt and sets the filters that best seem to match what you were asking for.
Example queries
Here are some examples of queries you can try. You may need to adjust based on your Benchling system configuration.
- Plasmids with kanamycin resistance
- Notebook entries I wrote in the last month referencing CELL001
- DNA fragments whose description contains EGFP
Limitations
Guided search can use most of our search filters, but not all of them. It is good with:
- General filters (name, created at, etc)
- Schema field filters
- Notebook review
- Molecular biology filters, like nucleotide string or annotation name
- Most inventory filters
It does not support workflow filters at this time.
AI-powered features can also make mistakes, and aren’t always predictable. It will try and choose the best filters to answer the prompt you give it, but sometimes it won’t pick the right ones. Always double-check the filters it selected to ensure it gives you the results you want.
Security and privacy
For more information about privacy and security for AI-powered features, see Security and Privacy for Benchling Intelligence.