Welcome to the 3rd volume of our 2024 product release notes! We’ve been working hard to bring you performance improvements that add value to your work. Read on to learn about the product enhancements and bug fixes released in March and April 2024.
Notebook
Benchling Notebook helps users log their experiments, create protocols, and capture results against their samples.
Undo and redo buttons in Notebook formatting toolbar [2024.3.N.1]
Users can now undo and redo changes using new options in the Notebook formatting toolbar.
Improved maximize and minimize options in tables [2024.3.N.2]
Users can now more easily find the maximize and minimize options in the top-right corner of tables, instead of hidden in the options in the top-left corner.
Populate workflow output tables from structured tables [2024.3.N.3]
Users can now populate workflow output tables using the new Add from structured table option.
New Date and Date/Time custom column data types [2024.3.N.4]
Users can now select Date or Date/Time column types when inserting custom columns in structured tables.
Paste merged cells in structured tables [2024.3.N.5]
Users can now paste merged cells into structured tables. Previously, merged ranges would fail if users tried to copy and paste.
Template collections moved to Feature Settings [2024.3.N.6]
Users can now find template collections in a new section within Feature Settings.
Entries link to their template versions [2024.3.N.7]
Entries created from templates now link to the template version used to generate the entry.
Registry and Inventory
The Registry and Inventory combine to form an extremely powerful solution for life sciences R&D samples. The Registry can be used to model and log any biological entities while the Inventory provides an interactive digital window into the physical storage system of your lab.
Location restrictions to account for allowed schema types and capacity [2024.3.RI.1]
Users with appropriate permissions can now put constraints on locations to restrict users from storing boxes, plates, and containers where they're not allowed. This prevents discrepancies between system records and physical inventory.
In Vivo
Manage in vivo studies with modern software designed for data capture, collaboration, and insights.
Date picker added to date metadata filters [2024.3.IV.1]
When using a filter option for a date metadata field, users can now select the date using a date picker instead of entering it manually in the correct format.
Benchling Connect
Benchling Connect, formerly Lab Automation, enables seamless integration of Benchling to liquid handlers, plate readers, imaging instruments, and more.
Benchling Connect Gateway supporting multi-tenant [2024.3.BC.1]
The Benchling Gateway is a critical component of the instrument connectivity for the Benchling Connect. It is designed to be installed on a customer’s machine, interfaces with the physical instrument(s) or instrument software(s), and establishes direct connectivity with a Benchling tenant.
Users can now install multiple gateways on a single machine, which enables interaction with multiple Benchling tenants. Previously, users could only install one gateway on a given machine, which limited interaction to a single Benchling tenant.
Developer Platform
Our developer platform is fundamental to centralizing and standardizing all your R&D data. Benchling’s APIs and Events are built to match the flexibility and speed of modern life science R&D.
Upsert Customer Entities API operation available to more efficiently load bulk data [2024.3.DP.1]
Users can now create or update entities with a single call using the Upsert operation, instead of splitting updates and creation into 2 separate transactions. Users no longer need to confirm if an entity has already been created in Benchling, making this operation especially impactful when loading data from an external source.
Visual warning for warehouse login rotation [2024.3.DP.2]
A warning now displays in user settings for users who need to recreate their warehouse credentials.
JWK validation for Benchling webhooks [2024.3.DP.3]
Users can now use a secure JWK endpoint provided by Global Apps to verify if a webhook was sent from Benchling.
Bug Fixes
In Vivo
- Fixed bug saving study draft containing Benchling registered treatments
- Fixed bulk assigning repeated animal IDs after animals had been moved to new cages
- Returned Select and clear all options that had been hidden from multi select components
- Fixed a bug where dose units were not maintained when using study design cloning
- Fixed a bug where the "Select all 10+ items in this table" button appeared without additional items to display
- Fixed a bug where the cage name text box locked after clicking away with entering any text during recaging
Workflows
- Users could not unarchive an archived task from the Task Details page
- Immediately after creating a flowchart task schema, an error displayed if a user did not refresh the screen and tried to configure a flowchart with a router
Access Management
- Users were blocked from viewing their own profiles on Academic tenants
- An unhelpful error displayed when a user tried to create a project
- Access policy errors used internal names instead of user-facing policy statements
- Default schema permissions conflicted with new schema collaborators and prevented new schemas from being created
- Tenants that had "delete" enabled did not have the option to delete projects
Application Core
- Fixed bug where result schema updates done by config migration were not being audited
- Fixed a bug where dropdown updates were not populating on the Review & Summary pages of config migration
- Fixed a bug where config migrations were failing due to archiving snapshot fields
- Fixed a bug where config migration archiving of snapshot fields was not captured in the final migration changelog
- When many types displayed in a drop-down menu, the types at the bottom of the list weren’t visible