In order to use set roles and schema field values on wells, you'll need to launch the plate map tool from Notebook or Inventory. See Getting started with plate maps and Creating and viewing plate records in Notebook.
Setting well roles
When you select the well role layer, you are able to interact with and annotate the wells in the plate
1. In the plate map tool, navigate to the "well role" layer on the left sidebar
a. "Role" is a new system field that can be edited on all wells in fixed plates.
2. Select any wells and annotate selected wells with the following:
a. Primary role: The primary role of a well designates whether the well is filled with a sample, control, standard, or blank.
b. Sub-role: The sub-role of a well is an optional designation for control wells that allows you to add further information about your controls by indicating if they are positive, negative, minimum, or maximum controls.
c. Numbered groups: Numbered groups can be used so that you can more easily visualize the replicates of samples, controls, or standards in the plate.
3. Set values by:
a. Manually specifying the role and the groups
i. Note that if there is only one group (for example, you want all controls to be called “positive control”), you should label them group 1. The number 1 won’t show up on the well if there is only one group.
b. Filling by pattern, which sets the group numbers for a specific role
i. Designate the number of replicates and also the direction of the pattern.
Notice the different ways that you can interact with the plate – clicking single wells, highlighting a column or row, dragging across columns, and more – when defining the well roles.
Fill by pattern follows these rules:
- When fill direction is right, Benchling assigns group numbers starting from the top most cell (on the left)
- When fill direction is right, Benchling assigns group numbers starting from the leftmost cell (at the top)
- Benchling then moves in the fill direction and always starts a new group when a replicate or a row is finished
Setting schema field values
In addition to roles, Benchling also supports annotating text, dropdown, and number fields on wells.
- In the left sidebar, toggle to different "layers" of your plate map
- Select the layer you wish to edit
- Select wells
- Set values on wells using the right sidepanel
Users can add or remove schema fields when creating a plate that has valid fields on its container schema. These layers will be shown on the left side of the plate map as seen above. Users can remove layers by hovering over them and clicking on the small x in the top right corner, as shown below. Up to 10 container schema fields can be annotated per plate map.For more details on configuring plate and container schemas, see Configure box and plate schemas and Configure container schemas. Note that the plate map tool only supports fixed plates and does not support matrix plates.
Saving annotations and viewing metadata on the plate
Once a user has saved edits to their plate, well roles and schema field values are passed to the plate entity. If you open the plate entity, the values set on each well are visible in the the plate map and the table in the right. You can toggle between the different layers using the dropdown above the plate map.