Introduction
Once you have created and applied fieldsets to the designated Entity schemas, you can begin to use them across Benchling.
Fieldsets have the ability to be used as Categories. Categories represent the group of schemas that have applied a Fieldset. The category name is always the same as the Fieldset’s name. The following sections describe how Categories can be leveraged with Entity links to improve the data integrity on your tenant.
Using Categories with Entity Links
The example below shows a fermentation schema with a Field definition that uses a Category as opposed to a specific Entity Schema or AnyType. By using the Strain category, users will be able to link to any entity from a schema that has applied the Strain Fieldset.
These types of Entity links provide flexibility for the Fermentation Schema to support multiple schemas during data entry, while still enforcing data integrity through the requirement that a Strain is an input.
Lookups and Snapshot Fields
Lookups and snapshots allow you to compute or hoist a value based on other values in your Benchling tenant. Lookup columns can be created on any structured table. Data in a lookup column can be hoisted from any column value in the table. Snapshot fields can be created on Task and Result Schemas. Data in a snapshot field can be hoisted from any field in the Schema.
Before Fieldsets, users could only specify a single Schema type when configuring a lookup column or a snapshot field. Fieldsets allows you to reference groups of schemas through the use of Categories. This enables the customer to hoist a link to a Category, allowing entities from all Schemas within the category to appear in the field value.
In addition, a Fieldset defines common field data across a group of Schemas. This capability enables the customer to hoist a common fieldset field from any Schema that implements the fieldset.
The example below shows the modal for configuring a lookup. This is the same modal used for creating links to schemas for both Lookup tables and Snapshot fields.
Type-Casting
When configuring lookup columns or snapshot fields that traverse a Fieldset, users will be shown an option to Restrict to Schema or type-cast the link.
Restricting the lookup through a specific Schema type means the link will only traverse those schema entities rather than any schema in the Fieldset. This provides value because you may hoist any field value defined in the Schema; not just the Fieldset field values.
The use of a type-cast is optional, but becomes necessary if you need the lookup field to find metadata that is specific to a schema and is not configured on the Schema Fieldset.
If you decide to type-cast the link, all schema-specific metadata will be available to continue your lookup. If you type-cast the link but the lookup finds an Entity that is not part of the schema that the lookup is restricted to, then no value will be returned.
If you leave the Restrict to schema dropdown blank, you will only be presented with metadata fields that are enforced by the Schema Fieldset.
Computed Fields
Computed fields are similar to Lookups and Snapshots. However, computed fields can only be configured by the Benchling support team and computed fields only work with schemas related to the Registry (e.g. entity, box, container, etc).
Fieldsets can be used in computed fields to lookup data by traversing the data model just like Lookups and Snapshots. Similarly, type-casting is available in computed fields when traversing the data model. Contact your support team if you are interested in creating or updating any computed fields.
Search: Filter with Categories instead of specific Schema types
Before Fieldsets, if you wanted to search for a specific entity, you could narrow your search down by selecting a specific Schema type (Type → Entity → [schema type]. With Fieldsets, you can now search in the context of a group of Schema types. Each fieldset is listed under “Categories” within the Type Selector for search. A category link allows end users to search across all items of a related type, and to filter based on any fields shared by the fieldset.
API
No current support for API.
Warehouse
No current support for Warehouse tables.