How to configure custom studies

In Benchling, a Study is a schematized object that contains other Benchling items that live within the project/folder structure. Custom Studies provides a flexible and organized way to manage your experimental work in the context of a study. With custom Studies, you can efficiently bring together all materials — including entries, datasets, and tasks — that are part of your study into a single, easily accessible location, ensuring consistency and clear tracking of your research. Custom Studies are available to all tenants. Please contact Benchling Support to enable these flags.   

This guide details configuration and administration of Custom Studies. For help using the feature, refer to the How to Use Custom Studies.

Create a custom study schema

Configuring a custom study is much like configuring other schemas in Benchling in that it follows the two part process of defining schema settings and defining access policies.

Defining schema settings allows you to set the prefix, name, what organization owns the schema, and any additional metadata fields. To create a Study schema: 

1. Navigate to the configuration page by clicking your avatar and using the Feature Settings menu to select Study Schemas
2. Define the required attributes of the schema, which include 
   1. Using the text boxes to provide a prefix and name for the schema; note that study ID cannot be edited post-creation, or be used in naming templates 
   2. Using the Owner dropdown to designate what organization the schema belongs to
   3. Using the Study type dropdown to select the Custom option 
3. If you wish to capture additional structured metadata against your Study schema, use the + button to add Study fields 
4. Once you have configured the schema based on your needs, click Next to be brought to the access policies screen
5. Add users, teams, or organizations to the schema by using the text box to search for them and using the dropdown to define the permissions they should have, then click Add 
6. Once you have added all users and adjusted permissions as needed, click Create to make the schema

Note: the ability to designate a Study schema as Process Development is only available for teams that have purchased Benchling Bioprocess. This schema type is used to kickoff experiment design for Recipes. You can learn more about this in the Bioprocess section of the Help Center.  

Restrict entry templates 

If you wish to limit what entry templates are available for your team to create using the Study Overview shortcut for auto-linked entry creation within a Study, you can designate what templates are allowed while you configure the schema. To do this: 

1. Click the edit icon in the Entry Templates section of the schema settings page
2. Use the textbox in the Add Entry Templates modal that opens to search for the template(s) that you would like to be made available for your team
3. Click Done to add your selections to the schema setting  

Note: this only restricts what entries can be made from the Study Overview page, other entry creation flows remain unrestricted. 

Enable design approval 

Within the study schema, toggle whether design entry must be reviewed before execution can begin. 

Notification schedules

If you and your team use Workflows, your users will be able to set up notifications. Studies will send a daily digest of notifications at 9:00am PT. 

API considerations

Creating a study via API requires a pre-created notebook entry to be passed as the Design Entry.

FAQs and Troubleshooting

Q: Why doesn’t my study appear in the dropdown when linking?
A: Make sure the schema type is set to “Custom.” Only custom study schemas are valid for Custom Studies.

Q: Can I use lookup fields in studies?
A: Not yet. Lookup tables/columns are currently unsupported in Custom Studies.

Q: What should I consider when migrating from Custom Entities?
A: Be aware of gaps in feature parity (e.g., no computed fields, tooltips, or lookups). Migration may require adaptation.

Q: Auto-linking isn’t applying—what’s wrong?
A: Only entries created from the Study Overview trigger auto-linking. Check how the entry was created.

Q: Why is there a “Studies” field in all lab auto runs? Can I remove it?
A: Once Studies are enabled, the field is always visible in lab auto runs. There is currently no way to disable or hide it.

Q: Will enabling Studies disrupt existing setups?
A: It may if your current build relies on unsupported Entity features. Review your configuration before enabling.