Welcome to the second volume of our 2022 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 January 2022.
Notebook
Benchling Notebook helps users log their experiments, create protocols, and capture results against their samples.
New configuration flag that removes ability to create blank entries
Admins can now require users to only create entries from templates and restrict the creation of blank entries.
To enable this feature, contact your Benchling representative or Benchling customer support.
Right-click to edit lookup column configurations
Users can now edit the configurations of an existing lookup column by right-clicking the lookup column and selecting Edit lookup column.
Changes to file error labels
A “Failed PDF Conversion” error message now displays when users encounter file upload issues.
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 entity while the Inventory provides an interactive digital window into the physical storage system of your lab.
Improved box and plate page sorting
Users can now sort box and plate position by row or column. Sorting preferences are remembered on a per-user basis when opening new plates or boxes.
Cells per milligram (cell/mg) available as a unit for mixtures
Users can now express mixture ingredients as cells per milligram (cells/mg).
Workflows
Workflows are a sequence of research processes that are performed to answer a research question or synthesize new material. For example, synthesizing a new set of proteins from supernatants, or improving the transduction process.
Access policies support conditions by role
Users can now assign access policies by task group author or task assignee.
Snapshot fields support box containers, containers, and wells in lookup step
Snapshot fields in Workflows now support lookup steps for box containers, wells, and containers.
Removal of “add batch” for tenants without batches
Legacy Workflows users whose tenants lack batches no longer have an “add batch” option.
Lab Automation
Benchling for Lab Automation enables seamless integration of Benchling to liquid handlers, plate readers, imaging instruments, and more.
File queuing for results and entities
Users can now upload files into Benchling with up to one million rows through Lab Automation. If these large files have errors, Benchling now returns an output file containing the specific errors and the reasons for rejection.
To enable this feature, contact your Benchling representative or Benchling customer support.
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.
SDK version 1.1.0 now available
SDK version 1.1.0 is available, which includes support for all endpoints and filters, filters for list endpoints, and additional endpoints for the API and SDK. These new endpoints include the following:
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Workflow endpoints
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Feature libraries
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Organizations
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Teams
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Users
Seed entry table data
Entries created via v2-alpha include an optional initialTables parameter, allowing .csv's to populate on entry tables in the UI.
This feature is currently under development and in limited availability. To test this feature and provide feedback, contact your Benchling representative or Benchling customer support.
Benchling app configuration
Users can now change schemas and fields without needing to change their code through App Manifest and Configuration APIs.
This feature is currently under development and in limited availability. To test this feature and provide feedback, contact your Benchling representative or Benchling customer support.
Bug Fixes
The following bugs were fixed in this release:
Notebook
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Resolved issue with adding snapshot and lookup values from structured tables.
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Users no longer experience timeouts when submitting results with a
legalTextDropdownIdvalue.
Workflows
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“Reset to version” button no longer displays on workflow task execution entries.