Creating new and calculated fields

Calculated Fields Introduction – 00:00

With Freezerworks, you are in control of your sample data and procedures.  New fields, for example, are easy to add and can be made dynamic as well.  Here, we have an entry screen we design for a tissue bank.  Now, we want to make a new addition to our screen.  We have two date fields, Sample Date and Date of Procedure.  We want to add a third field called Date in Transport.  This field will tell us how long it took to move the sample from extraction to biobank.  We want this field to subtract Sample Date from the Date of Procedure.  

Creating a Field – 00:40

To do this, we go to the System Admin menu and we select User Defined Fields.  Here, we will add a new field.  We first give this field a name, Days in Transport.  For field type, we select Numeric.  This is a sample field, so we associate it with samples.  We'll come back to this screen later, but for now, we'll leave it as it is and add what we call a Tool Tip.  This is a useful feature that will define the field for the user when he hovers over it with the cursor.  Let's save this field for now, and the next step will be to place it on our tissue bank entry screen.  

Adding fields to a Samples Entry Screen – 01:50

We can do this at System Admin – Configure Samples Entry.  Let’s go into our tissue bank entry configuration screen.  We locate the screen we want, select it, and press Configure.  Here at the Samples Entry Configuration screen, we can add the new field by going to Sample – Add Fields.  Locate the field and drag it onto the screen in the general vicinity of where the field should be.  We can then make adjustments.  The blue lettered box is the field heading, the black lettered box is where the data will go.  Press Done and then Save.  Let's now go look at an entry screen with the new field.  Locate an existing sample through the View All option.  We can see the new Days in Transport field here.  If we hover our cursor here, the Tool Tip is displayed.  The way in this field is configured now we can manually figure out the number of days, which is six, and hand enter it, but we want Freezerworks to do the calculation automatically for us.

Creating a Calculated Field – 03:30

So, let's delete our entry, close this record, and go back to User Defined Fields and make this field a calculated field.  Freezerworks allows us to build relationships between fields and that is exactly what we want to do here.  At the Days in Transport field configuration, we check the box labeled Calculated Field then go to the calculated field tab and set it up.  Here we build the expression, Sample Date minus Date of Procedure.  We can test the expression here to see if we set it up correctly, looks good.  So, let's go back to the Samples Entry Screen to test it.  Select the same sample record as before, we can see the field is entered with an automatic calculation, six (Sample Date minus the Date of Procedure). 

Conclusion – 04:50

This is just one example of the hundreds of ways that you can develop your fields and relate them to each other.  With this valuable data, you can run reports and then uncover valuable information regarding your biobank samples.  For example, how long has it taken to bank your samples and what role this time may play maintaining sample viability.  Freezerworks, it's your program!