Visual Freezers: Part 2
In this installment of our Visual Freezers series, we'll look at quickly relocating entire freezer subdivisions, changing the positions of individual aliquots, and consolidating freezer space. Our updated Move Aliquots tool allows you to do all of this with an intuitive visual interface.
Visual Freezers Part 2
In this installment of our Visual Freezers series, we'll look at quickly relocating entire freezer subdivisions, changing the positions of individual aliquots, and consolidating freezer space. Our updated Move Aliquots tool allows you to do all of this with an intuitive visual interface.
Video Introduction– 00:00
Hey guys, welcome to the Freezerworks 2019 Learning Series, your visual guide to our sample management software. Today, we continue our series on Visual Freezers with a look at the new and improved Move Aliquots tool. From day-to-day freezer operation to the “oh my lord, my freezer is failing” crises, quickly relocating entire freezer subdivisions, changing the positions of individual aliquots, and consolidating freezer space are all very common tasks in the sample management realm. Our updated Move Aliquots tool allows you to do all of this with an intuitive visual interface.
Move Aliquots Introduction– 00:50
To open Move Aliquots, either add it to your Homepage for easy access or open the Inventory Mgmt menu and select Move Aliquots. To begin, you'll select the Physical Freezer you'd like to start moving from. You can also select the Aliases tab and start from a specific location instead. If you've got a lot of freezers or aliases, the search bar here to quickly filter the list. Once you make your selection, the visual freezer picture will appear like so. Like Explore Freezers, if you select a freezer with multiple sections, as I have, that's what you'd see at this point. If you select a freezer with a single section, that'll be opened immediately.
As you can see, the visual freezers interface itself works almost exactly like it does in Explore Freezers:
Hovering over objects gives you information about their contents
Navigation is as simple as clicking around then using the tabs at the top to backtrack
Freezer capacity is visible the whole time
However, the visual interface does differ from Explore Freezers in a few ways. Whenever you need to open a new freezer, freezer section, or alias, click this special tab in the top left corner of the picture. This will open the overlay that we started with. Freezer capacity is also always turned on in Move Aliquots, as we believe it is indispensable to the moving process. Finally, you'll notice there is no right-click menu when viewing a box of aliquots, as Move Aliquots is all about moving! You can, however, change the display field for the aliquots as well as view them in a list view, by clicking this button.
Moving Aliquots with Drag and Drop– 02:30
So, let's start moving huh? There are two different ways to move. First, in the picture, no matter what you're looking, at you can always click and drag subdivisions or individual aliquots to different locations on the current tab. If you're moving a subdivision, you'll receive a confirmation with details about how many aliquots are being moved, and if exceptions need to be handled. If you’re just moving an aliquot or two, the move happens instantaneously, though no move is ‘saved’ until you click Save. To select multiple aliquots at once use CTRL or Shift-click. Once you have your selection, start dragging.
Moving Aliquots with the Workbench – 03:07
Most of the time, however, I imagine you'll need to move something outside of the currently open subdivision, probably to a different freezer entirely. This is the second type of move, and it involves the Workbench. Think of the Workbench like a ‘staging’ or ‘holding area’ for moves. Drag a subdivision or some aliquots here, and a line representing whatever you just dragged will be added to the Workbench list. Any objects dragged to the Workbench will become grayed out of the picture to indicate their transient status. In this way, we can go ahead and drag as many things as we need to move over to the Workbench, it doesn't matter what or where they are. If you ever make a mistake and need to return something to its original location, just highlight it in the Workbench and click Remove. If you ever need to quickly jump to a location represented on the workbench, say, if you've changed freezers or something, highlight it in the Workbench and click Go to Location. These two options are also available if you right-click a Workbench object.
Now, once you have all of the aliquots and subdivisions you want to move on the Workbench, aka the “sources," it's time to find their “destinations.” Again, if you need to change freezers, use this first tab. Once you find the location you want to move aliquots to, click and drag the source objects from the Workbench to the desired destinations in the picture. A confirmation will appear with each move, telling you how many aliquots are being moved and if exceptions need to be created or handled. In the past, freezer configurations needed to be identical for moves to be allowed. Now, Freezerworks will automatically create exceptions for destinations when necessary and ask you what to do with exceptions at sources. Also, if you are moving any aliases, Freezerworks will ask whether to move the alias to the destination as well or keep it at the source.
When you're ready, click Continue and the move is completed. The picture updates, but the move has not yet saved. The move will instead be added to the Pending Moves list which you can access at any time by clicking View Pending Moves. Your pending moves will be in this first list box. Highlighting one will populate the second list box with details for every aliquot involved in the selected move. Clicking close won't save the moves, but just return you to the Move Aliquots form, where you can continue moving aliquots, save the pending moves, or cancel it all. Just know that you will not be able to save with anything still in your Workbench, all Workbench items must be moved or removed.
Move Aliquots History – 06:02
When you're finished moving aliquots, a Move Aliquots History report will appear. You can print the report now for all or some moves and with or without details, or do it later by accessing Move Aliquots History in the Reports menu. The history records themselves are the same as the View Pending Moves form, only with a timestamp.
Conclusion – 06:25
That's it for our deep dive into Move Aliquots. If you have any more questions, consult our User's Guide or contact our dedicated support staff. In the next part of our Visual Freezer series, we'll look at adding and modifying aliquots in Samples Entry using Visual Freezers. Thanks as always for watching, see you next time!