Revvity Signals Research Suite - 2024 Updates
The Signals Research Suite is a complete, integrated data capture, processing & analysis SaaS software for scientific research. Capture, manage, and share experiment data, notes and research findings in a secure and accessible environment built on the foundation of Signals Research Platform.
Releases By Year
What's New
This version 24.4 release of Signals brings new ways to find content, including new smart folder views to enable organization and recovery, and a new search facet to retrieve content by the system template used in creation. We have improved chemistry handling in ChemDraw documents especially around biomolecules drawn using the HELM notation standard. Administrators can now add a new “Sign and Keep Open” option that requests reviewers, and define External Actions on Plate Containers. Our previously beta capabilities around plate templates, container search tables and child materials are now available to all systems. We have added new beta capabilities for around Normalized Compounds, Internal requests and web based Spotfire access, the latter is only available under licenses of Signals Research Suite. Finally, we have also fixed a number of small bugs.
The following improvements are available for users of Signals Notebook Individual Edition, Signals Notebook Standard, Signals Notebook Private Cloud, Signals Research Suite Standard and Signals Research Suite Private Cloud. Certain features may only be available with appropriate licensing and/or with enablement by an administrator.
• Fundamentals
– Now” option added to calendar picker for Date/time properties and search
– Option to edit and view Spotfire Files and Inventa Analysis Objects in your web browser (beta)
– Adding a Spotfire File creates a blank Analysis file (beta)
– Smartfolder Table View
• VitroVivo
– Revised Cohort Definition Step in Study Designer
• Chemistry
– Labels are now hidden when monomers are expanded
– A cursor displays where a new structure will be drawn when in HELM editing mode
– Improved click selection behaviors for expanded monomer structures
– Definition line of a FASTA DNA/RNA sequence added as an annotation when pasted into a Chemical Drawing
– Flip structure
• Variation Tables
– Improved data entry in Horizontal and vertical summary views
• Plates
– Plate Templates available to all systems
• Inventory
– Container Search Table available to all systems
– Container Search Table export and update to column widths
– Internal Request of Materials with Aliquot (beta)
– Bulk Print Container Barcode
• Materials
– Creation of Child Replicate Materials available to all systems
– Creation of Child Materials from Materials Smart Folder available to all systems
– Calculated properties for Protein Materials
– Normalized Compounds (Beta)
• Search
– Search for objects by System Template used
• Administration
– “Sign and Keep Open” option for Reviewers
• Integrations & APIs
– POST /entities/{eid}/children/{filename} now allows you to specify a layout page to attach to
– GET /plates/{plateContainerId}/plates/{id} now contains the PlateID as an attribute
– PATCH /plates/{plateContainerId}/plates/{id} allows for updating of PlateID attribute
– A new endpoint has been added to update the status of a Container
– External Actions can now be created for Plate Containers
We also fixed several small bugs in this release. Details of the enhancements are described below.
The following OnDemand videos for Signals Notebook Administrators are now available:
• Variation Tables – Building initial formulation or mixture template
Developers in Signals Research Suite should note that a pagination limit has been added to the Signals Data Factory public and primary APIs.
Developers in Signals Research Suite should note that the Data Factory endpoints GET /maps and POST maps/search have changed the “created” and “updated” metadata fields to “createdBy” and “updatedBy”, respectively. Two new metadata fields, “createdAt” and “updatedAt” have also been added.
Administrators should note that we have changed the requirements around the unique naming of notebooks in a future release. Notebook name uniqueness is now case sensitive, and hence names differing only in case will be allowed. This behavior only applies for when Global Numbering is not enabled for notebooks.
Developers in Signals Notebook and Signals Research Suite should note that the endpoints GET /attributes/{eid} and PATCH /attributes/{eid} will now only return the "counts" object in the "attributes" object if a new query parameter is specified.
Developers in Signals Notebook and Signals Research Suite should note that Inventory will be updated to give more meaningful error codes, the error codes provided via the External API will now better align the API with the user interface, specifically regarding 4xx (400, 409 and 412) error codes. This change will be made in a future release. The following codes will now be returned: 456 (BARCODE_IN_USE), 457 (INVALID_COORDINATES), 458 (NAME_IN_USE), 459 (TYPE_NOT_EDITABLE), 460 (ANCESTOR_NOT_EDITABLE), 461 (PROPERTY_OR_FIELD_NOT_EDITABLE), 462 (ENTITY_IN_USE), 463 (NOT_A_GRID),464 (INVALID_TYPE), 465 (CONTAINER_NOT_DISPOSED), 466 (CONTAINER_DISPOSED_OR_FINAL_DISPOSED), 467 (TYPE_NOT_SUPPORTED), and 468 (VALUE_OUT_OF_BOUND).
Administrators are recommended to subscribe to the channels within our support news site found at https://support.revvitysignals.com/hc/en-us/categories/360004446171-Support-News which contains more information about releases and other pertinent product information.
This content is anticipated for release on our Production E3 environments, and for Private Cloud customers on our deferred release schedule, in November 2024.
Further Details
The following improvements are available for users of Signals Notebook Individual Edition, Signals Notebook Standard, Signals Notebook Private Cloud, Signals Research Suite Standard and Signals Research Suite Private Cloud. Certain features may only be available with appropriate licensing and/or with enablement by an administrator.
Fundamentals
The calendar picker used for Date/Time properties now contains a “Now” option to facilitate the entry of the current time/date into the field. This option is also available in the calendar entry screen for search queries on time/date based properties.
The new Grid view option from Inventory Containers is being expanded to the Smartfolders in Signals Notebook. To utilize the new grid view users can select the new view icon. Users can select which properties are shown using the “Show/Hide” property picker.
Filters can be added to the side bar as normal or columns can be filtered by selecting the column and entering the filter value. Once added the filter will also appear on the side “Filter” bar.
Columns can be reordered by drag and drop. As with the card view the first 20 items are loaded with the option to “Show More” available at the bottom.
The grid view will now be available for Materials, Samples, Experiments, and Parallel Experiment Smartfolders.
VitroVivo
Strain and Gender information for animals must now be entered in the Cohort Definition step within the Study Designer. Regarding Strain, users can either select a value from a drop-down list or input a new value directly into the field. Gender can be selected from pre-configured options available in a drop-down menu. These updates eliminate the need to predefine Gender and Strain values in study templates.
Chemistry
Several usability enhancements are available for working with HELM structures. When monomers are expanded, the expanded monomer labels will now be hidden. In addition, when monomers are expanded there is improved click selection behavior. Double clicking on a bond or atom in a monomer will select that monomer. An additional double click will select the entire sequence.
When using the HELM editing tools, a cursor now indicates where a structure will be drawn prior to adding any monomers.
When pasting a DNA or RNA FASTA sequence with header into a Chemical Drawing, either directly or via the Text tool of the HELM Editor, the FASTA header will appear as an annotation.
There are two new tools available that allow users to flip structures horizontally or vertically.
Variation Tables
“Tab” can now be used to navigate around the Horizontal and Vertical Summary views to aid in systematic data entry. “Tab” will move to the equivalent field for the next Variant, or if the final Variant, to the next row in the first Variant. Shift-Tab will reverse the behavior.
Plates
Plate Templates is now available to all systems.
Inventory
The Container Search Table is now available to all systems.
Container Search Table update to column widths, users can hover over the line between the column headers to adjust the size of the column to fit the data:
The Container Search Table also now supports export. For users to export containers, they need to have a User Role that allows for the Export Containers privilege.
When exporting, if only a subset of containers are selected, only those rows will be exported. The export will only include the columns selected to be shown in the table.
If no rows are selected, the export will include all containers up to 600K, and only the selected/shown columns:
When the export is done, a notification will appear at the bottom of the screen and in the bell near the user name:
If the report is needed later, it can be found under the user name/Inventory Bulk Results/ Bulk Container Export. Files are saved for 30 days and then removed from the list.
Bulk Print container barcodes option is available on the bulk action Inventory page:
Materials
Admins may now configure calculated property fields for protein type Materials. The values will appear on the Material focus pages and can be added to Materials tables once configured. The values will be associated with the Asset level of the Material and calculated from the Materials amino acids.
Values are calculated when a Protein Material is registered or edited.
The creation of child replicate materials, previously available in beta, is now available to all systems.
The creation of child materials from the focus page of a parent material, previously available in beta, is now available to all systems.
Search
Objects can now be found by specifying the System Template used to create them. An “Origin Template” facet has been added to search. This will allow the user to search for an object by the name of the system template used to create it.
Administration
A new workflow option call “Allow add Reviewers and Keep Open” is now available. This option allows for a user to add reviewers without changing the state of the experiment type object (experiment, parallel experiment, or ADO).
The option can be enabled by selecting the new checkbox under Signing Settings and enabling the associated privilege.
Once enabled a user will be able select “Add Reviewers and Keep Open” under the Signing page. Users can add reviewers and continue working.
Integrations & APIs
The POST /entities/{eid}/children/{filename} endpoint has been enhanced to allow posting an attachment to a specific layout page.
Entity pages pageId’s are accessible through the following endpoint: GET /entities/{eid}/layout/pages
Endpoints for Plates have been enhanced to provide programmatic access to each plates “Plate ID” field.
The GET /plates/{plateContainerId}/plates/{id} and /plates/{plateContainerId}/plates now contain the “plateId” as an attribute of an individual Plate in the API response.
The PATCH /plates/{plateContainerId}/plates/{id} has been enhanced to allow updating of the “plateId” attribute as part of the request body. Example body below:
A new endpoint, POST /inventory/containers/{containerId}/status/{action} has been added to change the status of a Container. The accepted actions are dispose, finalDispose, restore, checkout and checkin.
External Actions can now be created for Plate Containers. For GET submit methods the URL parameter will contain the PlateContainers entity ID. For a POST the body will include basic details of the Plate Container.
The following capabilities are in beta and are only available to users and administrators of Signals Notebook Standard, Signals Notebook Private Cloud, Signals Research Suite Standard and Signals Research Suite Private Cloud upon request. Please contact your account representative or our support team if you would like access to the following features. They are unavailable as part of Signals Notebook Individual Edition.
Fundamentals
Users now have the option to edit and view Spotfire Files and Inventa Analysis Objects within their web browser. Spotfire Online requires no installation, is Mac compatible, and opens in a new browser tab.
Adding a Spotfire File creates a blank Analysis file (previously loaded a local file). Inventa Analysis Object now allows the option of choosing the opening method on creation (previously opened automatically in the locally installed Analyst).
The locally installed Spotfire for Signals Analyst is still available and is the suggested option for designing & creating advanced dashboards & workflows from scratch.
Inventory
Users with View access to Materials can make Internal Requests for a Material or a Material with the Batch/Lot specified.
Once the form has been filled out, the user will get a confirmation with a link. Users that create the Internal Request can edit them. Admins can edit if the Security Policy is set appropriately.
Users can also similarly request containers or Samples.
For Containers the form will be populated with both Material and Container information. For Samples the Sample information will be filled.
Inventory or System Administrators will be able to fulfill Internal Requests. Internal Requests can be fulfilled directly from the Internal Request object. All the required information will autofill and the administrator can Cancel or continue the Fulfill whereby the status will be updated to Fulfilled and the Location, Current User and Status will be updated.
If the Internal Request was for a Material or Material with Batch/Lot, the request will need to be updated to have a container associated. The administrator can select from a list of available containers.
If an Aliquot should be created, the Aliquot Container workflow can be initiated. A warning is provided if insufficient material exists to create the aliquot. Once the Aliquot(s) have been created, barcode(s) may be printed. The parent Container will also be updated.
The Internal Request will initially go to a Pending status to give the administrator time to determine when the request will be fulfilled/delivered to the requestor. The status can be further updated to Fulfilled. Internal Requests can be fulfilled in bulk in the Material Requests Table. Requests that have associated containers and do not require placement in a grid location will be fulfilled. Updating Status to Pending, Submitted or Canceled do not require containers and will work for grid locations. Requests in the Fulfilled status over 30 days old will be removed from the table.
Containers not associated with an Internal Request can also be Aliquoted. Navigate to the container to be aliquoted, define the amounts to be placed in each aliquot and print barcodes.
The child container(s) will have a new Container Property, Parent Container that is auto filled:
Materials
A new Material Library type called “Normalized Compound” is now available upon request. This new library type allows for a Salt Stripped or “Normalized” structure to be stored on the Asset level and the raw structure (or Salt form) to be stored on the Batch level.
In the administrator interface SN Config, an admin can create a “Normalized Compound”- type library by creating a new material type and selecting Normalized Compounds.
The Admin can define uniqueness rules for the structure that will apply for both the asset and batch level structures and select properties on the asset and batch level that can be used for uniqueness checking.
The structure option appears on both the Asset and Batch level record definition.
The Normalized Compound Material type comes with an out of the box Salt Stripper. To utilize this Salt Stripper during registration, the Admin must ensure that SMILES have been loaded in the Salt table on the SN Config.
If the Salt SMILES have been loaded, when the user goes to register a new material with a salt to the new Normalized Compounds library, the CDWS Salt Stripper will automatically recognize the presence of the salt. The stripped/normalized structure will be returned on the Asset level and the stripped salts will be added to the Salts table on the batch level.
On the registration modal the user will be able to review the normalized structure, the salt form at the batch level, and the stripped salts prior to registration. When they hit Register, the Normalized structure with undergo uniqueness checking against all other registered Asset level structures in the library, if a match is found, the user will be able to either use the match or treat as unique. If the user selects “Use Match”, the Batch level structure will undergo uniqueness checking against all other batches in the chosen asset.
If a match is found the user will be prompted to either use the match or treat as unique. If the user elects to “Use Match” the new batch will be registered under the same Batch Type as the selected match. If the user opts to treat the batch as unique, the batch will be registered with a new Batch type.
On the Material page users will have a preview of the Batch Structure visible.
What's New
This version 24.3 release of Signals brings a series of enhancements to the ChemCharts in Signals Inventa. We have also improved the Variation Table summary views and made this capability available to all systems. We have also made all of a series of improvements around Internal reference fields available to all systems. We have continued to work on our ongoing beta capabilities for the inventory container search table and new beta capabilities around creating Tasks and other Materials from Materials. Finally, we have also fixed a number of small bugs.
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