How Your Work Connects
The point of keeping everything in one place is that a result never loses the context that produced it. A sample knows which images came from it, an image analysis knows which images it measured, and a figure knows which numbers it drew. This page explains how those links are made, what they buy you, and where a link is deliberately a snapshot instead.
The Chain
Most work in a lab runs in one direction, and Conspecta records it as it happens:
sample → images → image analysis → data table → chart → figure
↘ protocol run → materials consumed
↘ samples produced
Almost none of that is manual. Uploading photos to a sample links them. Running an analysis from a sample links the analysis. Finishing a run records what it consumed and what it produced. Adding a chart to a figure records which table it came from.
Seeing the Connections
Open any sample and its Connections tab draws the map: what it came from, and everything downstream of it. Photos, image analysis, cytometry, FCS files, data tables, figures, protocol runs, notebook pages, inventory, orders, and tasks all appear as nodes you can click through, and clicking one re-centers the map on it.
Set parent sample records lineage, so a subclone points at the culture it came from and a section points at the block. To go the other way and name what came out of the sample you're on, use Link and pick the sub-sample: because two samples can only be related by one coming from the other, it asks which of them came first and then draws that on the map.
Other workspaces show the same relationships from their own side. A figure's sidebar lists the analysis work that contributed its panels. A collection's header shows how many runs use it. A data table shows which figures were built from it. A protocol run lists the samples it consumed and the samples it made.
Linking Things Yourself
Where the chain doesn't make the link for you, you can:
- Embed a resource in a note, protocol, or task. The
/menu inserts a live reference to a sample, sequence, data table, image collection, cytometry analysis, order, supplier, task, protocol, or run. - Link anything from the Connections map. The map's Link button joins whatever the map is centered on to anything else in the project you can find by search, such as an analysis, a figure, a task, or a protocol run. It names what it will attach to once you've moved off the item you opened. To build a chain rather than a single link, use Link from here on a node: it re-centers the map on that node and starts a link from it, so a run, the sample it produced, and that sample's sequence can be joined in one sitting.
- Embed data into a table, which pulls a whole workspace in as rows that refresh from their source.
- Link a session to what it produced, on an instrument's Sessions tab, from the files acquired during that booking.
- Attach a step to a material or instrument when writing a protocol, so running it draws down real stock and points at the real machine.
Live, Snapshot, or Manual
Not every link should update on its own, and Conspecta is deliberate about which does what.
| Link | Behavior | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Embedded columns in a data table | Live, refreshed on demand | The workspace owns the truth, and you pull the latest when you want it |
| Image analysis results | Written to a data table as each run completes | The run is the event worth recording |
| Flow statistics sent to a table | A snapshot, taken when you send it | A figure built on those numbers shouldn't change because someone nudged a gate |
| A chart panel in a figure | Linked, but never auto-updates | A figure is a claim about data at a moment, so it tells you the source moved and offers to refresh |
| A protocol run's recipe | Frozen when the run starts | What you followed is what gets recorded, even if the protocol is edited mid-run |
| An approval or sign-off | Goes stale when the content changes | An approval refers to a specific version, not to the name of the thing |
The pattern behind all of it: anything that could quietly rewrite a record you've already relied on asks first.
What the Connections Buy You
Tracing a result backwards. Given a number in a figure, you can reach the table, the analysis, the images, and the sample, without anyone having kept a spreadsheet of what came from where.
Moving work without breaking it. Moving an image analysis to another project brings its images and tables, moving a figure brings the images in its panels, and moving a sample brings its photos. The unit that moves is the thing plus what it means. Anything you had already deleted stays behind in the original project's Trash, where you can still restore it.
Knowing what an item touched. A reagent lot shows the runs that consumed it. An instrument booking shows the files acquired during it. A protocol shows every run of it, and each run shows what it produced.
Asking questions in plain language. Because the links are real records rather than folder conventions, an AI assistant connected to your lab can follow them. "Which samples used lot 4471, and what did the analysis show?" is a question with an answer. See Connect your AI assistant.
Tip: The habit worth forming is starting work from the thing it's about. Running an analysis from the sample, or a protocol from the sample group, costs the same clicks as starting from the workspace and leaves you with a record that explains itself later.
Where Links Don't Reach
A private item is invisible to everyone but its owner, everywhere, including in someone else's connection map. If a teammate can't see a link you expect, check whether the thing on the other end is still private.
Files you keep outside Conspecta aren't part of the graph. A result computed elsewhere and pasted in as an image is a picture, not a link. If the provenance matters, bring the numbers in as a data table.