FlowJo v10 maintains an activity log that records every modification to a workspace, template, or ACS file.
Need to know exactly how and where a modification was performed or how long a workspace was open? These details are recorded in FlowJo v10’s ActionLog viewer. You can view the activity log’s XML directly by navigating to the Power Band and reveal any actions performed on a workspace since it was opened and view the elapsed time since any activity was initiated. You can even save as a text file or copy and paste the XML to a text editor.
Activity logs can reveal changes that have occurred from a common workspace. For instance, a clinical lab may have a dedicated T-cell template that should never have additional gates added or so- called preprocessing gates moved. To determine if a gate has moved or was added to an analysis, one can simply inspect the activity logs of a chosen workspace. However, to get detailed information about the exact changes that have occurred (i.e changes to gate coordinates or size, changing parameters, adding statistics) you may need to inspect the workspace XML. Provided activity logs and workspace XML are saved between experiments, any changes to the template or workspace can be revealed.
The ActionLog viewer records the type of “clicks” or events that a user initiated during an open session. As long as FlowJo remains running, the activity log for each workspace or template continues to record any event, and at the very least, the elapsed time between clicks. If FlowJo is quit, then the activity log for the respective workspaces/templates is lost. Thus if your lab requires these logs for every workspace, you will want to save prior to exiting the program. The section below describes how to open and save and activity log using the ActionLog viewer.
For more detailed information about recording exact gate types, coordinates, parameters, layouts and other workspace artifacts, see our page about Workspace XML.
This page is intended to show you how to find and save the activity logs for a workspace.
Opening and Saving the Action Log
- Click the blue ribbon icon to reveal the ribbon configuration menu.
- Click and drag the Power Band into the ribbon on the FlowJo workspace. (The power band should now occupy your ribbon).
- Close the close the ribbon configuration menu.
- Click the Power Band.
- Click the Show Diagnostic sub-menu.
- Select the ActionLog viewer.
- Copy the XML by clicking the Copy to Clipboard OR Save by selecting the Save As button.
Each group of lines contained within a <entry>….</entry> pair indicates an action has taken place in the workspace. The first line (contained within the <entry_type> and </entry_type> indicates what type of action had taken place. The following line <command … /command> reveals what the specific action was. The “where” can be found between the <extended_info>…</extended_info>. Time elapsed since the last action is recorded in the last line for each group (<elapsed_time>). The figure below shows a set of actions performed within a graph window. 1) Creation of a gate using the autogating tool on the graph window. 2) Approximately 4 seconds later I named the gate “Lymphocytes”. Indicated by the “Gate Modified” between the <entry_type/> brackets. 3) 7 seconds after that I copied the gate to a group. 4) 5 seconds later, I moved the lymphocytes gate.
If you have any questions about the ActionLog Viewer or would like more information, please send us an email at flowjo@bd.com.