How many times can you sign off and lock a channel?

Empower2019

If a channel of a standard is acquired once, is it possible to do an endless amount of Esign1 actions on it but only lock that channel once? Am I right in thinking that once a channel is locked no more electronic signatures can be done on it? Or can you do more signatures on a locked channel but just get a warning about it to say that its locked? Any insights appreciated, thanks.

MarcNoble

Hi - I'm not sure if this will help, but there are a few solutions in the Knowledge base that might help you.  Try this link - https://support.waters.com/Special:Search?qid=&fpid=230&fpth=&path=&q=can+a+locked+channel+be+signed+off

Empower2019

Thanks for that, there are some helpful articles on that. I found out from playing around with it that you can, in fact, sign off on a locked channel an infinite amount of times, either ESign1 or 2.

Dan_Ramlose

Locking a channel just prevents further processing of that result (I think).
If I'm correct, you can still process the original channel and generate more results, and you can report any given result with a number of different report methods limited only by Oracle and the amount of table space available - and everyone can be signed off multiple times.

Personally, I've decided that taking up gobs of table space and time with all-encompassing report methods is the lesser evil when compared to having many little report methods that *all* have to be signed off.

Empower2019

Hi Dan. Actually, once you lock a channel or channels you cannot process that channel again and generate another result- you can open the channel and even integrate it but you cant save any result associated with that channel until its unlocked. I know you can process results and result sets but im presuming, because you have the option to lock channels from Sample Sets, Injections, Channels, Results Sets and Results view, that any lock applies to all forms of that channel from raw injection to result. 

I recall a message saying something like "Channel already locked" which appears when you try to lock an already locked channel but I wasn't sure if there was a limit to the number of times you can ESign1 or 2 a channel. But depending on your policy settings, you only get a warning saying "these results have already been signed off for this reason" but it doesn't stop you from doing it. 

Dan_Ramlose

The second part of your comments is spot on.

Some years back, on a different installation, I recall having had no problems generating additional results using "locked" channels. It could be a policy setting difference or faulty memory on my part.

Empower2019

That's interesting, I must try and reprocess a result or result set using channels that have been locked and see if im allowed to do so. I know if I try and process a sample set of locked channels I get a message saying unable to process as channel is locked. I must see do I get the same thing with a result/result set. 

Empower2019

I just confirmed that you cant actually process any form of locked data, whether you choose to lock channels from the raw data view of sample sets, injections, channels,result sets or results. I tried processing result sets and results after locking the associated channels and it wouldnt work. Message centre confirmed unable to process due to locked channel..