About records and history

A study keeps every saved step so a reviewer can see what was entered, what changed and what was decided. See Review, print and sign off a report to open earlier records or amend a signed study.

LabRuns keeps your edits on the server as your own draft. Reopening the study, including in another browser, returns to your draft. Other people continue to see the saved study. Unsaved changes means your draft differs from the saved study. A Viewer sees only the saved study and never has a draft. Save changes saves the draft as the next revision. When two people change different rows or settings, LabRuns combines both sets of changes. See Save, discard or combine changes.

A data version is a complete copy of the study: setup, rows with their original and current values, exclusions with their reasons, settings and acceptance limits, with who saved it. Every save that changes something creates the next one, called on screen, for example, "data version 3".

A saved calculation belongs to one data version. It holds the estimates, limit outcomes, study notes, method statements and the report as produced then, and is named by its date, such as "Calculated Sep 24, 2026, 20:48". Calculating the same data version again returns the same calculation, unless the calculation method has changed.

A signed report belongs to one saved calculation. It holds the locked report, the sign-off date and time, the approving account and the PDF. Each calculation can be signed off once, and a study's reports are numbered 1, 2, 3.

None of these change once made. A later save, calculation or sign-off adds a new record beside the old ones, so the study always opens on its latest data version and earlier versions are read-only.

A correction keeps the original value beside the corrected one: the value in the imported file, or the first value saved for a typed row. A correction needs no reason, because the original stays visible. An exclusion leaves the row in the study with its reason. A saved row cannot be deleted, so the report's data listing shows every result entered and what changed. Excluding a result because it fails a limit would make the study misleading. An exclusion needs a documented reason unrelated to the value itself, such as a sample or instrument problem, a transcription error or a protocol deviation.

Any saved change to data, settings or limits puts the last result out of date. Its statistics stay visible so you can compare them with the recalculated ones, and the report waits for a recalculation. A signed report stays as it was, marked as older than the data. The markers are listed in Study notes and unavailable results.

Signed reports keep their original HTML, PDF and settings, and new work is recorded in later versions. A calculation opened from History looks as it did when it was calculated, so its design and wording may differ from today's; showing it in the current report format changes only layout and wording, never its values.

Each saved calculation carries the Method ID of the method that produced it. A method gets a new Method ID when a change to it can alter a value or a decision you see. Existing calculations and reports keep their old Method ID and values; recalculating a data version creates a new calculation beside the old one, and you choose when to do that. Current Method IDs are in Study reference.

If an error is found in a calculation method, a corrected version of a saved calculation can be recorded. The original is kept. The corrected version is shown and exported, and a report signed off from it names the correction and its reason.