Hi Hany,

This has frustrated me too as we have deployed OpenLab in two of our new alcohol labs, and I am doing some continuous improvement regarding petroleum method development next.  What I think is the autosaving of each AQ, DA, and Report Template with each sample (or set) would be good if it was turned off for method development.  In the older Chemstations the saving of the single AQ/DA/Report method with each sample was optional, not enabled by default.  I always enabled it anyway as a backup measure in case the current method in the CHEM32\METHODS folder became compromised or deleted.

If your regular current old Chemstation method did get deleted, in that offline DA routine you would have to manually open a recent sample run folder and load the method that was saved for that run named RUN.M, which is the name it applied to any of your main methods when routinely saving in a sample's folder.  Then you could save it under the original name right back in your METHODS folder where it was to begin with.  And you were back to normal.

In OpenLab so far, there are so many autocopies of the same method name in every sample folder along with the main METHODS folder, and you can't be as certain which one you are editing and where it is being saved, you really have to scrutinize a number of Windows details, and it's real easy to slip up.  So losing the ability to simply save your main method wherever you want under the same name is quite a time waster.

If you do rename a useful OpenLab method manually in Windows, when you reload sample data later the problem is compounded by the autosearching for the original method name in every other folder in your CDSProjects folder.  Then OpenLab apparently autoloads a method having the original name (from the original sample folder if available?) as if it was appropriate even though the method development of the main method still needs to be in progress before the method itself is actually WORTH being saved with each sample.

Seems like drug companies really need this method saving restriction but oil companies do not.

It would even be better if the wizard popped up every time to ask you if you want to load data files WITHOUT any method, so after loading the sample data you can more intentionally & reliably choose which folder/method you want to develop further.  So far it seems like that wizard only appears when it can find no method at all after its default search.

For a workaround, rename your project folder in Windows (you are SYSTEM I see) to "quarantine" it, then start a new project for each method development session.  Copying only what is minimally needed from the previous session.

Or in the middle of a session, manually delete the saved method and/or template from each sample folder in the CDSProjects folder.

Firstly , thank you very much for the beautiful and adequate explanation. I am already doing that, and I am already renaming the method from inside the folder.

Regard's