Waters : Empower Tip #262 | Happy Fifth Anniversary

Tip #262: Special Anniversary Edition with Empower Tips Recap for 2021

In this week's tip for Empower Chromatography Data System (CDS), we are celebrating the fifth Anniversary of Empower Tip of the Week. In last week's tip, we answered a user question about calculating resolution between peaks that are in different channels. The approach in Tip 261 was to create a Custom Field to calculate resolution between the two peaks.

An enormous THANK YOU to everyone for following the Empower blog, subscribing to the weekly email and attending the webinars. Since its launch in early 2017, I received some great questions. So, as I did at the beginning of last year, I want to take a moment to summarize what we covered in 2021 and share a few excellent questions I received.

Major topics covered in 2021:

1. Understanding Injection and Channel Status - Tips #212, 213
2. Creating and Working with Export Methods - Tips #218, 219, 223, 224
3. Durable Data - Tip #221
4. Method Lifecycle Management - Tips #211, 220, 228, 238, 246
5. Method Versioning - Tips #242-245
6. Peak Purity using data from both PDA and QDa Mass Detector - Tips #251-258

Throughout the year, we received some excellent questions. I would like to share two questions which may be of interest to all. Both are related to Report Methods. Please refer to Tips #148-164 for more details on creating/working with Report Methods.

Let's get started.

Question 1: How can I calculate resolution between two peaks that are in two different channels?

Step 1

We start with a report containing the Empower logo (figure 1).

figure 1

Step 2:

In Report Publisher, go to the Header/Footer view (figure 2).

figure 2

Step 3

Right click on the existing logo and select 'Graphic Properties' (figure 3).

figure 3

Step 4

Click 'Load Graphic' (figure 4).

figure 4

Step 5

Navigate to your logo. You can use a .bmp or .emf file. Once you find it, highlight name and click 'Open' (figure 5).

figure 5

Step 6

The new logo appears in the Graphic properties. Click ''OK, save all changes to the report and go to Preview (figure 6).

figure 6

Step 7

The new logo is in the report (figure 7).

figure 7

Question 2: I made three injections per sample and created a Custom Field to calculate %RSD for peak area. I then created a control chart to plot %RSD for replicate injections over time. The result is a control chart with %RSD for every injection. How do I get the report to display the %RSD for the replicates?

Step 1

In the properties of the report group, click on the 'Order By' tab and click 'Data Filtering Conditions' (figure 8).

figure 8

Step 2

Expand Injection, double click 'Injection' to add it to the table. Click in the 'Condition 1' field, the 'Create a Condition' dialogue opens. Select '=' and type in '3', then click 'OK' to everything. When you go to Print Preview, the control chart will plot %RSD for replicate injections over time (figure 9)

figure 9

Step 3

This will instruct Empower to report the value for %RSD for only the last injection.

It's that easy!

Stay tuned throughout 2022 as we continue to explore the possibilities with Empower, working with GC data, working with CE data and Dissolution amongst others. Please keep your suggestions coming for future Empower Tip topics and as always, I encourage you to send me your questions.

Final Note: This can be done with either the Pro or QuickStart interface.

Please rate this Empower Tip of the Week

Next time in Empower Tip #263 - we will start a short series on working with UV spectra in Spectrum Review.

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