ANY-maze Help > The ANY-maze reference > The Tests page > Running tests > After testing > Cancelling a performed test

Cancelling a performed test

Introduction

In some situations you may want to cancel a test you've performed. For example, you might have started the test by accident (although then undoing the test may be a better option) or you might have tested the animal too many times.

Details

How to cancel a test:

There are two ways to cancel a performed test:

•

Open the Testing status menu on the Test schedule report (by clicking the little down arrow next to the testing status) and then select Cancel test from the options which appear.

•

Alternatively:

Click the Test number on the Test schedule report.

The Test details report will open

Click the

Cancel test button in the ribbon bar.

Click the

Back button shown in the ribbon bar to return to the Test schedule report.

The test will be marked as Cancelled. Note: The test will disappear from the Test schedule report unless you have the checked the option to Include cancelled tests shown in the ribbon bar.

Cancelled tests are rescheduled

If you cancel a test, what you're doing is telling ANY-maze to ignore the test and act as if it hadn't been performed. This means that the test scheduler will see that the animal is missing a trial (i.e. the one you just cancelled) and will automatically add a new test into the schedule to compensate. For example, if you're performing a stage in which each animal is to be tested 3 times and you've tested animal 1 in all 3 trials and you then cancel its trial 1, then a new test will be added as it will only have had 2 trials. Note that in this situation what was trial 2 would become trial 1, what was trial 3 would become trial 2 and the new test would be trial 3. This is because trials are numbered in the order they're actually performed - clearly then by telling ANY-maze that trial 1 should be ignored it will act as if the 2nd trial the animal had was it's first. (If this isn't what you want, then you may wish to consider re-performing the test instead of cancelling it.)

This rescheduling of tests can seem a little odd but it makes sense if you consider what you're telling the system - in the above example you told it, 'each animal is to receive 3 trials' if you then remove one of those trials it will put a new one in to satisfy the requirement you gave it.

Of course, you might want to cancel a test because it should never have been performed. For example, imagine that in the above example animals should be tested AT MOST 3 times or until you tell ANY-maze they've had enough trials. So you tested the animal in 3 trials but now you realise that the third trial was unnecessary and you'd like to cancel it but when you do so it gets rescheduled. Well actually that's correct, you're now in the same situation as you would have been in if you'd not performed the test yet (trials 1 and 2 performed and trial 3 ready) - now you simply need to tell ANY-maze to end the stage's trials for the animal.

Cancelled tests are NOT permanently removed

When you mark a test as cancelled it isn't actually thrown away, rather its marked as cancelled. ANY-maze ignores all tests which are marked this way so the effect is much the same as removing the test EXCEPT for two things:

You can still see that the test was actually performed because it'll still be listed in the Animal details report - this may be important, after all the animal did actually spend some time in the apparatus even if you chose to cancel the test afterwards.

You can un-cancel a test by simply clicking the Un-cancel this test button shown in the ribbon bar when the Test details report of a cancelled test is displayed.

Cancelling all of an animal's tests won't remove the animal

If you want to remove an animal from an experiment it might seem logical to just cancel all of its tests, but this won't work because ANY-maze will simply reschedule the tests as you cancel them (see above). Instead, to remove an animal you should either retire or delete it.

ANY-maze help topic T0819