ANY-maze Help > The ANY-maze reference > The Tests page > Running tests > Before starting a test > Skipping a test

Skipping a test

Introduction

In some circumstances you may want to skip the next test in the schedule and come back to it later - for example, the animal may not be ready for the test yet.

Details

How to skip a test:

There are two ways you can skip a 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 Skip test from the options which appear.

•

Alternatively:

Click the "Test number" on the Test schedule report. (In fact this isn't a number but a marker as tests aren't actually numbered until they've been performed).

The Test details report will open. Click the

Skip test button in the ribbon bar.

Click the

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

The test will be marked as Skipped, and ANY-maze will step over it in the schedule.

Unskipping a test

When you want to perform a skipped test, you can either select Unskip test from the Testing status menu, or you can return to the Test schedule report and click the Un-skip test button in the ribbon bar. In either case the test will be reinserted in to the schedule and will usually be performed immediately.

Skipping all the tests for one animal

Note that skipping a test only affects THAT test, not all the tests for an animal. This means that skipping one trial for an animal won't stop any subsequent trials from being scheduled. If what you want to do is to temporarily remove an ANIMAL from the experiment then it's better to retire the animal from the experiment and then un-retire it when you want to start testing it.

Skipped tests prevent an experiment from progressing from one stage to the next

If an experiment includes multiple stages then ANY-maze won't progress from one stage to the next until all the tests in a stage have been performed. Thus if you reach the end of a stage and you still have some skipped tests in the stage then the stage will be 'blocked'. If you try to start the next test for the animal (i.e. a test in the stage after the one containing the skipped tests) then ANY-maze will warn you that you need to unskip the skipped tests and then perform them, or if you don't want to perform the tests then it will offer to delete them for you.

Removing a test altogether

If what you want to do is never perform a particular test then skipping it isn't the correct solution (skipping means 'I don't want to perform this test now'). Instead you should adopt one of the following measures:

If you don't want to perform any more tests on a specific animal then you should either Retire the animal or Delete it from the experiment altogether - which of these you choose will depend on whether you want to use the results of any tests the animal's already had.

If you're running a multi-stage experiment and you don't want to perform any more tests on this animal in the current stage then you should end the stage for the animal - the animal will continue to be tested in subsequent stages.

If you're running a multi-stage experiment and you don't want to perform any of the tests in a specific stage then you should skip the entire stage.

If the test has already been performed then you should Cancel the test as skipping only applies to tests which haven't been performed yet.

ANY-maze help topic T0804