Think of a value series as a generic way to build a pattern that corresponds to your patient ID, staining protocol or any other information that differentiates your tubes, instead of (or in addition to) using keywords. FlowJo can use keywords to organize and batch through your data but in the case that the keywords are missing or do not accurately reflect the type of operation you are looking to perform a value series can be used.
An example of this would be collecting your data without providing Patient ID information. Let's say you have 4 patients, with 4 tubes per patient, each tube containing a different staining protocol. A value series could be constructed to repeat the basic pattern: 1234, 1234, 1234, 1234. Then, by sorting according to value, the workspace could be organized to put all the 1s together, 2s together, etc. which allows you to group by Patient ID and create tiles for batching that reflect that pattern as well.
In addition, FlowJo allows you to assign keyword type values to the series you create to make the series have more biological significance.
If the FCS files themselves do not contain keywords that help organize them, add a new keyword within FlowJo, assign values to the keyword for each sample, and use your new keyword to sort or batch tubes accordingly.
- First, add a new keyword column to the Workspace. Go to Workspace > Add Keyword...
- Choose a name for the new keyword. This adds a new column with that name to the Workspace.
- Click in the first cell of the new column to activate it.
- From the main menu select Groups > Create Keyword Value Series... The following dialog appears. Mouse over the red dots for more information.
