Chromatography Forum

The earlier thread is locked, sorry for revisiting the topic.

I've tried to follow Tim's suggestion ( in my version, 2.02, there's no "main peak" option under Quantitation ), and the report still comes out with all the signals. If I have the DAD acquiring at 205 and 220nm, I get signal 1 and signal 2 in the report table, each adding up to 100%.

That's using a report table format from the Quantitation selection of Peaks/Peak#, Signal/Sig#, Peaks/RT, Peaks/Peak Height, peaks/Peak Area, Peaks/Peak Width, Peaks/Area % relative to peaks on signal.

If I choose the Signals option under Quantitation instead of peaks, there is no Peak #, but making the same choices as I did under Peaks, then I end up with the table containing eack peak's result repeated in rows that match the total number of peaks integrated ( 5 integrated peaks would yield 5 x 5 line = 25 lines of table, 10 would yield 100 lines ). Oops.

The only way I've found to eliminate the second signal is to only record one DAD wavelength, or to reprocess with the integration of the second signal off - I'm sure I'm missing something obvious, but the local Agilent support person couldn't show me how to select and report just one of the DAD signals recorded, without going through nauseous calibration routines. For method development, I'd just like a simple Chemstation-like template that gave just a selected signal report as area %.

Any help is appreciated, and I'll try to respond in a more timely manner,

Thanks,

Bruce Hamilton

Bruce,
Sorry you didn't find the fields I thought were there.

The only other way I can think of filtering the signal would be to use a Table or Column level condition (available on the right-click menu in the report editor), but I'm not to clued up on how they work.

The phenomenon you are seeing when you get 5x5 sets of data is consistent with the way the database works - you are trying to pull data from tables in the database where there isn't something that links the two directly and the report engine isn't inteligent enough to workout what the link actually is. Therefore you get a Cartesian Product of everything in one set of data linked to everything in the other set of data. I had a similar problem when I tried to edit a report via the HTML code, so eventually had to split the tables.

You could try emailing the main Agilent helpline - lab_informatics@agilent.com. They might be able to help.

Here's hoping you finally have success. Will take another look when I have the time and see if I can think of anything else to try.

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the quick reply. I suspect some of the field choices that I see may be determined by the initial method/sequence parameters I've selected, so I'm going to have more of a play with that initial setup section.

At the moment I'm a little wary of playing with it too much, as my standalone version tends to go on holiday when I ask it to multitask intensively - Agilent have promised a solution soon. Currently, I have a lot of samples due to run, and will play when I can.

Thank you very much for the considered reply and the explanation as to why I'm seeing the data repeated - very sensible, and knowiing the cause can help devise solutions. I'll also try emailling the support line, so thanks very much for the address.

Please keep having fun,

Bruce Hamilton

Hi Tim and Bruce,
I hope you don't mind if I use this forum to ask of your opinion on the Cerity subject. I had the Cerity installed at our lab on Oct-2003 and it still has not been up and running as I expected. I spent a lot of time initially to get to know the system and communicated back and forth with Agilent for support. Of course, I complained a lot about the available features in chemstation and chemstore which I cannot find in Cerity. One service patch after another released to resolve the issues that I had. Now, since everything has been paid for, I do have a choice to upgrade to the latest version of chemstation and chemstore c/s (with security pack for part 11 compliance) or install the latest version of Cerity. We have been using Chemstation for ages and we are spoiled. Which one should I choose? I do pharma QC, production, R&D in our lab (a lot of method development, too.)

Thanks in advance,

Hi,
Honestly - after what I've now heard through our internal contacts and which confirms what others on this forum have said - I would forget ChemStation Plus and Cerity altogether.

Cerity is now on A.02.03 SR1 and we understand this may be the final version realeased as Agilent will focus on the OpenLab system that uses EZChrom. If you therefore want a fully Agilent supported product, that (OpenLab/EZChrom) would possibly be your best choice.

I'm not up to date with ChemStation Plus, but since Cerity was supposed to be the replacement for ChemStation Plus and possibly ChemStation LC itself, I assume that will go the same route.

The only alternative I would consider at the present time would be Waters Empower, since they are the only ones with the "official" agreement to exchange control codes, etc. I can't recall what functionality is available in Empower or what is missing that is available in ChemStation/Cerity, but it is an established stable product with a lot of features and flexibility. Unfortunately, despite the agreement, our corporate group decided against cross-control at the time so we have to first go to ChemStation Plus and then Cerity (when version 2 had been released), within the space of 3 years

There are many other opinions on the forum from those with experience of third-party chromatography systems that will (supposedly) provide level 3 or 4 control of Agilent HPLCs and GCs. I don't want to drag this thread down that route, since it has been discussed numerous times before - check the rest of the forum and the archives.

Thanks Tim!!!
Respectfully,

Hi

I've used Chemstation since it was called 3365, and ran on Winodws /386. We had to go to Part 11 compliant software, and started with standalone Chemstore that ran on Access. Daily crashes meant we quickly replaced that with Chemstore C/S ( runs on Oracle ), and we never had a problem over the three years I worked with it that wasn't due to my mistakes.

The great advantage of Chemstation/Chemstore C/S is that you can use the Chemstation mode to develop methods and invoke the Chemstore stuff gradually, as needed. It got us through all client audits OK, and was easy to use on multiple GCs and HPLCs.

Last year, I set up my own business ( one new Prep and one new analytical HPLC ), and the local Agilent reps convinced me that Cerity standalone was better, and Chemstation/Chemstore C/S would be too expensive.

My Cerity system was qualified in early Jan, and I've been in almost daily contact with the local support. There are only two Cerity systems in NZ, and the other site has similar problems - they've got the money to replace it and plan to, but I haven't.

For the first month I had printing problems and frequent crashes. The printing problems were initially solved by installing simple Laserjet driver - which unfortunately would put gridlines on all chromatograms. The crashes were, in part, due to me believing that 21st century software would multitask like late 20th software, such as Chemstation.

During the second month, I had about one "kapow" a day. Cerity just disappeared when switching modes at the highest level ( sample, result, instrument, report ), with the bonus of another kapow each day if I decided too make it multitask ( work out some results whilst running a sequence in the background ).

I have asked how software can be compliant when it closes down without user intervention, and there's nothing recorded in the Windows EventViewer logs. I've seen about 4 - 5 different errors, but one was prevalent.

Agilent finally accepted that I wasn't totally stupid, and some logging programmes were used to trap the errors. During the third month, more logging was conducted, I mainly used it as a single tasking instrument ( one "kapow" is enough each day ), and Agilent issued a temporary patch to reduce ( but not eliminate ) the problem, with a promise of a complete fix.

The simple printer driver was also replaced with the correct one for the supplied printer, which then allow chromatograms to be printed out without gridlines.

During this month, the "kapow" factor is down as I try to process samples and earn some money. At the same time, I've been trying to get Cerity to generate simple Chemstation style reports - as I've developed simple methods for about 30 totally different compounds over the period, and don't need all the approval/validation stuff for many of the novel ones.

At the moment, the only way I get a presentable report is to run a screening method and sequence with multiple wavelengths, then select the wavelength and repeat the sequence with the method as a single wavelength. I'm now getting something similar to the Chemstation/Chemstore C/S functionality, and I don't have to use a scanner and scissors. Yea!. At this rate by Christmas I'll have Chemstation/Chemstore C/S functionality.

Tim has made some good suggestions to me, and the email reply from the suggested Agilent support was " you're not in out territory - talk to your local people ". Which I do, almost on a daily basis, they surely regret selling me the product .

So, I have no experience of the alternative software EZChrom ( which remains as an option for me if Agilent can't properly fix the " kapows " ) but I'd have no hesitation in jumping to a Chemstation/Chemstore C/S system.

If you can jump to another product, I'd go for it, but please first check to ensure it matches your needs. As I don't know EZChrom, frying pans and fires come to mind. Agilent are trumpeting that they are No 1 in HPLCs, but if they produce software like Cerity, and don't fix it quickly......

I hope this is helpful. If you have specific issues with your Cerity, and you think I might be able to help, feel free to email me ( but remember I'm a relative novice with it ), brucehamilton at paradise.net.nz.

Bruce Hamilton

Bruce,
Thank you so much for your inputs.
Respectfully,

Tim

There are many other opinions on the forum from those with experience of third-party chromatography systems that will (supposedly) provide level 3 or 4 control of Agilent HPLCs and GCs. (snip)

I understand that several CDS's can control many types fo equipment, either throught he exchange of control codes or through reverse engineering, but I've never heard of level 3 (or 4) control. What's that ?

Paul (a very contended Chromeleon user)

--
Paul Hurley

Hi Paul,
I'm not sure if it's industry standard terminology, or just something that Agilent came up with, but I found this article on the Bio-Parm website.

http://www.biopharm-mag.com/biopharm/ar ... p?id=89996

It covers what Level 1 and 2 provide as well. The summary in the link under the first pie-chart is quite good (if you can read it!).

Huber and Winter did/do work for Agilent, but I understand Huber in particular is well recognised for his work on compliance issues, particularly with 21CFR11.

Ludwig Huber has his own www site, as well as selling a lot of good resources for smaller regulated industry labs. It's worth visiting regularly ( monthly ) to keep up with compliance trends and new resources.

www.labcompliance.com

Also, given my adverse comments about my experience with Agilent's support of Cerity to date, and the fact that these threads get locked, I don't want this one archived without mentioning Agilent's recent responses.

Since posting, but also after further email corerespondence with local support, I have been contacted directly by the Agilent regional service manager. He has given a commitment to resolve all my Cerity non-performance issues, and that Cerity support in Germany will be paying close and complete attention to resolving my issues.

I'm sure that my post here had little to do with the recent flurry of Agilent support activity , but I will post about the eventual outcome, and perhaps also about the future of Cerity support after a face-to-face meeting with Agilent management next month.

Please keep having fun,

Bruce Hamilton

Hi Bruce,

I will post about the eventual outcome, and perhaps also about the future of Cerity support after a face-to-face meeting with Agilent management next month.

I can't wait...
thanks,

I may have been hasty in saying that support for Cerity is going to stop. I dug around in my email archive and found this from our Agilent PSO contact. It was sent in November 2005, so may or may not still be true. It also conflicts what I heard from other sources, so will have to dig some more with them.

Agilent will secure customers investment in Cerity by continuing to enhance the usability.
- Maintain OS, Oracle (e.g. of next generation Microsoft Windows (Vista) and Oracle 10)
- Quality improvements
- dedicated Customer enhancements (depends on need of QA/QC labs)
- new instrument support with Cerity for QA/QC labs
- Integration paths into the OpenLAB platform

We will have a new Cerity A.02.03 release in November.

Please see below the timeline of development for Cerity:

Release of A.02.03 End of November
Object Base Security (OBS), ....

Targeted in Q2-Q3 FY06
New Agilent LC support (A.02.03 SR1)
Cerity export tool in ACAML (single sequence and bulk export) for OL data retention
Raw data 2D3D, results, methods, metadata for navigation purposes

Targeted in FY07
Support of Oracle 10 (release for 9i EOS/ End Of Support) and of next generation Microsoft Windows (Vista) (A.02.03 SR2)

Further releases based on future Enterprise Software announcements and hardware introductions


As you see, Cerity is not a product that is about to be replaced!!

This would still seem to indicate no further releases in 2006 and is dependent on Vista being stable

Well, I thought I'd give a brief and benign update on relationship with standalone version of Cerity and Agilent support, just in case this thread closes.

I had a visit from the Agilent Regional Customer Support Manager, and was assured that Cerity Support would be closely scrutinising my situtaion and also ensuring the system would perform acceptably. I'm told my concerns have been taken seriously within their organisation.

After an unfortunate delay whilst I sorted out various security, software and hardware issues associated with making it Internet visible, Agilent Cerity Support examined my system remotely via the Internet.

Their decision has been to upgrade the system when the next Cerity Service Release comes out, which is only a few weeks away. I'll let you know whether my major concern has been addressed ( when asked to multitask, at least once on most working days, Cerity takes a holiday without permission ).

I've also asked about their commitment to Cerity, and have told them I may post some of their response here for bemused bystanders and any interested people. They have committed to responding to my questions when they formally describe their plan for addressing my issues, but my delay in providing Internet access will have also delayed that response.

My impression is that they agree that some of my issues are serious, and that they will fix them ( other owners can ask for a limited distribution patch if they also experience the petulant behaviour of Cerity standalone - the patch appears to mitigate some of the errors ). I'm hoping the next Service Release will make the system more robust.

The longer-term Cerity situation may not be clear - especially if they choose to promote some flavours and kill off others, but if I do receive information on their plans, I'll disclose what I can.

Please keep having fun,

Bruce Hamilton