How to Randomize and Blind a Study

Open the study and select the Animals tab. It lists every animal with its Sex, Strain, Genotype, Group, and Status, plus the Randomize, Generate blinded IDs, and Cohort Builder action buttons. Before you start, make sure the study has animals added and at least two cohorts created on the Groups tab — randomization needs at least two target groups.

In the action row at the top-right of the Animals tab, click Randomize. The Randomize animals dialog opens. If the study has been randomized before, a Randomization history section lists each previous run with its seed, method, and timestamp.

Fill in the dialog: Target groups (required — pick at least two cohorts; the Randomize button stays disabled until you do); Balance by (optional stratification on Sex, Genotype, Litter, Cage, or Age); Seed (optional) (leave blank to auto-generate, or reuse a seed to reproduce an assignment); and Lock animals (optional) (animals that should stay in their current group).

Click Randomize. On success you'll see a "Randomization complete" confirmation, and the dialog switches to an Assignment summary showing the seed and method used plus a per-group table of how many animals landed in each cohort. Click Close — the Animals tab refreshes and the Group column now reflects the new assignments (each animal's status becomes Assigned).

Back on the Animals tab action row, click Generate blinded IDs. The dialog notes "Assigns a unique blinded ID to each eligible animal. Re-running overwrites existing IDs." Set a Scheme (Sequential or Random) and an optional Prefix (e.g. BL-), then click Generate. A confirmation reports how many blinded IDs were created.

Turn on the Blinded view toggle to see an identity-stripped table of Blinded ID, Status, and Joined date. Use Export blinded IDs CSV to download the blinded mapping, Print blinded labels for a printable sheet, or Clear blinded IDs to remove them all.