What are Ingredient Roles:
Ingredient roles enable recipe-specific categorization of ingredients. Within Uncountable, ingredients can be assigned to a particular category (e.g. solvent or preservative). However, an ingredient can have multiple roles depending on the recipe. For example, in some cases sodium benzoate is used as a preservative whereas in others it is used as a pH adjuster. The ingredient roles functionality enables their more nuanced specification on a recipe-by-recipe basis.
Setting up Ingredient Roles:
As an Uncountable system admin, prior to assigning roles to ingredients within a recipe, it is necessary to create the different options we want to display for the roles. To access the “Ingredient Roles” page, click on the “Favorites” button on the Uncountable dashboard and select “Edit Favorites”.
Next, under the “Admin-Controlled Links” section, type in “Roles” (or any other name you prefer for the shortcut to access the page). In the “Link Type” drop-down, select the “Listing” option. A new drop-down called “Listing Configuration” will display. Within this drop-down, select the “Role” option. If you would like the shortcut to the ingredient roles page to be present for all users to access through the “Favorites” button, check the “All Users” option. If not, specify which users or user groups you would like to have access to this shortcut. Finally, click the green plus button to submit your changes.
Now if you refresh your browser and click the “Favorites” button once again, you’ll see a “Roles” option. Clicking on this will take you to the “Ingredient Roles” page.
On the “Ingredient Roles” page, you’ll see all the roles that have been set up within the current material family. To add a new role, simply click on the “Ingredient Role” button in blue and name the role.
Displaying & Assigning Roles:
Within a recipe, type “Roles” into the search box. Click on the “Roles” option and then click on the “Roles” option again to make the column visible.
Once the column is visible, you can select a role to assign each ingredient within your recipe from the respective drop-down menu.
Using Roles in Calculations:
Once ingredients in a recipe are assigned roles, we can use those roles within calculations. Basics on how to set up input calculations is discussed in the article linked here. To display the calculations section within a recipe, click the “Calculations” button in the toolbar and select “Toggle Calculation Section”
Once the calculations section is visible, to add a new calculation click on “Add Calculations”. On the window that appears, click on the “Add New” button. You’ll now be presented with a screen to specify the details of your desired calculation. As an example, let’s set up a calculation named “Non-Solvent Mass” that provides the total mass of our ingredients, excluding any solvents. To specify that ingredients with an ingredient role of “Solvent” should be excluded, click the “Add Filter” button.
In the first drop-down, select “Ingredient Role”. In the second drop-down, select the “≠” symbol. In the last drop-drop, select “Solvent”.
Once completed, click the “Submit” button. On the next page, ensure that the “Non-Solvent Mass” calculation is “Enabled in All Projects”. If it isn’t, enable it by clicking on the “Enable in All Projects” button. Finally, click the “Close” button to return to the recipe.
The calculation successfully sums the mass of all ingredients which have roles other than “Solvent”.