Signals Notebook: Searching for Information Items and Attached Files in Tasks

Question

Why can’t I find information items (e.g., Text, Chemical Drawings, MS Office files) or their parent Tasks when searching in Signals Notebook? For example:

• When searching for the children of a Task, the information items created within the Task are not found.
• When searching for the parent of information items created in a Task, the Task itself is not returned as the parent.

Explanation

In Signals Notebook, Tasks are sub-elements of parent entities (e.g., Experiments or Requests). When you add information items—such as Text, Chemical Drawings, or MS Office files—to a Task, these items are logically owned by the parent entity, not the Task itself. This design affects how search results are returned in both the GUI Advanced Search and the POST /entities/search API.

Solution

To programmatically retrieve all information items created within a Task, use the GET /entities/{eid}/children API. This endpoint returns a list of all child items (e.g., Text, Chemical Drawings, or attached files) directly associated with the Task.

Steps:

1. Identify the EID of the Task (e.g., task:bf2c7901-f5c8-404c-a7e2-4c7ebb15a479) you want to query.
2. Call the API using the Task’s EID.
3. Review the response, which will include details of all information items created within the Task.