Two Ways to Register a Study: SRW vs. Templates + Files
ImmPort gives you two independent ways to register a study's basic design. They both end up populating the same underlying tables — pick based on how much structured data you're submitting.
Use the online Study Registration Wizard (SRW) at https://data-manager.dev.immport.org/wizard/home. It's a guided multi-page form that validates metadata as you go — by the time you submit, the study is registered.
- Best when you don't plan to parse additional structured data beyond the basic study metadata.
- If your data has no human or animal subjects (e.g. purely computational/public-repository data), attach it as a Study File in the final SRW step instead of building subject/sample templates.
- See the SRW Documentation for a full walkthrough.
Download and populate the Basic Study Design + Protocols Excel templates, validate, then upload like any other submission package.
This path uses the same POST /data/upload → POST /data/upload/validation → status-polling loop as every other template upload (see API Reference) — so it's the natural choice if you're driving everything through the REST API rather than a browser form.
Decision guide
| If... | Use |
|---|---|
| You want the fastest path and are a human filling out a form | SRW |
| You're scripting/automating the entire submission (study + subjects + samples + results) through the REST API | Basic Study Design Template |
| Your data has no subjects at all (e.g., a linked external dataset) | SRW, attach data as a Study File |
| You plan to parse additional data (subjects, samples, assay results) | Either works for the study step — but once you move to subject/sample/result data, you're using templates regardless, so starting with the template path keeps everything in one mechanism |
Don't mix up metadata completeness
Both paths capture the same required basic metadata — neither is a "lite" version of the other for the fields it does capture. The difference is in submission mechanism (form vs. file) and in how much additional structured data (subjects, samples, results) you intend to submit afterward.
Next: Template Catalog to see every available template, then Upload Order for the sequence/bundling rules.