After initiating an NCBI BLAST or Entrez search, you can monitor its progress and download its eventual output from the Jobs panel. This panel is not visible in a project until you have started running at least one search.
To open the Jobs panel:
Do any of the following:
- Click on the Jobs tab.
- Press Ctrl+Alt+J (Win) or Option+Cmd+J (Mac).
- Use View > Jobs or Search > Show Jobs.
The Jobs panel consists of a header and a table with the following columns:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Job Name | Text searches are all named with the field and term of the first search criterion followed by “plus # terms,” where # represents the number of additional criteria. Sequence searches use the name specified in the Job screen of the Search wizard. The same Job Name can be used for more than one prediction. |
| Status | A word and icon indicating the status of the search.
|
| Started | The date and time the job began. |
| Elapsed | The total elapsed time between starting and completing the job. |
– Submitted and placed into the queue 
– Job complete; results available 
– Job failed
Tasks that pertain to the Jobs panel:
| Task | How To |
|---|---|
| To open the results of one or more jobs | Click on the Done ( ) or Expiring links for that job. See below this table for more information on job expiration. You can also open a saved .search file using Search > Open Search File. |
| To stop one or more jobs that are in progress | Select one or more rows with a Status of Started, Queued or Running. Then press the Stop tool ( ) in the header above the table. Once stopped, a job cannot be restarted from the Jobs panel. You must instead initiate a new search. |
| To delete a finished job | Select one or more rows with a Status of Done, Failed or Stopped. Then press the Delete tool ( ) in the header above the table. |
| To open/reopen the progress dialog for a job | Select one or more rows with a Status of Started, Queued or Running. Then right-click and choose Open Progress dialog. |
Sequence (BLAST) and text (Entrez) search jobs are intended to be ephemeral and expire after 7 days. The Jobs panel notifies you of upcoming expiration dates.
All jobs are recorded in the location specified in the Temporary File preferences dialog. If you are a Macintosh user and elect to keep the default save location, the operating system may remove jobs after a reboot. To avoid this, we recommend choosing a different location in which to save temporary files.
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