The Review Workspace
Opening a review takes you to its workspace at medbot.me/research/<review>. The current stage is part of the address (?stage=question, criteria, strategy, search, screening, eligibility or synthesis), so you can link to a stage directly.
Layout
- Header: a Deep Research back link, the review’s title, its status, an Automatic or Manual badge, and Model: <name>. Reviews someone else owns show Shared with you.
- Stage stepper: the seven stages, numbered 1 to 7. Each shows Done, Running, Failed, Next or Not run. A dot on a stage means Medbot has a proposal waiting there. Click a stage to open it.
- Conversation (left): your conversation with Medbot about this review. See Working with Medbot.
- Stage panel (right): the current stage’s results and controls.
While a stage runs, a progress bar shows how far it has got, for example Screening: 120 of 480. On a phone, the conversation and the stage panel are two tabs, Medbot and the stage name.
Running a review
The owner’s run controls are in the header:
| Button | When it shows | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Run review | An automatic review that has not started. | Runs every stage in turn. |
| Run the rest | An automatic review part-way through. | Runs the remaining stages. |
| Continue | After a stop or a pause point. | Carries on from where it stopped. |
| Stop | While a run is going. | Stops after the current step (Stopping…). |
| Switch to manual | An automatic review that is not running. | Makes the review manual so you can edit it. |
In manual mode, the Question, Criteria and Search strategy stages wait for you to agree each one. Run search at the end of the search strategy starts the search, and screening, eligibility and synthesis then run on their own, stopping at any pause point you set. In manual mode a stage’s own run button runs just that stage; in automatic mode running a stage runs it and everything after it.
If a stage fails, the panel shows <Stage> failed with the error and a Retry from here button.
Pause points
Automatic reviews that are not yet complete show a Pause points card. Tick After question, After criteria, After search strategy, After search, After screening or After eligibility, and the run stops after that stage so you can check its results. Changes apply to a run in progress too; stages the run has already passed are marked (passed). When a run pauses, the conversation says so; click Continue when you are ready.
You can also ask Medbot to set pause points for you.
Who can change what
- The owner can edit fields, override decisions and upload PDFs when the review is in manual mode and nothing is running. In automatic mode, panels are read-only apart from the run buttons and the conversation; switch to manual to edit.
- People it is shared with can read everything, including the conversation, but cannot change anything or talk to Medbot.
More actions
The More actions menu in the header has:
- Export articles (CSV): every article with its decisions and extracted data. See Synthesis and Export.
- Share: share the review with a Medbot user, found by name or email. People you share with can read the review but not change it.
- Switch to automatic: for a manual review that is not running.
- Delete review: deletes the review with its articles, decisions and syntheses. This cannot be undone.
If the review’s model is removed
Every stage runs on the review’s model. If that model is removed or is no longer available, the owner sees Choose a model for this review. Pick another and click Use this model; it becomes the review’s model from then on. A model that is still available cannot be swapped.