REDCap Mobile App for iOS and Android - The REDCap mobile app is an app that can be installed on a tablet or mobile device so that data may then be collected in an offline fashion on that device, after which it may then be synced back to this project on the REDCap server. The app is most useful when data collection will be performed where there is no internet service (e.g., no WiFi or cellular service) or where there is unreliable internet service. Once a user is given 'REDCap Mobile App' privileges in a project, they can navigate to the mobile app page on the left-hand menu and set up the project inside the mobile app on their device. Once the mobile project is set up on the device, the user can collect data (which is stored locally on the device), and then at some point sync that data back to their project on the REDCap server.
About the REDCap Mobile App (PDF): http://projectredcap.org/app/about.pdf
Security in the REDCap Mobile App (PDF): http://projectredcap.org/app/security.pdf
Before users can use the mobile app for a project, they must first be given "Mobile App" user privileges, after which they will be able to see the "REDCap Mobile App" link on the project's left-hand menu and then be able to access that page, which will provide links to download the Android and iOS app and instructions for initializing that project in the app on their mobile device. Note: When a user creates a new project, they will automatically be given "Mobile App" privileges by default.
There is an additional user privilege "Allow user to download data for all records to the app?" that specifically governs whether or not the user is allowed to download records from the server to the app. This may be done to prevent users from unwittingly (or wittingly) downloading lots of sensitive data to their mobile device. If a user is given this privilege, then when they initialize the project in the app and the project contains at least one record, then the app will prompt the user to choose if they wish to download all the records to the app or not.
Syncing data back to the REDCap server: When the user has collected some data in the app and now wishes to send the data back to the server, they will go to the "Send data to server" page in the app. If there are any possible issues that might arise when sending the data to the server, the app will prompt the user to make a decision before sending the data. For instance, if the project uses record auto-numbering, and a record already exists on the server with the same record name, then it will let the user know that it will rename the record accordingly during the sync process in order to prevent any overwriting of the record already on the server. There are many different scenarios that can occur in which a user might be prompted to make a decision, and the app is fully capable of providing the user with just the right amount of guidance so that they feel confident sending their data to the server with no issues.
Remote lockout: If a user sets up a REDCap project on the mobile app, and then another user revokes their "REDCap Mobile App" user privileges on the User Rights page in that project, then it will prevent them from accessing it on their mobile device by locking them out of that particular project. In this way, you may perform "remote lockout" to further protect data stored on mobile devices. Additionally, a user can revoke/delete their API token for the project, which will also cause a remote lockout, although the lockout will be permanent and will cause all data currently stored in the app to be lost.
Copy Instrument - On the Online Designer, users can click the "Choose action" drop-down next to a given instrument to copy the instrument. They will be given the choice to name the new instrument and to also provide the suffix text that gets appended to each variable name to prevent duplication of variable names.
Instrument ZIP Upload and External Instrument Libraries
In the Online Designer, if a user clicks the "Choose action" button in the Instruction Actions column and selects "Download Instrument ZIP", they can download a zip file of that data collection instrument, which also includes any attachment files for descriptive fields in the instrument. Using this feature makes it easy to share in individual instrument with colleagues or to keep for yourself if you want to re-use it and re-upload it into another REDCap project.
If user has obtained an instrument zip file from another project, from another user, from an institutional library of recommended zips, or from an External Instrument Library, they may upload the instrument on the Online Designer using the "Upload" button to add the instrument to the list of data collection instruments in the project.
External Instrument Libraries now exist in which REDCap users can navigate to an external website that can provide them with an instrument in the REDCap instrument zip format so that they can then take that zip file and upload the instrument into their REDCap project. It is somewhat similar to how the Shared Library works, except these external libraries are not associated with the REDCap consortium but are advertised as REDCap-friendly libraries or tools for creating instruments. The Online Designer contains a link to the current list of recommended external libraries where instrument zip files can be downloaded by users.
Auto-scoring Instruments - A new class of instruments called "auto-scoring instruments" were recently added to the REDCap Shared Library. They cannot be used by previous REDCap versions but only by v6.5.0 and later. An auto-scoring instrument is a type of survey that contains scoring that is automatically performed and saved once the survey has been completed. Most of them are referred to as "short forms". An auto-scoring instrument is static (not adaptive), and can only be implemented in survey format as one question at a time. Similar to CATs (computer adaptive tests) downloaded from the Shared Library, users will not be able to modify any fields on the instrument at any time. This auto-scoring instrument can only be taken in survey form. If the data entry form is viewed for this instrument, all fields will be displayed as read-only. Also similar to CATs, auto-scoring instruments utilize the external CAT server hosted by Vanderbilt University. The external server provides the auto-scoring functionality once the survey has been completed. Users can find these auto-scoring instruments by searching the REDCap Shared Library.
Field Annotation - Can be used to add explanatory notes or commentary about a given field. An annotation can be added to any field via the Online Designer or Data Dictionary (column R). It can be used for several purposes, such as for the bookkeeping of a project's field structure (as metadata about the given field) for reference purposes regarding what the field represents or how it should be used (during data entry, analysis, etc.). Field annotations are not displayed on any page but are merely for reference. Field annotations can also be used to map the field to various standards (e.g., CDISC, SNOMED, LOINC) using whatever notation the user sees fit (e.g., using a simple ID code for the standard or a complex XML structure containing information about how to transform the data to the standard). Since it is just an annotation for reference purposes, REDCap will not do anything with the field annotation text on its own, but the annotation can be obtained by users at any time for any purpose (typically accessed via the Data Dictionary download or via the API metadata export). Summarily, field annotations are essentially open-ended, so users may use them in whatever way they so choose.
Project Notes - When creating a new project, users may optionally provide project notes, which are comments describing the project's use or purpose for documentation purposes. Once a project has been created, its project notes can be edited in the "Modify project title…" popup on the Project Setup page. Also, any projects having project notes will have a small icon displayed next to the project title on the My Projects page, and if a user moves their cursor over the project title, it will display the project notes in a hovering tooltip so that it can be quickly viewed. The project notes text can also be useful for other things, such as if someone is utilizing the Field Annotation attributes of fields in the project for standards mapping, in which the project notes fields could be used as a way to store project-level metadata about how the Field Annotation is being used (e.g., what type of standard is being used).
New delete buttons at the bottom of data entry forms allow users to delete all data on the current form of a given record and also (for longitudinal projects) to delete all data on the current event of a given record. The user must have "Delete records" user privileges in order for these buttons to be displayed and utilized.
Improvement/change: Negative values can now be used as the raw coded values for checkbox fields with regard to their usage in data exports and data imports. In previous versions, negative values for checkbox choices would save successfully on surveys and data entry forms, but due to certain limitations, they would not work when importing values for those choices using the Data Import Tool or using the API data import. In the same regard, they would also cause problems when exporting data into a statistical analysis package. Now negative signs can be used for checkbox options, in which the negative sign will be replaced by an underscore in the export/import-specific version of the variable name (e.g., for a checkbox named "meds", its choices "2" and "-2" would export as the fields "meds_2" and "meds2", respectively).
Improvement: Dots/periods are now allowed in the raw coded values of multiple choice fields (with the exception of checkbox fields). In previous versions, dots/periods were only allowed for non-checkbox multiple choice fields if the coded value was numeric, but now dots/periods can be used anytime (e.g., ".a", "b.3_e", "code...Code"). Checkbox fields still cannot have dots/periods due to technical limitations
Improvement: When viewing a survey's Participant List or the Survey Invitation Log, if a participant's email or identifier was too long, it would get truncated and not be fully visible in the table. It now wraps the text to the next line for better viewing of the whole text.
The Survey Queue
The Survey Queue displays a list of surveys to a participant all on a single page, in which the queue comprises all surveys that are to be completed (like a "to-do" list) as well as the surveys that the participant has already completed.
Surveys can be set to appear in the Survey Queue based upon the following conditions: 1) if the participant has completed a particular survey, and/or 2) if certain conditions are met based upon data values (similar to branching logic).
If any surveys have been activated for the Survey Queue, they will be displayed to the participant after completing a survey (displayed below the survey acknowledgement text on the page). Using conditional logic in the Survey Queue can be very powerful because, similar to how one may use branching logic to show or hide certain questions, a user may use conditional logic in the Survey Queue to show or hide whole surveys. For example, if the first survey asks if the participant is male or female, the user may use conditional logic to display a survey specific to males versus displaying a survey specific to females.
To enable the Survey Queue for surveys in a REDCap project, navigate to the Online Designer where the user will see the Survey Queue button above their list of data collection instruments. If the Survey Queue is enabled in a project, a user can obtain the survey queue links for participants at the top of the data entry form when viewing a response and also as a new column in the Participant List.
To see a quick demo of the Survey Queue and how it can be used, follow this survey link: https://redcap.vanderbilt.edu/surveys/?s=RrbTNCiuQo
Improvement: When exporting a survey's Participant List as a CSV file, it now includes the Survey Link for each participant in the downloaded file. And if the Survey Queue has been enabled in the project, it will additionally include the Survey Queue Link for each participant.
Improvement: On the Copy Project page, users now have the option to copy all the settings for the Survey Queue and Automated Survey Invitations for that project.
Change/improvement: In the Data Quality module, users may now use the Calculated field version of the "datediff" function in their rule logic. The "datediff" function for Calculated fields requires the date format (e.g., ymd, mdy, dmy) as the fourth parameter. So if 'ymd', 'mdy', or 'dmy' is used as the fourth parameter in the "datediff" function in a Data Quality rule, it will then assume the fifth parameter to be the returnSignedValue.
Auto-calculations - When performing a data import (via Data Import Tool or API), REDCap will now perform the calculations for any calculated fields that are triggered by the values being imported. For example, if you have a BMI field whose calculation is based off of a height field and a weight field, then if you perform a data import of height and weight values, it will automatically calculate the BMI for each record that is imported and also save those calculations (and thus log them too on the Logging page). Auto-calculations are now also triggered when using cross-form calculations in the case where the calculated field exists on a different instrument than the fields being entered that are used in the calculation. So while in previous versions users would have to go to the instrument where the calculated field existed and would have to click Save to store the calculation, users now no longer have to do that because the calculation is performed and saved automatically at the time when the trigger fields are initially entered or changed. So essentially, users never have to worry that calculations are not being performed or saved in certain situations. They should expect that calculations are now always being saved silently in the background.
New feature: New data quality rule to fix all incorrect values for calculated fields - New Data Quality rule (rule H) will help users find and fix all incorrect values for calculated fields in a project. If any calc fields have ended up with incorrect values (whether due to field changes in the project or due to previous data imports), users can now run rule H not only to find any incorrect calculated values, but it will additionally display a button that, when clicked, will auto-fix ALL of them for the user. This is very powerful, and we have made it as easy as the single click of a button to fix all calculations in an entire project.
New feature: Filter data quality rules by a specific record - In the Data Quality module, users can now choose to execute a data quality rule for only a specific record in the project (rather than for all records) by selecting the record from a drop-down list.
Improvement: New log() function for logarithms has now been added as a new advanced function for calculating the logarithm of a number for a specified base. It can be used in calculations, report filtering logic, data quality rule logic, etc. For details, see the table of advanced functions at the bottom of the Help & FAQ page.
Improvement/change: When a user is logging in to REDCap on a mobile device in which the page is a project URL (as opposed to logging in at the My Projects page), it now takes them to that project in the mobile web view rather than taking them to the mobile web view's My Projects page, which it did in previous versions. (The only exception for this is when a super user is logging in directly to a project's Project Modification module for viewing/approving production changes, in which case it will always take them to the desktop web view after logging in.) Additionally, when a user is on a mobile device and is viewing a project in the mobile web view, it now displays the "Desktop Site" button at the top right of the page to allow them to easily jump to the desktop web view for that project. Previous versions did not display this button.
Survey Invitation Reminders - In addition to sending or scheduling survey invitations, users may now set reminders for a given invitation to help remind respondents that they need to complete a survey if it has not been completed by a specified time. A single reminder may be sent at an exact date/time, or a user may schedule up to 5 reminders to be sent according to a set time schedule, such as a recurring time lapse (e.g. every 12 hours after the original invitation) or on a recurring day/time (e.g., every day at 10:00AM after the original invitation; every Monday at 4:00PM). If the survey is completed, then any unsent reminders will be erased and will not be sent. Survey invitation reminders can be set in the Compose Survey Invitations popup on the Participant List page, as well as in the Automated Survey Invitations popup on the Online Designer.
Survey Confirmation Email - On the Survey Settings page in the Online Designer, a survey administrator can now set up an email that will automatically be sent to the respondent when they complete the survey. They may optionally add one attachment to the email, if they wish. Also, piping can be used in the email's subject and message to help personalize the email. If the respondent's email address is not on file and thus the confirmation email cannot be sent automatically, then when displaying the survey acknowledgement text at the end of survey, it will display an option for the respondent to enter their email address so that they may receive the confirmation email.
New feature: The red Required field text (i.e., "*must provide value") can now be hidden on survey pages, if desired. So if you would rather your respondents not see that red text beneath all your required fields on the survey page, then you may use this setting to hide it. This setting can be found on the Survey Settings page in the Online Designer.
New feature: The "Previous Page" button (i.e. Back button) on multi-page surveys can now be hidden, if desired. Hiding this button may be useful if you wish to prevent respondents from going back to previous pages in the survey. The setting to enable this can be found on the Survey Settings page in the Online Designer.
Improvement: New survey option to display or hide the page number displayed at the top of the survey page. This option can be found under the "Question Display Format" section of the Survey Settings page in the Online Designer.
Improvement: Inline image attachments for Descriptive fields now get displayed in the downloaded PDF of a survey or data entry form.
Improvement: The project Logging page now has the ability to filter logged events within a specified range of time in which the user can provide a begin time, end time, or both a begin and end time to limit the results to a specific window of time.
Improvement: Form labels can now contain two-byte unicode characters (e.g., Chinese, Japanese). This is true for the labels of forms as you see them displayed on the left-hand project menu, but the unique form name (column B in the data dictionary) must still be only numbers, underscores, and lower case Latin characters.
Improvement: When entering data on a form or survey for an integer-validated Text field when using a mobile device (tablets included), it will display the device's number keypad instead of the default QWERTY keyboard in order to make data entry easier.
New feature: In the Add/Edit Field popup on the Online Designer page, there is a new "Choose existing choices" link for multiple choice fields that will display a popup containing the options of all other multiple choice fields in the project to allow the user to quickly choose one set of options to use for a new field. This can make the process of creating fields quicker if there happen to be several fields that will have the same multiple choice options.
Improvement: When viewing a REDCap page in the Mobile Safari browser on an iOS device, drop-down menus would appear as text fields on the page, which is the default style for Mobile Safari. This could be confusing to users or participants since you cannot tell that it is a drop-down until you tap it. The style of all drop-downs in Mobile Safari has been changes so that they are now displayed with a right-aligned triangle background image to make it more clear that they are drop-downs.
New "Signature" field type - Allows a person to draw their signature on a survey or data entry form using a mouse, pen, or finger (depending on whether using a desktop computer or mobile device). Once captured, the signature will be displayed as an inline image on the survey page or data entry form. While this option appears as a "Signature" field type in the Online Designer, it is specified in the Data Dictionary as a "file" type field with validation type of "signature". Thus, it is essentially a special type of File Upload field. Note: The signature image for Signature fields cannot be imported via the API, although they can be downloaded or deleted via the API using the "Export a File" and "Delete a File" API methods, respectively.
New feature: Survey Access Code and Short Code for surveys
When email is not an option, Survey Access Codes can be used to get a respondent started quickly on a survey. They are especially useful if sending a survey invitation to a physical mailing address, or if the respondent is sitting nearby and needs to start the survey on another device.
There will be a Survey Access Code for every survey link in a project that utilzes surveys, so users will see a button or icon to retrieve a Survey Access Code on the Public Survey Link page, on the Participant List, and in the survey options at the top of data entry forms that are enabled as surveys.
To get a quick, temporary access code (just 5 characters long), there is an option to generate a Short Code to make it even faster to start a survey.
As an alternative to Survey Access Codes, users can get a respondent navigated to a survey page quickly by using a QR code. If the respondent is physically nearby and has a QR code scanner app on their device, they can quickly scan the QR code for any survey link, which will immediately open the survey webpage on their device.
The QR code option is found alongside the Survey Access Code option on the Public Survey Link page, on the Participant List, and other places. If the user or respondent is familiar with using QR codes, QR codes make it very easy to quickly get to a survey page on another device.
New feature: Survey Login
Survey administrators can now provide improved security their surveys with a survey login form, in which respondents will be required to enter some login credentials in order to begin a survey or (if the "Save & Return Later" feature is enabled) to return to a previously entered survey response.
To enable the Survey Login feature, there is a new button at the top of the instrument list on the Online Designer that will open up the Survey Login settings popup. Users who wish to enable Survey Login may choose one, two, or three fields in their project to be used as the login credential fields for surveys in their project.
The Survey Login can be enabled for ALL surveys in a project or just selected surveys (in which it can be enabled for each on their Survey Settings page). There are also several other features to allow users to customize the behavior of the Survey Login feature.
Note: If a survey has the "Save & Return Later" feature enabled, Return Codes will not be used to return to the survey, but it will use the Survey Login's login credentials instead.
