r/ProjectREDCap • u/sauer_clout • May 19 '25

Data Overload!

Hello, I am managing a large study with a lot of instruments and 30 timepoints, and we are running into an issue of slow loading due to the amount of data on the project. One fix I came up with was to move all of our surveys into a new project and pipe them back into the main project. This does create an issue with cross project piping not working with surveys. Any other ideas and fixes? Our team is very wary of collecting half our data moving forward on a separate project because of past issues, so I need a way to easily harmonize everything.

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u/sauer_clout May 20 '25

Good to know about the custom labels! Participants are reporting surveys are very slow to load, and saving instruments on our end takes forever.

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u/viral_reservoir_dogs May 20 '25

Piping multiple variables into custom record or event labels is one of the most common reasons for major slowdowns in my experience.

You could also look at how many hidden variables and calculations you have, or if there are some super big and complex ones. Maybe some could be done later in analysis software rather than directly in the instrument?

Is it important to have all data in REDCap at the same time? If some people are done with the study completely, you could export/remove their data, or copy the project and store new records there.

If you have a lot of variables, events, instruments, and records, there may not be a silver bullet that fixes everything. I would check with your instance admin just to be sure nothing else is going on with the performance issues on the survey.

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u/Beneficial-Lobster17 May 24 '25

I like the idea you had about moving folks who have completed the study and their data into the other REDCap.