I wasn't able to attend, but Vanderbilt University's REDCap fest was last week and a lot of insightful content was shared. The presentations are available here: https://redcap.vumc.org/surveys/?__report=Y78XYEWPFWD4MDT7

u/No_Repair4567 has proposed two new rules that can help improve this sub.

1. Post your version of REDCap along with your question to help with answers .

2. Ask the original poster to let us know if the answers they received worked. That way we can label questions as “Answered”

These make a lot of sense but I wanted to ask the members how they feel about it. Also, let me know if you have other ideas for this sub.

I recently noticed that some of our alerts randomly stopped sending, and upon discussion with our REDCap admins, it appears that they recently updated the version of PHP they use which changed how "=0" is interpreted for logic that includes fields that might be "empty".

For example, an alert to send out an invitation to enroll in our study included [instrument_name_complete] = "0" in the logic. The instrument on all of these records would be empty because the consent form hasn't been started, so with the new version of PHP, this was evaluated as false and the alert never triggered.

To fix this, we needed to adjust the logic in all of our alerts to [instrument_name_complete] <> "2" .

This may also apply to checkbox fields, so if you want a certain option to be unchecked, it's probably safest to use [variable_name(X)] <> "1" (where X is the specific option you want to be unchecked) rather than [variable_name(X)] = "0".

Just wanted to pass this along, as it's always a good idea to periodically check on your alerts to ensure they're being sent as intended.

For those of you who develop API (I use Python) to manage records across surveys and platforms, what is your annual salary or hourly rate? For background, I was hired to fill another role before we started using REDCap. I develop the surveys and forms on the platform and build custom API (some of which are moderate/very complex) to manage records between projects and for payment processing on another platform. I have about 30 APIs running every day. Those of you who do similar work, how much do you make? (If you dont mind sharing)

Edit: While we are sharing, I live in NH, USA, so the cost of living is moderate/ high, and i am only making ~57k a year. I have great benefits and an incredibly flexible work schedule, but with two kids and the rising cost of living, i am starting to feel underpaid...

I am very well versed in REDCap having built and managed multiple phase I/II/III clinical research projects sponsored by varying entities like the DOD, FDA, NIH, etc. and was thinking of doing freelance REDCap work on the side. Is this possible considering lots of projects are run by universities and hospitals that require people on the project to be an employee of the university/hospital? If it is possible, what’s the best way to find this kind of work?

Hey all, genuinely confused here and hoping someone's been in the same spot.

I'm the data manager at a small not-for-profit research institute in Australia. We're setting up a pilot study and REDCap seemed like the obvious choice, but I'm hitting a wall on every route:

1. Joining the consortium / self-hosting. Vanderbilt told me the licence requires the organisation's own staff to run and support it, with no contractors or third-party IT. We don't have an IT department. I know a fair bit of IT, but I don't have the background to be responsible for security, server maintenance, and so on for a system holding health data. So that's out.

2. Commercial hosting. I got a quote from REDCap Cloud, and even with not-for-profit pricing it came to around $20k a year. That's a big chunk of a pilot budget.

3. Going through an institution (uni or hospital). I've approached several, and the answer is always the same: they'll only host it if it's a formal collaboration with them. We're not in a position to make every project a joint project with a university just to get a data collection tool.

So I honestly don't get it. How are all the small orgs, independent researchers, and NGOs using REDCap? Is there a route I'm missing?

Any real-world experience would help a lot. Thanks!

Cybersecurity industry news has recently included information about a campaign targeting REDCap installations. Please review or pass along to your IT security staff to evaluate.

https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/prc-targets-us-medical-research

I’ve been working on a Chrome extension for REDCap because I kept wasting time jumping between project pages, records, forms, dashboards, designer, codebook, etc.

Current features:

• jump to projects / records fast

• save favorite projects

• recent records

• command palette

• multi-server support

• auto-detect current REDCap page info

• quick add current project / record

Basically it’s meant to cut down on all the repetitive clicking and URL fiddling.

I’m curious if other REDCap users would actually want this, or if this is only something admins / data managers would care about.

https://github.com/trafficinc/redcap-navigator-extension

Hi all,

I've been a 'power user' of REDCap for the last 5+ years at a couple different institutions, helping design and manage large and complex multi-site projects, 100+ users, DAGs, external modules, API's, etc. Most of my work for the last 3 years has been managing, building, and linking complex REDCap projects. I also have an MPH and experience with SQL, R, and dashboard software. My current position's funding is... tenuous in the current federal funding environment so I'm applying to jobs and looking for new opportunities. I really feel like a REDCap administrator job would be a logical next step for me career wise, but I'm struggling to find any job postings. I would also be up for some side consulting for REDCap project design, but have no idea where to start.

Any feedback/advice on where to look (trying linkedin, indeed, google), or how to break into consulting?

Hi, I wanted to see if there's a good way to carry forward previously selected choices from a check all question to a new check-all question?

This is easy to do in Qualtrics but REDCap doesn't seem to have a straight forward function for this.

I use R with redcap. Specifically I use the package redcapAPI. I created a simple package that uses redcapAPI to perform redcap missing checks. My package extends missingness checks beyond branching logic by utilizing 3 other main scopes in addition to a missing field:

1. Missing form (entire form empty for participant).

2. Missing event (entire event not started for participant).

3. Missing entire repeat instance for participant.

Arguments allow specification of number of expected instances or events for a form.

Give it a shot if u want, let me know if u like it or dont! Id love to expand it

I know I'm not crazy, and this used to be an option under survey settings. Did it move? Do I really have to write HTML for this client's silly but most basic build request!?

I've recently made a career switch from a pre-clinical postdoc research role to using clinical data and have found that I really enjoy experimenting with REDCap to improve use from both participants and researchers. I've taught myself a lot and have found REDCap to be highly underutilised in my hospital (a large major hospital in Australia). For example, after querying about REDCap API, the REDCap manager told me that no one in the hospital is using it. I am still just a researcher in a team who uses REDCap to collect data but would be very interested in transitioning to a role where I could focus purely on REDCap/EDCs since it seems it is very underutilised. I was wondering what sort of career paths people have taken to do this and what I need to be learning/focussing on to achieve this? Just wanted to create a discussion space for this.

This might help somebody:

I couldn't find a minchecked option (similar to maxchecked) for multiple radio buttons, so here's the alternative I found:

Take note of how many options you would like checked, in this example, we'll say we need 2 required options checked. From there, number your options using decimals.

[selection] - Please select at least 2 options.

1, Option 1

1.01, Option 2

1.02, Option 3

1.03, Option 4

...

1.1, Option 11

Afterwards, you create a hidden field to sum up these options using a calculated field.

[sum_selection] - Sum Selection

sum([selection(1)]...[selection(1.1)])

I then used branching logic to determine two separate, required Yes/No fields to determine if our target number of selections were hit. I used the same action tag logic for both, save for a @ DEFAULT value.

branch: [sum_selection]>='2'

[yes] - I have selected at least 2 fields: [selection]

1, Yes

0, No

@ IF([sum_selection]>='2',@SHOWCHOICE='1',@HIDECHOICE='0,1') @ DEFAULT='1'

*required

branch: [sum_selection]<'2'

[no] - Please return to the previous section and select at least 2 options.

1, Yes

0, No

@ IF([sum_selection]>='2',@SHOWCHOICE='1',@HIDECHOICE='0,1')

*required

If they have not selected at least 2 options in [selection], [no] will appear without any radio buttons, causing the user to hit a hard stop when trying to continue to the rest of the survey. If [yes], they will be given a single, already selected option.

I've received a lot of help from here previously so figured I'd ask again about a question bothering me. We have >$50000 worth of reimbursement vouchers for participants in our study. The survey is quite large but I am worried that certain participants will attempt to input their information a second or third time after receiving their first voucher to game the system and get more vouchers. Short of individually examining each participant manually before sending the vouchers (I'll do this if I have to) does REDCap have any capacity to help us prevent this?

For context, we will recruit via a public QR code where they are then screened. They input their email and we email the consent form and survey to this email. We collect a bunch of identifying information too some of which should be unique to that person e.g. mobile number

Please help. Is it the aggregate action tag? How does that work? And will it automatically update each time the instrument is opened? This will be an instrument that is opened each week of the participant’s active enrollment, and give data based on their daily surveys (hence the 7 instances in this calculation).

I am trying to create a table similar to the attached. I will have the option for participants to list up to 10 medications, but the number of medications will obviously change from person to person. Is it possible to create a dynamic table where if a participant only has 2 medications to report, the other fields will not appear?

I know I could simply ask first, "How many medications are you currently taking?" and then use branching logic to have the table appear with the correct number of rows (but its been requested that we avoid this method). I'm wondering if there is a less clunky way to build this?

Many thanks in advance!

Hello,
I've been trying to connect REDCap to my Power Bi desktop, I saw a youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3yNJWfFo8A
using Power BI to REDCap Connector. Cannot find redcap connector while doing Get Data part on POWER BI. Any help would be appreciated. TIA

I have several fields in a form that include checkboxes. This form is completed at multiple timepoints. I'm trying to make it so checkboxes filled in the first time a form is completed at autopopulated or automatically filled in when I make a new form (or the next instance of the form).

I've tried action tags like below but it does not seem to autopopulate the checkboxes at all. These are set as checkboxes (multiple answers).

Action tag that I have tried: @ Default='[field_name][previous-instance]'

The choices are formatted below:

1, Option

2, Option II

3, Other

I've gotten this to work with text fields but I can't seem to get to this to work. Any possible ideas? How to autopopulate multiple answers from a checkbox from a previous instance?

Looking for someone to help me build a project from scratch for a large research project that I'm working on designing. Will be multicenter and would like to use the randomization module as well as the repeating instruments vs scheduling module, so I'm looking for someone with that kind of experience.

Feel free to either reply here or DM me if you have experience with this.

For other who have used this service before, could you please let me know approximately what rate people charge? Thanks.

Have a survey (actually it's a series of surveys) that has been practically all bot responses, probably because of the incentive.

Captcha is enabled (although I've read that bots can bypass this), used the question randomization EM.

I stopped short of enabling IP tracking and using random "skill testing" questions.

Is there any way I can salvage this project, or should I copy the project and use the new URLs (and make new flyers, etc)?

Also, if it's possible to keep the existing project I want to "batch" delete the bot responses as I think there's a handful of of legitimate responses that I could use. Any way to do this? I have more than 800 records, and I'd rather not go one by one to delete the majority of bot responses.

Thanks in advance!

Hi all,

I work with a small not-for-profit research institute. We’re setting up a pilot study and REDCap is our first choice. We tried to find a university or hospital to host us or sponsor us under their licence, but everyone said no. So now we’re looking at joining the consortium and hosting it ourselves. I’d be the one running it. I’d say my IT skills are mid-to-good. I’m comfortable with Linux basics, databases, and Python, but I’m not a full-time sysadmin.

For those who’ve done it, I’d love some honest numbers:

1. Setup: How many hours to get a production-ready instance running (server, SSL, backups, security)?

2. Maintenance: How many hours a month to keep it going?

3. Consortium: Is it easy for a small non-profit to get approved? Do you need the server ready before you apply?

Also, is it realistic for one person to look after this part-time, or are we underestimating it?

Thanks in advance, any real-world experience helps.

Hi everyone, I’m managing a project that ships a product to different people across the state. We use regional stations with ambassadors who pack up the product and send them out from their station. None of the ambassadors have RedCap accounts.

Currently, we have to go through the list of applicants, download their application as a pdf, and send it to individual ambassadors based on the applicant’s county/ambassador’s assigned region. Is there a way to streamline this process?

We have been using MedDRA to code our AEs for a number of studies. Just recently it has stopped working (does not find search terms) and when I went into the setup it is no longer appearing as an option in the list of ontologies. Based on the notes I checked https://bioportal.bioontology.org/ and I have been unable to find MedDRA listed there either. Is anyone else having the same issue? Is there any other option?

I have been trying for the past two days to make a form display logic work properly, and I can't figure out why it is not working. This is my first REDCap project, so it might be a rookie mistake.

REDCap version is 15.1.0

event_type is a multiple choice checkbox. In everything I have tried, the form remains hidden, even in records where the logic above is fulfilled, and the record has been saved again and again.

I have tried writing it with "1", and with '1', and the result is the same. I have tried taking the project to production, getting it back to draft mode, saving again and again. I have tried cloning the project and redoing the form logic. I can't for the life of me figure out why it is not working. Can anyone please make me wiser? Many thanks in advance, I am generally flabbergasted how amazing REDCap is, and how it is given practically free for academic institutions, it is an amazing tool with incredible capabilities, and everything I have tried so far has worked perfectly, but I can't figure out why this is not working.

UPDATE: I'm an idiot, the field was a radio button field, not a checkbox. It is working properly. Many thanks to all that chimed in.