Go to Project Setup, scroll to the bottom of the page, select Move to Production. If your project is in Research you will be asked to upload your IRB approval or waiver letter. If your project is operational support or quality improvement, you may be asked to provide an IRB waiver letter.
When should I put my database into Production Status?
Please do not rush to put the database into production status. Do sufficient testing by adding Test Records and Test Data. Test that all field validation, calculated field, branching logic, and other settings in your instruments work correctly. If you are using Surveys, send them to yourself and colleagues to ensure your planned distribution method works. If you have set up Automated Survey Invitations or Alerts & Notifications to be delivered immediately after some condition, check that these work properly. If you have Automated Survey Invitations or Alerts & Notifications to be delivered at a future date after some condition, make a test record meet those conditions, then go to Survey Distribution Tools → Survey Invitation Log → Future Invitations. You will see the invitations set here, i.e. if you set an ASI to be delivered six months after an intake form, complete the intake form then see if an invitation for 6 months from today exists in the Survey Invitation Log. If your project is not functioning properly or you are unsure if everything is working properly, reach out to the REDCap Helpdesk.
Follow the instructions in How do I move to Production Status? to put the project in production. When you move to production you will have the option to keep the data in your project or erase everything.
If you find you’ve put the database into production status too soon, you can ask the REDCap Administrators to move it back to development status. You can put it back into production when it’s ready.
Are there training materials available?
Washington University REDCap Training Resources.
Aside from the training materials, are there tutorials or guides available when I need to look for answers to specific questions?
Yes, we have several REDCap User Guides. When you log in to REDCap, you can access the REDCap Help & FAQ page on top menu that is curated and maintained by a national committee of REDCap Administrators. There are video tutorials and documentation embedded throughout REDCap that provide guidance as well. And of course, you can always ask Google.
What is the difference between the Development Status and Production Status?
Development Status is the status by default when a project is created. It is good for building and testing project. Real study data should not be collected in Development Status. Production Status is used after the project has been thoroughly tested and the study team is ready to collect and store real data. When in production, a snapshot of all data is taken once a month with daily incremental back ups for point in time recovery. Each data backup is maintained for approximately 30 days.
How can I add a new choice to an existing radio or dropdown item without changing previously entered data?
It’s important to know that the choices in radio and dropdown items are displayed in the order in which they are found in the data dictionary. This isn’t necessarily numeric order.
Suppose you have a radio item with the choices:
1,Adams
2,Grant
3,Jones
4,Smith
and later want to add another choice, Clark, and also to keep the choices in alphabetical order. This is the way NOT to make the changes:
1,Adams
2,Clark
3,Grant
4,Jones
5,Smith
If these changes are approved, existing data for Grant, Jones, and Smith will be corrupted. Records that were entered as Grant will belong to Clark, those that were entered as Jones will belong to Grant, and so on.
The new choice can be added without changing existing data in this way:
1,Adams
5,Clark
2,Grant
3,Jones
4,Smith
The choices will still appear in alphabetical order and existing data will not be changed.
How can I edit and format the text within my project?
Text formatting can be added to certain elements in your project using CSS styles and HTML tags.
Examples include:
Field labels
Section headings and descriptive text fields
Survey welcome and thank-you messages
Survey invitation emails
Basic HTML & CSS Formatting in REDCap
How do I setup Twilio to send SMS text messages and voice calls?
REDCap has the capability to utilize a third party SMS and voice call service called Twilio for sending survey invitations via SMS text messages and also for having respondents take surveys via a voice call or SMS. With this feature enabled, you can invite a participant to take a survey by sending them an SMS message or by calling them on their phone. The participants can then take your surveys, either as a voice call survey or as an SMS message conversation. The survey data would then be collected in REDCap directly from their phone without having to use the website.
SETUP & CONFIGURATION: Before you begin the setup steps below, you must:
Register and setup up your own Twilio account at www.twilio.com.
Fund your account with some money using the Billing page in Twilio (since there is a cost for each phone call made and for each SMS message sent and
Purchase a phone number to be used for this REDCap project (see the Numbers page in Twilio). Each project must have its own number.
Once you have a phone number setup in Twilio for your project, you will need to send an email to the REDCap administrator (redcap_helpdesk@wustl.edu) with the following information:
Twilio Phone Number
Twilio Auth Token
Twilio Account SID
(see the API Credentials section on the Twilio main Account Settings page)
Note: Please ensure you have DISABLED Twilio's 'Request Inspector' for this account:
A Twilio feature named Request Inspector causes all activity to be logged in detail and stored on Twilio's servers. For the highest level of privacy, it MUST BE DISABLED in your Twilio account in order to be able to utilize the Twilio services in REDCap. You will find this setting on the Configure page under 'Programmable Voice'
Once your receive a confirmation email back from your REDCap administrator that your project is connected to your Twilio account, you can then configure how you want to use Twilio in your project. In general, not much is different between administering a survey normally in REDCap than when using Twilio SMS/voice calls except that you additionally choose how your survey invitations are delivered. The following choices are available:
Initiate survey as voice call
Initiate survey as SMS conversation
Send survey invitation with survey link via SMS
Send survey invitation via SMS to take survey as voice call (respondent makes call)
Send survey invitation via SMS to take survey as voice call (respondent receives call when replying via SMS).
Any or all of these invitation delivery methods can be utilized within a single project. The choice of delivery method completely depends upon your specific use case for how you want to collect data from your participants. It is NOT recommended to use option
VOICE CALL SURVEYS: When participants take a survey as a voice call, questions are asked one at a time, in which the Twilio service will use text-to-speech technology to read the questions to the participant audibly on their phone. You may choose the language and/or dialect in which the text should be read. Participants will respond by entering numbers on their phone's keypad, thus only numeric responses can be used because of this limitation (this includes the use of integer/number fields and also multiple choice questions with numeric codings, in which the participant will enter the numeric coded value on their keypad, not the label that is read to them over the phone). For example, the question might be a Yes-No question, which might look like 'Do you like ice cream? Yes, press 1. No, press 0.', or a number question like 'What is your age?'.
SMS SURVEYS: When participants take an SMS survey, questions are asked one at a time as an SMS text message conversation/thread. SMS surveys provide more response possibilities than voice calls. While participants in voice calls can only respond with numbers, they may respond with any kind of alpha-numeric text for an SMS survey.
Note: Only REDCap administrators are allowed to enable the Twilio option to initiate a survey as an SMS conversation. Much like email, SMS is not considered a secure form of communication, so you may not want to administer surveys as SMS conversations if the particpant will be submitting identifying information (PHI or PII) unless you have been granted special permission from the participant to do so. Given such sensitive privacy issues, only your local REDCap administrator can enable the optional setting to use SMS surveys. Please notify your administrator about this if you wish to have this option enabled.
COMPATIBILITY: Most of REDCap's survey features still function much the same when taking a survey via SMS or as a voice call. This includes the enforcement of required fields, field validation, branching logic, using the Survey Queue for multiple surveys (only works with Auto-Start enabled), survey email notifications and confirmations, the Participant List, Automated Survey Invitations, survey Stop Actions, and computer adaptive tests (CATs) downloaded from the REDCap Shared Library. One of the few survey features that is not compatible is the Survey Login feature.
COST: In order to use the Twilio SMS and Voice Call services in a REDCap project, you will have to connect your project to your Twilio account by entering your Twilio credentials into REDCap during the setup process. And as REDCap makes calls and/or sends SMS messages using this service, all charges to your Twilio account will be made based upon its usage. This is not done by REDCap but is done internally by Twilio as you use its services. In this way, no monetary transactions are made by REDCap, and thus it is your responsiblity to maintain the funds in your Twilio account in order to ensure that the service continues to work for your REDCap project. If your Twilio account runs out of funds, the Twilio services in REDCap will cease to function. For information on the cost of each call or each SMS message, visit your Twilio account to view the rates.
PRIVACY & SECURITY INFO: It is important to understand that this feature utilizes the third-party service http://Twilio.com , which means that all voice calls and SMS messages will be routed through Twilio's servers. However, REDCap goes to great length to ensure that voice call records and SMS transcriptions do not stay in Twilio's logs but are removed shortly after being completed. This is done for security and privacy concerns (e.g., HIPAA), in which your survey participants' phone numbers and their survey responses do not get permanently logged on Twilio's servers but instead remain securely in REDCap.
IRB COMPLIANCE: All projects requiring IRB approval must report to the IRB that their project utilizes Twilio.