REDCap SMS Setup: How to Configure REDCap to Send Text Messages with Mosio

This video tutorial walks you through the process of configuring REDCap to send text messages (SMS) through Mosio. Whether you need to send automated survey invitations, alerts, or notifications to research participants, this guide covers the key setup steps — from enabling the Mosio SMS module to designating your participant phone number field.

Set up REDCap to send automated text messages through Mosio. How to configure REDCap to allow it to send text messages.

This video shows you how to configure REDCap to communicate directly with Mosio’s SMS platform. It’s a key step in enabling automated text-based outreach from within REDCap.

Transcript:

Hi. This is Jay from Mosio. We're gonna do a quick walk through on how to connect Mosio and REDCap and how to make sure that REDCap is set up to enable SMS messages going out. So the first place to start is when you log in to Mosio, you should see a screen like this.

It's possible you don't. It's possible you see the, older version of our basic dashboard.

If that's the case, just click on quick links, and you'll see the REDCap dashboard link in there. When you open that up, you'll be taken over to your project's, alternate dashboard, which you could find your API key.

And so this is what we're looking for.

You would just wanna click the button to show it and then copy it, and now head over into your REDCap project. So I'm in our test project under project setup.

Under enable ops optional modules, there's the Mosio SMS services.

Click on enable.

If this doesn't show up, then you do need to contact your REDCap admin to enable it.

So the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna enable it. I'm gonna paste in that API key I just copied.

At this point, REDCap reaches out to Mosio in the background, confirms that API key is okay, and then, connects the two accounts.

And so you see this new module pops up with a configure settings button. Click on that next.

And so there's two or three settings in here that are important. The first one is where are you going to enable SMS. So you can either do it in survey invites only or alerts and notifications only or both.

I'm going to choose both.

The next question is how do you want this to send how do you want that survey invite to send?

The most frequently used option is the first one, send survey invite with the survey link via SMS.

What that means is that it sends the link to the survey to the participant. So the participant gets a text message with that link, taps the link on their phone, click, and then in the phone browser, it will open up a REDCap, survey for them. And so this this gets the the info that the participant is filling out directly back into your REDCap account.

The other option, though, initiate survey as SMS conversation.

What that means is that, REDCap will send the first question out as a text message, wait for the reply, then send the second question out as a text message, wait for the reply, and so on.

That's that's usually not what you're trying to do, but it's definitely an option if it if it is what you want.

So I'm gonna leave it survey as a web page.

The others, there's just some invite preferences, including the invitation field that's gonna define whether the participant wants an email or an SMS preference.

These, you can read through and set them up. But the the last remaining, option that needs to be set up in order for this to work properly so you have to designate a phone number field inside. So you're picking from within your study which field which instrument and field contains the actual phone number for that subject that's gonna receive the message.

So I've got under my subject enrollment instrument. I've got my phone number field. That's the one I'm selecting. So from from here, I'm gonna hit save.

Now at this point, if I head over to alerts and notifications, for example, and I add a new alert, as I scroll to the bottom, this SMS text message option is enabled.

And so I can click on that. And then recipient phone numbers, again, that phone number field is now here, and I can select that. And I can send this alert out. The alerts at this point work like exactly like email alerts, so you can define your own trigger logic at the top and then the timing in step two.

The last caveat, though, is that the interface for creating the message of the text hasn't changed between email and SMS.

And so just remember that SMS does not support things like bold, italics, underlined, you know, bullet points.

It's text only.

If you do put a link in there, the phone will automatically highlight that text.

So keep your messages short so they're they're readable. And definitely enter yourself as a participant and send yourself a test so you can see what it looks like on your phone.

Thank you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do I enable SMS text messaging in REDCap?

A: In REDCap, go to Project Setup and look for the Mosio SMS Services module under optional modules. Click Enable, paste in your Mosio API key, and REDCap will connect with Mosio automatically. If the module doesn’t appear, contact your REDCap admin to enable it.

Q: Can REDCap send a survey link via text message?

A: Yes. The most common option is to send the survey link via SMS. The participant receives a text with the link, taps it, and completes the survey in their phone’s browser. The responses go directly back into your REDCap project.

Q: Does REDCap SMS support bold or formatted text?

A: No. SMS is text-only and does not support bold, italics, underline, or bullet points. Keep your messages short and readable. If you include a URL, the phone will automatically make it tappable.

---

Ready to send text messages from REDCap? Visit our plans page to get started or join our virtual office hours for a live walkthrough.