search shadow

Menu

Articles in this section

REDCap Tips & Best Practices

Follow

Getting started with REDCap is one thing — using it well is another. Here are some practical tips and best practices compiled from university REDCap teams, along with links to their full guides.

Project Planning

Plan your data collection forms before you start building in REDCap. Document your data collection needs in a study protocol or similar document, and group your data fields based on how they're being collected (data source, time point, method of collection).

Form Design

  • Keep form and variable names short (under 20–25 characters). If the form title is long, use a short name and add the full title as descriptive text or a section header.
  • Use categorical response fields (dropdowns, radio buttons, checkboxes) whenever possible to reduce data entry errors.
  • Use text field validation (date, phone, email, integer, number) when categorical fields aren't feasible.
  • Add field notes to guide data entry — for example, indicating that a text field should collect numeric values with two decimal places.

Before Going Live

Have a third party enter test data for several subjects before putting your project into production. Once you move to Production mode, you can no longer edit project fields in real time, and moving back to Development can result in data loss.

Data Security

Tag fields containing personally identifiable information (PII) as identifier fields in the Online Designer. Make sure project owners properly assign user rights for data input and access.

Guides We Recommend