Have you ever wanted to personalize your surveys to help increase your completion rate? If so, then you might want to try REDCap’s “Piping” feature.

Piping allows you to display any entered variable, such as someone’s name, in that survey throughout the survey itself or in the thank you message at the end.

For example, you want to say, “Thank you, [survey participant’s first name],” at the end of your survey; or you might want to refer to the participant by name in follow-up questions throughout the survey.

To use the Piping function in REDCap:

1. Look up the Variable Name of the first name field in the survey (i.e., “first_name”).
2. Go to the location of the text in which you want to “pipe” the information. For example, “Survey settings for the Thank you message,” or “Field label for other variables.”
3. Enter your text in the chosen location. For example, “Thank you, [first_name]!” or “[first_name]’s Date of Birth.”
4. Hit the save button

 

This REDCap Tip of The Month content was developed in collaboration with the Institute of Translational Health Sciences, the University of Washington CTSA.

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