REDCap Surveys Guide Hub

Planning, Building, Distributing, and Protecting Surveys in REDCap

REDCap offers several ways to build and distribute surveys, from a simple public survey link to more advanced workflows using the Participant List, Automated Survey Invitations, and Survey Queue. This guide is designed to help study teams choose the right approach, configure surveys intentionally, and avoid common setup mistakes.

For a step-by-step walk through, check out the Survey Wizard: The Basics

For more advanced survey workflows, REDCap offers several automation tools that support how surveys are delivered, how participants move from one survey to the next, and how study teams are notified when specific conditions are met. Because these tools serve different purposes, it can be difficult to know which one to use. The Survey Automation Overview provides a clear, high-level guide to help you choose the right approach for your project.

Core Principle: Decide before building whether your survey will be anonymous or identifiable, whether participants will complete one survey or multiple surveys, and whether invitations will be manual or automated.
Important: Once you use participant email addresses, Participant List, designated email fields, or linked follow-up surveys, the workflow is no longer truly anonymous and must align with your IRB-approved plan.

Survey Overview

Any data collection instrument in REDCap can be enabled as a survey, allowing participants to enter data without needing REDCap user access.

Most survey workflows involve three key areas:

  • Project Setup – enable surveys and project-level options
  • Online Designer – build the instrument, configure Survey Settings, and manage advanced survey features
  • Survey Distribution Tools – distribute survey links, manage participants, and review invitation activity
Best Practice: Think of survey setup as a workflow, not just a form. The build, invitation method, confidentiality model, and follow-up plan should all be decided together.

Enable and Build a Survey

  1. Go to Project Setup and enable Use Surveys in this project
  2. Go to Online Designer
  3. Build or revise the instrument
  4. Click Enable to convert the instrument into a survey
  5. Open Survey Settings and save changes

If you leave Survey Settings without saving, the instrument will remain a data entry form rather than a survey.

Important: If a project is already in Production and surveys have not been enabled, that option may be locked and require administrator assistance.

Survey Settings

Basic Options

  • Survey Status – active or offline
  • Survey Title – can differ from the instrument name
  • Survey Instructions – text shown at the top of the survey

Design & Display

  • Logo, font, text size, and theme
  • Question numbering
  • All on one page vs. one section per page
  • Enhanced radio buttons and checkboxes
  • Text-to-speech and accessibility options

Access & Response Controls

  • Response limit
  • Time limit for survey completion
  • Survey expiration
  • Save & Return Later
  • Allow returning to edit completed responses

Completion & Termination

  • Survey completion text
  • Redirect to a URL
  • Auto-continue to next survey
  • Allow respondents to repeat the survey, when repeating instruments are enabled
  • PDF Auto-Archiver
  • Confirmation email

Special Use Cases

  • Save Survey PDF to File Upload field – useful when another form or user needs a snapshot of a completed survey
  • Survey-specific email invitation field – useful when different surveys in one project are completed by different people
  • e-Consent Framework – supports certification and archiving workflows for electronic consent
Important: Confirmation emails and PDF attachments are generally not recommended for surveys containing identifying information or PHI, because email is not considered a secure communication channel.
Best Practice: Keep Survey Settings as simple as possible. Most survey problems come from adding too many features without a clear workflow need.

Choose a Distribution Method

Most survey workflows fall into one of four categories:

Method Best For
Public Survey Link Open-access or truly anonymous surveys
Participant List Known participants, one-time links, reminders, response tracking
Automated Survey Invitations Logic-based and scheduled invitation workflows
Survey Queue Multiple surveys presented in sequence for the same record

Public Survey vs. Participant List (Invitations)

Feature Public Survey Link Participant List / Invitations
Main purpose Open access survey via a shared link Send individualized survey links via email
Best for Anonymous or broad distribution Known participants and tracked responses
Unique links per participant No (same link for everyone) Yes (individualized survey links)
Tracks who responded No (unless you collect identifiers) Yes (linked to record/participant)
Email invitations Not built-in Yes (manual or automated)
Reminder capability No Yes (via Invitation Log or ASIs)
Anonymous responses Yes (default use case) Optional (depends on configuration)
Typical use case Open survey posted online or shared broadly Send baseline + follow-up surveys to enrolled participants
Simple rule: Use a Public Survey Link when you do not need to track who responded. Use the Participant List / Invitations when you need to send surveys to specific individuals and track responses.
Important: If you collect email addresses or identifiers in a public survey to send follow-up surveys, the data is no longer truly anonymous and becomes linked to participant identity.

Survey Queue vs. Automated Survey Invitations

Feature Survey Queue ASI
Main purpose Controls which survey a participant sees next Controls when a survey invitation is sent
Best for Multi-survey navigation and sequencing Scheduled or logic-based invitation delivery
Sends emails? No Yes
Uses logic? Yes, to decide what appears next Yes, to decide when invitations are scheduled
Typical use case Eligibility survey → consent → baseline survey Send follow-up survey 7 days after baseline completion
Simple rule: Use Survey Queue to guide participants through surveys. Use ASI to send surveys automatically.
Decision Tip: If you need broad anonymous access, start with Public Survey Link. If you know who your participants are and need tracking or reminders, use Participant List. If invitations should be triggered automatically, use ASI. If participants need to complete multiple surveys in sequence, consider Survey Queue.

The Public Survey Link is the simplest and fastest way to distribute a survey. It uses one shared link for all respondents.

  • Best for anonymous or open-access workflows
  • No respondent-specific tracking
  • Allows multiple submissions unless additional controls are added
  • Only the first survey in a project has a public survey link
Important: A public survey link can be shared, reposted, or reused. If the survey involves compensation, eligibility screening, or sensitive recruitment, a public link requires additional safeguards.

Participant List & Invitation Log

The Participant List allows you to send customized email invitations and track whether each person has responded.

What it does

  • Add participants by email address
  • Optionally add a Participant Identifier
  • Send invitations immediately or schedule them
  • Send reminders to non-responders
  • Track no response, partial response, and completed response
  • Review sent and scheduled invitations in the Survey Invitation Log

When to use it

  • You know participant email addresses in advance
  • You want one-time unique survey links
  • You want to track responders and non-responders
  • You need reminders
Important: If you enable Participant Identifier, the survey is no longer anonymous. If participants need to take the same survey more than once, they must be added to the Participant List multiple times so each invitation has its own unique link.
Best Practice: Use the Survey Invitation Log when you need to verify what was sent, what is scheduled, what reminders exist, or whether an invitation failed.

Automated Survey Invitations (ASI)

Automated Survey Invitations allow REDCap to schedule and send survey invitations automatically when specified conditions are met.

Requirements

  • A survey must already exist
  • A valid email field must be designated at the project or survey level
  • If the project is longitudinal, the correct event must be selected

ASI setup includes four parts

  1. Compose the message
  2. Define the trigger conditions
  3. Define when to send the invitation
  4. Activate the ASI

Good uses for ASI

  • Follow-up surveys sent a set number of days after an earlier survey
  • Event-based invitation workflows in longitudinal projects
  • Conditional invitations that depend on data values
  • Repeated reminder schedules for incomplete surveys

Manual invitations and ASIs can coexist. If needed, scheduled invitations and reminders can be reviewed and deleted in the Survey Invitation Log.

Important: ASIs do not work on projects enabled with repeating instruments/events. Also, once an ASI has fired for a record, changing the logic later will not make it fire again for that same record automatically.
Design Tip: Build an explicit “stop emails” or “prevent surveys” field into the project so invitation logic can be turned off for a participant when needed.
Best Practice: Test ASI logic with test records and consider using a Data Quality rule or report logic first to confirm that the condition behaves as expected before activating invitations.


Click here to take a Deeper-Dive into Scheduled and Logic-Based Survey Invitation

Survey Queue

The Survey Queue displays surveys for a participant on a single page, like a to-do list, and can control which surveys appear next based on completion status and logic.

Use Survey Queue when

  • Participants need to complete multiple surveys in one workflow
  • The next survey depends on prior answers or eligibility
  • You want participants guided through a structured sequence

Key features

  • Display logic based on survey completion and branching-like conditions
  • Optional custom text at the top of the queue
  • Auto Start to immediately launch the next incomplete survey
  • Option to keep the queue hidden from participants
Important: Survey Queue logic is evaluated at the record level, not relative to the current event or repeating instance. Also, Auto-continue in Survey Settings can override Survey Queue behavior, so do not combine them casually.
Best Practice: Use Survey Queue rather than Auto-continue when progression depends on conditions or eligibility. Use Auto-continue only for very simple same-event survey chains.

Click here to take a Deeper-Dive into Multi-Survey Workflows and Participant Navigation

Survey Flow Controls

Stop Action

Stop Action allows a survey to end when a participant selects a specific answer choice on supported field types such as dropdowns, radio buttons, checkboxes, Yes/No, or True/False.

  • Useful for ineligibility screening
  • Useful when a survey should end early based on a response
  • Can display alternate completion text for those who stop out
Important: By default, when a survey ends via Stop Action, the partial response is saved and marked complete, even if required questions later in the survey were never answered.
Best Practice: If Stop Action is being used for ineligibility screening, consider enabling the option to prevent responses from being saved when the survey ends through a Stop Action.

Repeat Survey Option

If an instrument is enabled as a repeating instrument, Survey Settings can display a button allowing the participant to repeat the survey. This is useful when one person may need to submit multiple similar entries in a single sitting.

Multi-Survey and Longitudinal Workflows

When you need to send multiple surveys to the same participant over time, REDCap must have a way to tie those responses back to the same record.

Common approaches

  • Public Survey Link + designated email field – the first survey collects the participant’s email, which populates the Participant List for later invitations
  • Participant List from the start – participants are invited using known email addresses, and follow-up surveys are sent through additional Participant List invitations or ASIs
  • Longitudinal project + ASIs – later surveys are triggered after completion of earlier event surveys
Important: In a multi-survey workflow within one project, only participants who completed the earlier required survey and provided the needed linkage information will typically appear for the follow-up survey workflow.
Best Practice: If the workflow depends on the same person completing multiple linked surveys, design the linkage method at the beginning. Retrofitting email capture or participant matching later is messy and error-prone.

Survey Notifications

Survey Notifications send an email to selected project users whenever a survey is completed.

  • Configured from Online Designer → Survey Notifications
  • Useful when the study team needs prompt awareness of new survey responses
  • The email includes a link to the response, not the survey data itself
Important: Notifications can become overwhelming in higher-volume projects. In those cases, a report or alert-based workflow may be more manageable.

Click here to take a Deeper-Dive into Automated Notifications and Data-Triggered Messaging

Protecting Public Surveys

Public survey links are useful, but they are also the most vulnerable to bots, invalid responses, repeat submissions, and compensation abuse.

Core safeguards

  • Use CAPTCHA or other challenge-based access controls
  • Consider a response limit to reduce exposure
  • Add challenge or attention-check questions
  • Use hidden honeypot fields to help identify bot activity
  • Review timestamps, response patterns, and anomalous clusters
  • Avoid fully automated compensation workflows
  • Use targeted distribution instead of broad public posting when possible

CAPTCHA options

Depending on your instance, you may have built-in Google reCAPTCHA or an external module such as nedCAPTCHA, which can provide math, image, or custom challenge-response protections for public surveys.

Important: CAPTCHA helps, but it is not enough by itself. Public surveys that include incentives or open recruitment need layered protections and active monitoring.
Security Mindset: Treat a public survey as the front porch, not the whole house. Use the initial public survey to screen, verify, or triage respondents before moving them deeper into the study workflow.

 

For a deeper dive, check out:

Key Best Practices

  • Choose the survey distribution model before you start building
  • Use Public Survey Link only when open access is truly appropriate
  • Use Participant List when you need one-time links, reminders, or response tracking
  • Use ASIs for automated follow-up, but test logic before activation
  • Use Survey Queue for multi-survey workflows, especially when progression depends on conditions
  • Use Stop Action thoughtfully and decide whether stop-out responses should be saved
  • Protect public surveys with layered safeguards, not just a single setting
  • Test every workflow with realistic test records before going live
  • Move the project to Production before collecting real data
  • Ensure survey design, identifiers, and communications align with the IRB-approved plan
Final Takeaway: The best REDCap survey workflow is not the one with the most features. It is the one that clearly fits the study design, protects confidentiality, minimizes user confusion, and can be reliably managed by the study team.

Quick Start Checklist:

✅ Enable Surveys at the project level

✅ Enable the instrument as a survey in Online Designer

✅ Review Survey Settings before sending any link

✅ Choose the correct distribution method

✅ Decide whether data will be anonymous, coded, or identifiable

✅ Test the full workflow from the participant perspective

✅ Move the project to Production before collecting real data