Initial Considerations
This article provides steps for how to enable surveys at the project level, then to enable individual instruments as surveys within your designer. Surveys are useful to collect data from persons who don't have a REDCap account. Surveys can be emailed to potential participants. Surveys display the instrument in a formatted webpage.
The Process
- Go to "Project Setup"
- In the top box “Main project settings” you’ll see the option of Enabling a survey. Go ahead and click on it (Circled in Red below)
- Next click on "Online Designer" (Circled in red below)
- Now a table like the one shown below will show. Select “Enable” for the forms you want to be surveys (circled in red below)
- A page with many options will show up. Select what you like, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click "Save Changes" (Circled in Red below)
- Now test survey to make sure it's working and formatted correctly. For directions on how to test survey go to: How To Test Public Survey or How To Test Private Survey
How Participants Use / What the User Sees (Use this section when appropriate)
How a survey instrument appears to a REDCap user:
How a survey instrument appears in survey-mode which is how a potential participant would view the survey after opening the survey link:
Additional Considerations
Surveys instruments do not have to be completed in survey-mode. A REDCap user on your project can enter data for the survey instrument in as a plain data instrument. This scenario may apply if your team administered the survey orally or had a printed survey you'd like entered into REDCap. Ideally, enabling surveys is best utilized when survey instruments plan to be administered via email survey invitation links on REDCap.