REDCap: Version Upgrade to 17.4.4

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Improvements

Accessibility

Bug Fixes

Improvements

There are several new improvements available with this upgrade:

• New Special Function - Random()
• New Field Type - Enhanced Signature
• MyCap Improvements
• Multi-Language Management Improvements
• Alerts & ASI Improvements
• Other Miscellaneous Improvements
  
  

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Special Functions:

For current documentation about special functions, refer to REDCap: Special Functions.

New Special Function

• random (min, max) 
  •  Returns a random integer within the specified min and max (inclusive of both min and max) - e.g., random(1, 100) will return a random number from 1 to 100 (including 1 and 100). 
    
    

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New Field Type - Enhanced Signature:

Users may now utilize a more accessible signature field for capturing both a “scribble” signature or a hand-typed signature.

After clicking the “Add signature” link on a form or survey, the user/participant will be presented with the option to select “Type signature” (default) or “Draw signature”. They can type their signature in a text box, which will be converted to a font style of their choice and stored as an image, similar to how a scribble signature is saved as an image. 

When using the data dictionary to create fields, the Enhanced Signature field type should be “file” with the field validation type as “enhanced_signature”.

Note: Any fields that are currently an existing Signature field can be easily converted to an Enhanced Signature with no issues or data loss.

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MyCap Improvements

• When adding/editing the MyCap task in a MyCap-enabled project, users can also use the rich text editor for Intro page instructions and Capture page instructions for a couple of active tasks (Audio Recording and Selfie Capture) so that its formatted contents will appear in the MyCap app when a participant starts that task.
• The MyCap Participant List now contains:
  •  An "App Version" column that denotes the app version that the participant accessed for the project in the MyCap app.
  • A "Device Info" column that denotes the information of the device from which the participant accessed the project in the MyCap app.
• When editing a MyCap task's settings, selecting the "Allow retroactive completion" option now reveals a new configuration field. Project users can specify the exact number of days past the scheduled date that a participant is allowed to complete a task.
  

  

• MyCap tasks now support optional media attachments and embedded media within Descriptive fields.
• When using Multi-Language Management in a MyCap-enabled project, three new languages (Zulu: zu-ZA, Afrikaans: af-ZA, Czech: cs-CZ) were added to the list of "Language supported by the MyCap app". These new languages can be utilized in the MyCap app.
  
  

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Multi-Language Management Improvements

• Multi-language Management now supports field label piping via the :field-label piping option.
  
  
• On the Settings tab of the MLM setup page in a project, a new MLM setting has been added: “Discourage browser-based translation of survey pages”.
  • When this option is enabled, REDCap adds “do not translate” markers to survey pages to discourage browser-based translation. Browsers and translation tools may or may not honor these markers, so translation cannot be reliably prevented.
    
    

    

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Alerts & ASIs

Re-evaluate send time for Alerts & ASIs:

• For Alerts & Automated Survey Invitations (ASIs) that are sent relative to a stored date/time (i.e., via the option “When to send AFTER conditions are met”), the scheduled send-time can now be re-evaluated whenever the value of the stored date/time is.
  

  

• When enabled for an Alert/ASI, REDCap will automatically update the scheduled send-time for a scheduled (i.e., unsent) notification/invitation whenever the value of the date/datetime field is modified via any data-saving method.
• This option will be enabled by default for new Alerts & ASIs.
• Alerts & ASIs created before the upgrade will automatically retain the legacy behavior (i.e. no re-evaluation of send date/time).
• Note: No other attributes of the notification/invitation will be updated, such as sender, subject, content; only the send-time will be changed. Additionally, for ASIs with reminders, if the initial invitation has already been sent, any subsequent unsent reminders will not have their send-time modified in this situation.

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Miscellaneous Improvements

Navigation Updates

• New "Section Navigation" box that always displays on the right-hand side of data entry forms allows users to quickly jump to different sections of the form.
• When viewing a data entry form on a repeating event, new “Previous / Next” links have been added to the top of the instrument to allow users to more easily navigate between repeating event instances.
• The "Designate Instruments for My Events" page is now directly accessible from the left-hand project menu in longitudinal projects.

Online Designer Updates

• Users may now optionally use the rich text editor when defining Matrix Header Text for a matrix of fields in the Online Designer.
• The maximum character count for Descriptive Popups inline text was increased to 255.
• Ability to Copy/Paste Fields:
  • If you hold the Ctrl (or Cmd) key while clicking the Copy icon above a field in the Online Designer, it will copy the field attributes to the user’s clipboard (in JSON format), and the field can be “pasted” into the same project, another project, or even a project on another REDCap instance so long as it is on version17.2.0 or higher.
  • Multiple fields can be selected together for copying/pasting via the Quick-Modify Fields feature in the Online Designer. The Copy/Paste Field functionality makes a field into a portable item,  making it much more convenient to copy/move individual fields without having to copy entire projects (via Project XML or data dictionary) or instruments (via Instrument Zip file).

Other Updates

• The Bulk Record Delete feature now provides users with an option to delete “all records from a report”.
  
  • This new option allows you to create a report, for example, using whatever report filters they need to identify records that should be deleted from the project, and then easily select the report under the “delete entire records” option on the Bulk Record Delete page.
  • You can still choose to delete the records synchronously or as a background process.
• The Data Import Tool->View Background Imports page now displays a message telling upi how many bulk data imports for other projects are queued before the current project, and it notes that their project's queued imports will begin once all other imports in the queue have been completed. 
  
  
• When creating a project via a Project XML file, any syntactically incorrect branching logic, calculations, or CALCTEXT is now automatically commented out during the project creation process in order to prevent incorrect/illegal syntax from being used in the project.

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Accessibility Enhancements

• When a user dismisses the "required fields" error popup, the page now automatically scrolls to and focuses on the first incomplete required field.
  • This helps screen reader users immediately locate and correct errors, rather than having to navigate the entire page anew.
• Survey navigation buttons (such as "Next Page", "Save & Continue", and "Save & Return Later") now display a subtle glowing highlight when hovered over or focused via keyboard.
  • This makes it a bit easier for keyboard-only users to identify which button is currently active.
• Survey pages now announce page changes to screen readers (e.g., “You are currently on page X of Y of the survey title Z.”), ensuring screen reader users are aware when navigation occurs.
  • This improves orientation and prevents confusion about whether the form has responded.
• The language selector widget on survey pages now communicates its expanded and collapsed state to screen readers.
  • This ensures assistive technology users are informed when the language menu opens or closes.
• Survey form fields and buttons now display a clear, visible highlight when navigated by keyboard, making it easier to track which field is active.
  • This especially helps users with low vision or those who rely on keyboard navigation.
• The slider control now highlights the surrounding question in green when you focus on it — just like every other field on the form — making it easier to track which question you're answering.
• The slider's track and knob, when active, also have improved contrast against the adjacent colors.
• After a failed login, the REDCap login page now better associates the error message to the login form fields, and additionally,
  • The error message is now accessible to the screen reader when there is an error and the user is redirected back to the login page.
• The styling of various buttons on surveys and buttons on project pages have been modified slightly to improve their accessibility.
• Read-only calculated fields are now keyboard accessible and are announced as “read-only” by screen readers. Signature field and file upload prompts are now announced as buttons that open dialog popups. Note: These underlying changes do not alter the user interface in any visible way.
  
  

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Bug Fixes

Bug fixes are issues addressed with this upgrade.

• Major bug fix: After renaming records, some functionality related to PDF Snapshots would fail to work.
• Major bug fix: When performing randomization with strata fields, clicking the radio choice label for strata fields in the randomization dialog on a data entry form would mistakenly not change the value/selection of the strata field inside the dialog. Clicking the choice label in the dialog would change the value of the underlying version of that same field on the form that is displayed underneath.
  • The field selection in the dialog might not match up with the same field under the dialog.
  • This behavior could lead to confusion about which strata field values have been selected while performing manual randomization.
• Major bug fix: When using the e-Consent Framework that also has the option enabled to prevent users from editing e-Consent responses, if a user is on the data entry form at the same time that a respondent is completing the survey, then the user could mistakenly overwrite the respondent's e-Consent if the user submits the page after the respondent does.
• Major bug fix: The special functions age_at_date(), year(), month(), and day() would mistakenly fail to work when referencing a field on another instrument, where that other instrument is repeating.
• Bug fix: When embedded fields had branching logic, in which those embedded fields were selected to be hidden by a user via the "Erase the values of fields to be hidden?" confirmation prompt, the fields would mistakenly not be hidden afterward. This only occurred if the fields were embedded.
  
• Bug fix: When importing some Project XML files on the Create Project page, the XML parsing process might mistakenly fail, preventing the user from creating the project.
• Bug fix: When creating a project with a Project XML file, in which some field variable names contain double-underscores, it could prevent the project from being created in some specific cases.
• Bug fix: When erasing all records in a project or when moving a project to production while deleting all records, any Background Data Imports listed on the Data Import Tool page would mistakenly not be deleted
• Bug fix: On the Project Revision History page, when a user is attempting to compare a production revision to a data dictionary snapshot or when comparing two snapshots to each other, the resulting dialog would display a confusing message and would not display the comparison table.
• Bug fix: When record IDs are shared between arms in a multi-arm project, the Custom Record Label might not update correctly when navigating between arms on the Record Status Dashboard.
• Bug fix: Some specific audio files being used for inline audio on Descriptive fields might not play correctly on mobile devices.
• Bug fix: The function dayoftheweek() would not return the correct result on forms/surveys when using a DMY-formatted date field in the function in a longitudinal project with repeating instruments/events. 
• Bug fix: If a calc or CALCTEXT field contains the word "AND" or "OR" (in all caps) inside quoted text, an unexpected value might be returned for the field from server-side calculation methods
• Bug fix: On multi-page surveys under specific circumstances (e.g., clicking the Previous Page button), all "writing" action tags (DEFAULT, SETVALUE, etc), might behave in undesired ways.
• Bug fix: When using Alerts with the "Allow pausing of recurrences" option set, upon unpausing, more Alerts than expected might be sent (at one-minute intervals, up to the number that would have been sent as if the Alert was not paused.
• Bug fix: Using various REDCap special functions in calculations in certain ways with fields that have a blank value could result in incorrect results.
• Bug fix: Using a website URL (i.e., not a video link) for the Embed Media setting for a Descriptive field would cause the framed website not to load on the page on an iOS device if the embedded media’s display format was set to “Inside popup”. 

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If you have a UW-Madison REDCap project and have questions about the REDCap version upgrade, submit a REDCap - General Questions request through the SMPH Applications Support Portal.