RE: Auto-numbering?

[Gobin, Polly (Asi)]

Hi Chantal,

 

Not sure if you saw my last post re: linking Record IDs with Participant IDs, but it might help.

 

I think there is a way to get rid of your own IDs, though, if that is what you ultimately want to do. 

 

If you wanted to start the auto-numbering record ID at 3000, you would have to go in to an existing record (I’d suggest creating a fake record to do this) and manually change the record number to 2999 so that the next assigned record # would be 3000. You will need to have “Rename Records” ability under your User Rights in order to do this. 

 

To get this ID# to show in the survey, you would create a calculated field that equals the REDCap record ID field (I believe the default name for this field is [record_id]).

 

Good luck!
Polly

 

-----Original Message-----
From: lifespan-r...@googlegroups.com [mailto:lifespan-r...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of chanta...@gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2013 4:28 PM
To: lifespan-r...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Auto-numbering?

 

Hi,

 

How can I make auto-numbering start at a specific number?

 

In my survey, we've been using our own ID number is the main participant identifier but it's just getting too confusing since we can't really prevent duplicate IDs from being entered. (We have several RAs recruiting at once and I want to eliminate the likelihood that two different RAs assign different participants the same ID number.)

 

If we wanted to get rid of our own IDs and just use auto-numbering, could we start at, say, 3000? And is there any way to make the participant's number appear on screen so the RA can document it? Using a calc field, perhaps?

 

Thanks!

Chantal

 

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[chanta...@gmail.com]

Thanks, Polly.

I have the participant ID that we enter defined as a secondary unique value but for some reason, that doesn't prevent us from being able to enter duplicates... Could I be doing something wrong? I just checked, though, it appears that we have the correct field selected as a unique value. But I've never gotten any kind of error message when entering a duplicate ID number and it's happened a few times now that I've gone back through our survey responses and found complete records with the same ID.

That's why I was considering doing away with our IDs altogether. But maybe there's another solution?

Chantal

[Gerber, Alan H]

Hi Chantal,
I would follow Polly's advice to auto number your participants. You can probably follow your own ID system by entering in some data manually and then setting it to auto number.
However, it seems like you've hit upon a significant problem with REDCap. I just tried it out and you CAN save two participants with the same secondary unique identifier. If you enter the data live it will give you a warning that the ID is a duplicate, but it will still save it.

Alan Gerber, M.A.
Clinical Research Assistant
Rhode Island Consortium for Autism Research and Treatment
Developmental Disorders Genetics Research Program
Bradley Hospital Brown University
Phone: (401) 432-1624
Fax: (401) 432-1607
http://www.AutismRI.org

[Gobin, Polly (Asi)]

Hi Chantal,

 

I’m not sure why it’s not working as expected for you.  I’m guessing Auto-numbering of records is automatically enabled because it’s a survey.

 

When I try to enter an ID that has already been used, I get this message and can’t proceed until I enter a unique ID:

 

 

 

What shows up in the Record Status Dashboard next to the record ID?  That is the field REDCap is using as the secondary unique field if you are not sure you are referencing the right one (in example below Participant ID is the secondary unique field).

 

REDCap Record ID	BL Session
1  (Participant ID 8452)
2  (Participant ID 8991)
3  (Participant ID 8457)
4  (Participant ID 8758)

 

 

Polly

[Gerber, Alan H]

Polly, to clarify, when I enter data manually with a secondary unique identifier I get that message, but am still able to save the changes. This is not the case with the first unique identifier, which will not let me change at all.

 

Alan Gerber, M.A.

Clinical Research Assistant

Rhode Island Consortium for Autism Research and Treatment

Developmental Disorders Genetics Research Program

Bradley Hospital                Brown University

Phone: (401) 432-1624

Fax:       (401) 432-1607

http://www.AutismRI.org

 

[Chantal]

When I look at the Record Status Dashboard it does show the correct field, the Participant ID that we manually enter. However, when I open the survey and enter an ID that has already been used, I don't even get the error message.

Chantal