Data Dictionary Uploading -- Switching Survey Question Order?

[Eryka Saylor]

My study has 10 surveys that participants fill out as part of a study visit. This issue has been happening for awhile... 

I download the data dictionary in CSV UTF-8 format, make changes by adding questions to a certain survey, and then when I upload and review, it always switches the question order in at least one of the 10 surveys. And often not the survey I was actively making changes to. 

Any thoughts on why this is happening? It is driving me nuts!

[David Edwards]

Hi Eryka,

I'm a bit rusty on REDCap and I don't really know the answer to this, but I was just working on a data dictionary and noticed a column called "Question Number (surveys only)".

It made me wonder if setting this might stop the problem you mentioned. Sorry if this is stating the obvious though.

Cheers,

David.

---

From: redca...@googlegroups.com <redca...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Eryka Saylor <elwe...@gmail.com>
Sent: 22 January 2026 18:27
To: Redcap Open <redca...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [REDCap Open] Data Dictionary Uploading -- Switching Survey Question Order?

 

My study has 10 surveys that participants fill out as part of a study visit. This issue has been happening for awhile... 

I download the data dictionary in CSV UTF-8 format, make changes by adding questions to a certain survey, and then when I upload and review, it always switches the question order in at least one of the 10 surveys. And often not the survey I was actively making changes to. 

Any thoughts on why this is happening? It is driving me nuts!

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[Eryka Saylor]

Great thought! We don't actually number our questions, however. If I ever set up a new study, I'll definitely do that though to help fix the issue. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Peter Macisaac]

It is vital that you don’t use Excel for managing the data dictionary

It introduces a whole heap of gremlins

Try open office and see how that goes

Peter