REDCap Tips & Tricks: Action Tags

The ITHS REDCap Tips and Tricks series is designed to support researchers get the most out of REDCap in their translational science work. For the May installment, the focus is on action tags, a tool that provides more control to customize REDCap forms and surveys.

What’s an action tag?

An action tag is a specialized term beginning with the @ sign that is placed in a field’s Field Annotation box to customize how that field behaves or appears on data entry forms and surveys. Each tag triggers a specific action, such as auto-populating values, hiding fields, or enforcing data entry limits.

Here are three action tags you might use in REDCap on a regular basis:

• • @HIDECHOICE: Allows for adding revised questions without losing any initial entries already saved in the database.
  • @IF: A conditional command that allows more control over implementing other action tags only when certain conditions are true. For example, making a field read-only or hidden based on previous entries.
  • @NONEOFTHEABOVE: Restricts checkbox options so that multiple answers are not selected.

Access the Tips and Tricks within TREE to find more details about each of the above action tags including screen shots and additional information.

Please note that the REDCap course content is updated regularly to reflect software changes. For the most accurate and current information, please be sure to check TREE for all the latest updates.