Find records more easily with Custom Record Labels

Record 1. Record 2. Record 3. Record 4. Which record is the one I want?

REDCap is very handy when it comes to collecting data and keeping data organized within records. Now, how do you find the record you need among all the other records you’ve collected? REDCap has a few ways to help with this including searches and reports, but for this post, we’ll be looking at improving the labelling of records.

REDCap Record IDs are often a number or a combination of numbers.

This has its benefits, but we can add Custom Record Labels to make them easier to identify.

Custom Record Labels use piping to present information associated with a record alongside the Record ID in REDCap. As a result, if you have a participant’s name in a record, you can display it next to the Record ID making it easier to find a particular participant’s record faster. If you have collected an Enrollment Date, you can use that to identify records with Enrollment dates in May.

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To set up Custom Record Labels, navigate to your project’s Project Setup page. (You can use the link in the left-hand margin, under Project Home and Design.)

From there, scroll down to (or search for) the section marked “Enable optional modules and customizations” (this is usually the third or fourth section) and click on the button for “Additional customizations”.

In the window that appears, check the box next to “Set a Custom Record Label”. In the text box provided, you can specify what information you want to display next to your Record IDs by entering associated variable names in brackets []. You can also add other words or punctuations in that box to add clarity as needed.

Next time you need a little more information about your records than is in the Record ID, consider adding a Custom Record Label.