Moving to Production Mode: The Most Important Thing to Know

In short: Production mode is critical to protect your data. It doesn't stop you from making project changes, but it does protect your work from unintended outcomes and threats to your data validity and integrity.

If you're ready to start collecting real data (anything you wouldn't want to lose), then you must enter production mode. You can move your project to Production through Project Setup:

You can still make changes to a project that's in production mode. In Designer, you'll see the option to put the project into draft mode:

Once in draft mode, you can make almost any changes you need. (You won't be able to change variable names, so make sure you're happy with your variable names before you start collecting real data.)

The changes you submit through draft mode might not be a problem at all! Some changes that are no big deal include adding new fields, new answer choices, and changing branching logic. These types of changes are approved automatically after submission.

However, the proposed changes could be more critical. If the changes you submitted could delete your data or change its meaning, they'll be routed to the REDCap team for a quick review. We may need to e-mail you about your changes and explain what would happen if we approve them. We typically get back to you on the same day so you can decide what to do.

One more tip: Do you know in advance that your submitted changes will show up as critical—deleting data or changing its meaning—but you already have a plan in place to deal with it?

In that case, let us know! Sending a quick email to redcap [at] chop.edu (redcap[at]chop[dot]edu) to say you're aware of what your changes will do and are prepared to re-code or re-enter data lets our team know it's safe for us to go ahead and approve your changes, saving everyone time!