Comprehensive Guide: What’s New in REDCap (March 19th, 2026)

This major update brings over a number of significant feature enhancements, workflow improvements, and new capabilities to help you manage your research data more effectively. Below are the highlights of what is new; this is not an exhaustive list of what is included in the update.

NEW: Quality of Life & Interface Improvements

A massive focus of these updates has been making everyday REDCap tasks faster and easier.

• Better Error Popups: Branching logic and calculation errors on forms/surveys have been modernized. All errors are now consolidated into a single, clean dialogue box listing all affected fields.

• Rich Text Editor Upgrades: You can now easily change the font family and font size using new dropdowns directly in the rich text editor toolbar.

• Codebook Upgrades: The Codebook now remembers which tables you have collapsed (on a per-project basis). It also now clearly displays instrument names, event designations, and whether an instrument/event is repeating.

• Wider Calendar View: The calendar table on the Calendar page has been widened to fill the page better, allowing you to read more text for individual calendar events.

• Custom Paging for Repeating Tables: You can now specify the custom paging size (how many rows to display) for the repeating instrument popups/tables seen on the Record Home Page and Record Status Dashboard.

• Link Lookup Page: The "Survey Link Lookup" page has been expanded and rebranded. You can now use it to track down the source of Survey Queue links, Public Reports, and Public Project Dashboards.

• Project Statistics: The Project Home page now displays more detailed statistics, including when the project was created, when it moved to production, and the exact counts of instruments, events/arms. External Modules are also available to increase the variability of descriptive statistics.

• Quick User Removal: When viewing the User Rights page, clicking on a user's name now reveals a quick "Remove from project" button, bypassing the need to unassign them from a role first.

• Larger Alert Attachments: The maximum file size for static attachments uploaded to Alerts & Notifications has been doubled from 10 MB to 20 MB.

Web Accessibility Improvements

REDCap has made significant strides in making data collection and project management more accessible to users and survey participants with disabilities, ensuring compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

• Screen Reader Optimization: Screen readers can now successfully navigate inside date/time-picker widgets.

• Keyboard Navigation: Keyboard-only users can now seamlessly use the "Tab" key to navigate into and interact with date/time-picker widgets on surveys and forms.

• Multi-Language Screen Reader Support: When a survey uses Multi-Language Management (MLM), the webpage's underlying HTML language attribute updates dynamically, ensuring screen readers apply the correct pronunciation rules.

• Colour Contrast Upgrades: Non-project pages (like the REDCap Home Page and My Projects) have received contrast upgrades to make text easier to read for users with visual impairments.

The Enhanced e-Consent Framework & PDF Snapshots

• Unified Setup Page: All e-Consent and PDF snapshot settings have been moved to a single, dedicated page in the Online Designer.

• Version Control & Historical Tracking: Design and manage multiple versions of consent forms while maintaining historical versions for strict audit purposes.

• Static Display of Consented Versions: When a researcher views a participant's completed e-Consent response on a data entry form, REDCap will always display the exact version of the consent form the participant originally saw, even if newer versions exist.

• Language & DAG-Specific Consents: Consent forms can now be associated with specific Multi-Language Management (MLM) languages or Data Access Groups (DAGs).

• Built-in Mobile PDF Viewer: An internal PDF viewer has been added to ensure that multi-page inline PDFs display perfectly on iOS and Android mobile devices during the e-Consent certification step.

• Logic-Based PDF Triggers: Trigger PDF Snapshots based on conditional logic whenever data is saved (e.g., [consent_agreed] = '1').

• Snapshot Scope (Multi-Form Consents): Combine multiple instruments and events (and multiple signatures) into a single PDF snapshot.

• Manual Snapshot Re-Triggering: Users with "View & Edit" privileges can now manually trigger or re-trigger a snapshot at any time via a "Trigger Snapshots" link at the top-left of data entry forms.

Project Design & Management Tools

• Draft Preview Mode: Preview your data entry forms with drafted changes as if they were live before committing them to production.

• "Go To Field" Shortcut & Instant Copy: Press Ctrl+G (or Cmd+G) in the Online Designer to instantly search for and jump to a variable. Clicking any variable name instantly copies it to your clipboard.

• Visual Identifier Tag: In the Online Designer, a yellow figure is now displayed next to the variable name of any field flagged as an Identifier, making them easy to spot at a glance.

• Auto-Create Instruments: When moving fields in the Online Designer, a new dropdown option allows you to automatically create a brand-new instrument to drop the fields into.

• Matrix Group Conversions: Use the "Quick Modify" tool to instantly convert standalone fields into a Matrix Group, or click "Save & split matrix" to break a matrix apart into standalone fields.

• Condition-Level Form Display Logic: Apply specific logic conditions exclusively to Data Entry Forms, exclusively to Survey Auto-Continue, or exclusively to the MyCap app.

• Import/Export Logic via CSV: Download and upload your Survey Queue, Form Display Logic, and Survey Settings via CSV files to easily duplicate complex logic across projects.

User Rights, Security & Data Privacy

• Access Control Groups (ACGs): Administrators can now assign users to ACGs, which restrict the maximum privileges a user can be granted in any project (no access, read-only, or full access).

• Form-Level "Delete" Rights: Project owners can now grant users the ability to delete data on specific instruments without giving them broad privileges to delete entire records.

• Bulk Record Delete Page: Users with "Delete Records" rights can delete multiple records at once, or selectively delete data for specific instruments across multiple records.

• Read-Only User Rights: Grant users "Read Only" access to the User Rights page to see who is on the project without the ability to make changes.

• Admin-Restricted Folders: Administrators can create folders in the File Repository that are completely hidden from normal project users.

• Once-Per-Session 2FA for e-Signatures: If Two-Factor Authentication is enabled, users can be allowed to enter their 6-digit 2FA PIN only once per session when e-signing forms.

Dashboards, Reporting, Data Quality & Imports

• Targeted Data Quality Rules: Built-in Data Quality rules (A through I) can now be applied to specific fields rather than the entire project.

• Mass Delete DQ Rules: You can now delete multiple (or all) Data Quality Rules at once.

• Improved DQ/DAG Filtering: The Data Quality page now allows you to filter executions by multiple Data Access Groups or multiple records at the same time. Furthermore, closed/verified data queries are no longer automatically excluded from DQ results.

• Access Code Protection: Secure your public project dashboards and public reports with a custom access code.

• Project Dashboard Folders: Keep your workspace organized by grouping Project Dashboards into collapsible folders on the left-hand menu.

• Quick-Set Report Fields: When editing a report, paste a list of field names from your clipboard to instantly build the report.

• Background Data Import: Run large CSV imports asynchronously. REDCap will process the file in the background and email you an error log when finished.

• Alternative CSV Delimiters: The Data Import Tool now allows you to download import templates using alternative delimiters, such as tabs or semicolons.

• Rapid Retrieval Caching: Reports and the Record Status Dashboard use automatic caching, which drastically reduces load times for heavy projects.

Action Tags, Smart Variables & Special Functions

New Action Tags

• @SHOWCHOICE - Hides all choices in a multiple-choice field except the ones explicitly listed (e.g., @SHOWCHOICE='1,2').

• @INLINE-PREVIEW - Adds a "preview" button to File Upload fields, allowing users to view images or PDFs directly on the page.

• @SAVE-PROMPT-EXEMPT - Prevents the "Save your changes?" warning from popping up if a user navigates away from a page where only this specific field was altered.

• @SAVE-PROMPT-EXEMPT-WHEN-AUTOSET - Prevents the save warning specifically when a field's value is auto-populated upon page load.

New Piping Modifiers

• :field-label (e.g., [gender:field-label]) - Pipes the text label of a field instead of its underlying raw data value.

• :hideunderscore - Hides the ____ placeholder underline if the piped field is blank.

• :year, :month, :day - Extracts a specific component of a date field.

New Special & Math Functions

• Date Functions: year(), month(), day(), and dayoftheweek().

• Text Functions: replace_text(haystack, search, replace) and concat_ws(separator, text1, text2).

• Missing Data Checks: isblanknotmissingcode(), ismissingcode(), and hasmissingcode().

• Math Functions: mod() (remainder) and exponential().

Alerts, Automated Survey Invitations (ASIs) & Email

• Email Logging Filters: You can now filter the Email Logging page specifically for "Survey Notifications" and "Survey Confirmation Emails".

• "Test Run" for Alerts & ASIs: Toggle a "Test Run" (dry run) option when re-evaluating logic to download a CSV list of exactly who would be affected before actual emails are sent.

• Pause Recurring Alerts: Configure recurring alerts to "pause" (rather than delete) if their conditional logic becomes false, resuming automatically if the logic becomes true again.

• Decimal Intervals for Recurring Alerts: You can now use decimals for recurring alert intervals (e.g., 30.44 days).

• Designated Email Validation: Custom field validations with the "email" datatype can now officially be used for the Designated Email Field and ASI recipients.

• Email Users Page Overhaul: Administrators can create and save user filters on the "Email Users" page, and view a "Message History" tab to re-use previously sent messages.

Randomization Enhancements

• Multiple Randomization Models: Define more than one distinct randomization model within a single project.

• Blinded Randomization Support: Utilize a standard text field as your allocation target to hide explicit group assignment choices from users.

• Real-Time Trigger Logic: Randomization can now automatically trigger in real-time when a form is saved and a specified logic expression evaluates to "True".

• New Smart Variables: Track assignments and timestamps using [rand-number], [rand-time], and [rand-utc-time].

MyCap & Multi-Language Management (MLM)

• Message Scheduling: You can now schedule MyCap messages or announcements to be sent to participants at a specific date and time.

• Longitudinal MyCap: The MyCap mobile app now fully supports longitudinal REDCap projects and repeating instruments.

• MyCap + MLM Integration: Use Multi-Language Management to translate custom MyCap tasks, instructions, and interface elements directly inside the mobile app.

• MLM Subscriptions: Project languages can now "subscribe" to system-level languages. If an administrator updates a standard UI translation globally, your project will inherit the fix automatically.

• Mobile Toolbox (MTB) Measures: MyCap now supports Mobile Toolbox cognitive tests in both English and Spanish.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Features

REDCap can now integrate securely with Microsoft Azure OpenAI, Google Gemini, or locally hosted AI models:

• AI Writing Tools: A magic wand icon in the rich text editor allows you to quickly alter the tone, length, or reading level of your survey instructions or field labels.

• Data Summarization: A "Summarize" button can be enabled on Reports to automatically synthesize and summarize large amounts of free-form text data.

• MLM Auto-Translation: A new button on the Multi-Language Management setup page allows you to automatically translate all untranslated text strings using AI.

Note: These features require activation and configuration by the WE-SPARK REDCap Administrator as it requires an API key from a provider.

To access REDCap, please click on the logo above or alternatively click on redcap.uwindsor.ca

For the full Changelog, please see below: