REDCap (https://redcap.partners.org/redcap) upgrades to v8.5.24 scheduled for Thursday August 9th at 7:30AM EDT are complete. REDCap was offline from 7:30-8:07AM EST.

 Full release notes can be found here. 

If you have any concerns about REDCap being offline at this time, please email edcsupport@partners.org

Important: New Method For Composing Survey Invitations!

One of the new features included in the upgrade to v.8.5.19 is the ability to fully customize survey invitations. The standard text and survey link are no longer automatically appended to the text you provide. 

For most users, the transition will be seamless. However, we recommend that users review any projects that utilize Automatic Survey Invitations to ensure their survey text is displaying as expected. 

For groups using the Twilio service, the projects should be reviewed as soon as possible, especially ones using Automated Survey Invitations. You may need to manually add in a reference to [survey-url] or [survey-link] into the text depending on your invitation preference.  

This is how the new feature is detailed in the REDCap release notes:

Improvement/change: New method for composing survey invitation text using Smart Variables for survey link

When composing a survey invitation, the standard text and survey link are no longer automatically appended to the survey invitation text at the time the email is sent. Instead, users must now specify all the entirety of the text of the email (including the stock text and survey link that used to be appended automatically, if they wish) and therefore must supply [survey-url] and/or [survey-link] in the text if they wish to provide the participant with a link to the survey.

If the user forgets to enter the survey URL Smart Variable in the text, REDCap will automatically suggest to them that they should.

If using the Twilio telephony module for sending invitations, the standard instructional text will still be appended in the SMS message as in previous versions EXCEPT for the “Email invitation” and “SMS invitation (contains survey link)” invitation types, which require [survey-url] and/or [survey-link] in the SMS text in order for the participant to receive a survey link.

Note: All survey invitations that were scheduled prior to this upgrade will still have the standard text and survey link appended to their survey text. Additionally, during the upgrade to this version, all saved configurations for Automated Survey Invitations (ASIs) will have the standard text and survey link automatically appended to the saved ASI email text, thus allowing the ASI behavior to remain exactly the same after the upgrade and allowing it to be backward compatible.

REDCap (https://redcap.partners.org/redcap) experienced unexpected downtime today from approximately 1:10 - 2:05 PM EDT. The issues were related to the infrastructure supporting REDCap and not related to this morning's upgrade. 

REDCap is back online. 

If you have any concerns, please email edcsupport@partners.org

REDCap (https://redcap.partners.org/redcap) upgrades to v8.5.19 scheduled for Monday December 10th, 7:00AM EDT are complete. REDCap was offline from 7:00-8:05AM EDT.

This upgrade includes a number of new features and bug fixes. These include:

New feature: Smart Variables: Smart Variables are dynamic variables that can be used in calculated fields, conditional/branching logic, and piping. Similar to using project variable names inside square brackets - e.g., [heart_rate], Smart Variables are also represented inside brackets - e.g., [user-name], [survey-link], [previous-event-name][weight], or [heart_rate][previous-instance]. But instead of pointing to data fields, Smart Variables are context-aware and thus adapt to the current situation. Some can be used with field variables or other Smart Variables, and some are meant to be used as stand-alone. There are many possibilities.
35 Smart Variables are available. They can reference things with regard to users, records, forms, surveys, events/arms, or repeating instances. Documentation and examples for using Smart Variables are included on the Project Setup page, Online Designer, and other places throughout REDCap in a popup and alternatively as a standalone page.

Improvement: Added new "Record ID" column in the Survey Invitation Log table to allow users to find specific invitations more efficiently. Note: If the record name should not be displayed in order to preserve the anonymity of a response (e.g., participant identifier is not used, designated email field is not used), it will instead display an icon indicating that the record name cannot be displayed.

Improvement: The Survey Invitation Log now contains an extra column on the right-hand side to allow users to delete many scheduled invitations at once (rather than having to delete them one at a time).

New feature: Survey-specific email invitation fields: This is a new option on the Survey Settings page that can be enabled for any given survey, in which a user may designate an email field for sending survey invitations for that survey only.

This feature is similar to the project-level email invitation field except that it is employed only for the survey where it has been enabled. This allows users to have data entry workflows that require multiple surveys where the participant is different for each survey. Using this feature, multiple people can be emailed a survey invitation, after which all the survey data they enter goes into the same record in the project.

Improvement/change: New method for composing survey invitation text using Smart Variables for survey link: When composing a survey invitation, the standard text and survey link are no longer automatically appended to the survey invitation text at the time the email is sent. Instead, users must now specify all the entirety of the text of the email (including the stock text and survey link that used to be appended automatically, if they wish) and therefore must supply [survey-url] and/or [survey-link] in the text if they wish to provide the participant with a link to the survey.

Release notes highlighting new features, improvements, and major bug fixes are available here.

Full release notes available here.

If you have any concerns about REDCap being offline at this time or any questions about these new features, please email edcsupport@partners.org

Applies to: All databases and systems connecting to the MySQL hosted database system mysql3.research.partners.org

The ERIS Infrastructure team has resolved the operational issue on mysql3.research.partners.org and has canceled the shutdown and restart identified for this evening.

This is a precautionary communication. 

There is a possibility that we may need to shut down and restart mysql3.research.partners.org tonight (11/14/2018) between the hours of 7:00 pm and9:00 pm. We have an operational issue that is impacting normal maintenance. If the issue is not resolved by early evening, then we will need to shut down and restart mysql3.research.partners.org.

If the issue is resolved and we do not need to restart, we will share a communication with you. If we need to shut down and restart mysql3.research.partners.org tonight, we will send a communication before the shutdown and again when mysql3.research.partners.org is back online.

Impact

All databases hosted on mysql3.research.partners.org will be offline while we shut down and restart mysql3.research.partners.org. 

Action Required

If you are the owner of a database on mysql3.research.partners.org, we encourage you to take your applications offline before the maintenance window and reconnect once the work is complete.

Please let us know if you have any questions by forwarding your questions to rcc@partners.org.

On Saturday morning November 3, 2018 from 7:00am - 9:00am the ERIS Infrastructure team will perform maintenance on mysql3.research.partners.org and on https://rc.partners.org. There will be a short interruption of service for both mysql3.research.partners.org and for https://rc.partners.org during the maintenance window. 

The proxy server is back online. The /var directory filled and HTTP went down when it could not write to its log file. We cleaned up var and restarted HTTP which resolved the problem. 

The proxy server went down at 10:25 and was back online at 11:05.

Please reach out to rcc@partners.org with any questions.

We are making an update to the log in process for Secure File Transfer at https://transfer.partners.org. Starting Thursday, November 1st at 10:30 p.m., employees will need to access this system for your individual accounts using your primary work email address and Partners password. This change is only for individual employee accounts.  External collaborators and group/departmental accounts can continue to login the same way.

With the Secure File Transfer Service, you can exchange large files with collaborators both inside and outside of Partners via a web browser. Visit https://rc.partners.org/SFTP for more information about this service.

The LimeSurvey (https://limesurvey.partners.org/limesurvey) decommission scheduled for today October 3rd, 2018 11 AM EDT is complete. LimeSurvey has been taken offline and migrated to an internal only accessible server for data archiving.

After today, if you require access to data, please submit a request to edcuspport@partners.org. We will be able to grant short term access (~6 hrs) for you to access and export data.

If you have any questions, please email edcsupport@partners.org

We sincerely thank all of our LimeSurvey users for their use and support of the system over the years. 

Thanks, 

EDC Support

REDCap (https://redcap.partners.org/redcap) experienced an unexpected outage on Wednesday September 26th from approximately 2:00-8:30AM EDT.  

Please review your projects if surveys were scheduled to send during this time.  Manage Survey Participants > Survey Invitation Log.  You can filter on "Invitations that failed to send" and resend as needed.

Survey data may not have been collected at this time and participants received a web-browser error message when attempting to click on a survey link.

If you have any concerns, please email edcsupport@partners.org

The RFANFS service issue has been resolved and all mount points have been restored. Please forward any questions or concerns to rcc@partners.org.