Types of Participant Fields

MyDataHelps Designer has a few different field types that can store participant information as outlined in this article. Refer to the Participant Fields Overview article for basic information about what participant fields are, how to populate them, and how to use them.

Demographic Fields

Demographic fields capture standard participant demographic information. Below are the available demographic fields; new demographic fields cannot be created.

DemographicField.Email
DemographicField.MobilePhone
DemographicField.FirstName
DemographicField.MiddleName
DemographicField.LastName
DemographicField.DateOfBirth
DemographicField.Gender
DemographicField.PreferredLanguage
DemographicField.Street1
DemographicField.Street2
DemographicField.City
DemographicField.State
DemographicField.PostalCode
DemographicField.UtcOffset

Identifier Fields

Identifier fields capture different IDs for participants, which include:

• ParticipantIdentifier: The primary project-specific identifier, unique to the participant.
• SecondaryIdentifier: An optional, secondary project-specific identifier, unique to the participant.

Custom Fields

For any other type of information to collect about a participant, you can create your own project-specific custom fields. Custom fields can be immensely powerful to your project and most projects will have custom fields that are available in a few different formats:

Custom fields are restricted to letters, numbers, and/or underscores (Word characters). Using CamelCase is recommended for ease of readability. Legacy projects may have custom fields with other characters, including spaces. These legacy fields will not be impacted. However, users will be restricted to Word characters only for any custom fields they add to their legacy projects moving forward.

• Date: You might consider storing important date information (e.g. SurgeryDate or DiagnosisDate) in a custom date field.
• Decimal: You might consider storing precise data (e.g. Weight) in a custom decimal field.
• Email: While there is already a demographic email field, additional custom email fields can store a secondary or caretaker’s email address.
• Integer: Similar to decimal, but stores integer (e.g. PriorPregnancies) in a custom integer field.
• Phone: Similar to email, but you might consider storing a secondary or caretaker’s phone number.
• Text: You might want to store a string (e.g. StudySite) in a custom text field.
• Timestamp: Similar to date, but you can store a precise timestamp (e.g. ChildDelivery).

Creating Custom Participant Fields

While demographic and identifier fields cannot be created, you can create any number of custom fields to fit your project needs. To create a custom field:

1. Navigate to your project and click on the Custom Fields tab.
2. Add a name for your custom field (we strongly recommend using CamelCase for ease of readability).
3. Optionally, add a description to your custom field and then click Add.
4. You’ll now have the option to change the custom field format (see the above format descriptions) from the drop-down list. The default is “Text”.
5. The “Editable” column is a way to control if the value of the custom field can be modified from the Participant Viewer (Participant Info tab) or populated by survey answers. This should almost always be checked.
6. After adjusting your custom field, make sure you click “Save Custom Field Settings”.

Alternatively, you can also create a custom field from the Populate Custom Field drop-down within a survey step’s properties by selecting “New Custom Field”.