Piping

MyDataHelps supports dynamic insertion of personalized information such as names, dates, and custom fields using Piping in surveys and notifications. This provides a wide range of enhanced interactions such as:

Personalizing notifications for each participant with their name and other information
Asking participants to confirm an upcoming appointment date or prior event date
Configure notifications with unified Workspace/Organization branding but unique Project branding
Sending coordinator notifications with a direct link to a participant

Syntax

To pipe a value into surveys and notifications, surround the variable name with <%= and %>, like this:

<%= DemographicField.FirstName %>

Surveys

Within a survey, you can use Piping in a variety of places to make survey content more dynamic and customized for each participant:

In displayed fields such as Title, Text, and Detail Text
As Default and Placeholder values
Within Web View steps
In a Consent form

For example, you can dynamically insert custom fields into the text of a Question Step with the following:

When a participant views this survey step, it will appear like below:

Additionally, piping can be used to display a default value in a survey step. For example, if you want to allow the coordinator to review or update the participant's surgery date, you may wish to default in the existing value for the surgery date:

Piping variables are substituted when a survey is started or a notification is sent. They will not update if the value of a custom field or demographic field changes in the middle of a survey. You generally should not Pipe a custom or demographic field in a survey where it is set, unless as a Default Value.

Notifications

Within a Notification, you can use piping in Title/Subject, Body, Web URL, and Email Template fields. For example, in an Email template:

Available Piping Variables

Variable	Example Piping	Description
ParticipantID	<%= ParticipantID %>	The ID of the participant (internal to MyDataHelps, automatically assigned)
ParticipantIdentifier	<%= ParticipantIdentifier %>	The participant identifier (can be viewed from the Participants tab)
InvitationStatus	<%= InvitationStatus %>	The invitation status of the participant, e.g. "Pending", "Canceled", or "Declined"
Enrolled	<%= Enrolled %>	Whether the participant has created an account and has enrolled in the project via MyDataHelps (True or False)
EnrollmentDate	<%= EnrollmentDate %>	The enrollment date of the participant
InsertedDate	<%= InsertedDate %>	The date the participant was first created in your project
ExcludeFromExport	<%= ExcludeFromExport %>	Whether the participant is excluded from export
CustomField	<%= CustomField.MyCustomField %>	Any custom field in your project — just change “MyCustomField” to your custom field name. For instance, <%= CustomField.StudyArm %>
DemographicField	<%= DemographicField.FirstName %> or <%= DemographicField.DateOfBirth %>	Demographic fields supported are: Email MobilePhone FirstName MiddleName LastName DateOfBirth Gender PreferredLanguage Street1 Street2 City State PostalCode UtcOffset UnsubscribedFromEmails TimeZone UnsubscribedFromSms
Project	<%= Project.Description %>	Information about the project. Supported fields are: ID Name Description Code SupportEmail SupportPhone LearnMoreLink LearnMoreTitle
Organization	<%= Organization.Name %>	Information about the workspace. Supported fields are: ID Name Description Color Code, found in your workspace URL:

Expressions

Expressions provide enhanced capabilities such as dynamically calculating values, conditionally displaying text, and re-formatting dates. Within surveys and notifications, Expressions use the piping syntax, as follows:

<%= CustomField.SurgeryDate.ToString("MMMM dd, yyyy") %>

While Piping is available to all projects, Expressions are not enabled by default. If you would like to use Expressions in your project, please contact us.