Getting started — Part 1: Study Setup

Welcome to Trialflare! You're probably wondering how to get started - don't worry, we will help you get up and running in no time.

Background

Trialflare is multi-platform. Everyone can use it, from PIs and sponsors to healthcare professionals and participants. It doesn't matter what your research area is. You can use our data types and stages to create rich forms which both your participants and any administrators, study team members or healthcare professionals that have the right access permissions can fill in. Trialflare is deeply collaborative. You can invite team members to join your study and assign them unique roles. Perhaps read-write access for senior team members, or just read-only for administrators working on-the-ground. You can customize what you need for each study. Your forms can be one-off or longitudinal, singular or in a group of forms. For example, you might have one baseline form which collects some preliminary information just one time. Alternatively, you might have a weekly questionnaire for participants to fill in to track some potential changes over time with an intervention. We even have options for you to synchronise participant wearables to gather fitness and well-being data alongside these other submissions through our Garmin partnership. Trialflare brings every part of your digital workflow into one place for everyone, seamlessly.

Getting started? It's easy and involves three steps.

Step 1 — Trial information

Your study needs a unique code to distinguish it from other studies on the platform. Whether you're having your participants enter data from off-site (for example on their smartphones or in a web browser on their phone or laptop), or on a site visit where they are accompanied by a study team member, you will need a unique trial code. Call it whatever you like—for example, ouruniversitysleepstudy.

Setting trial information

(Screen recording labels from the original help centre referred to tutorial clips here.)

Step 2 — Data types

Data types can take many shapes and sizes. Think of them as the format of data you want to collect. They can include:

  • Text (short or long)
  • Dropdown / choice (single or multi-select)
  • Integer
  • Decimal
  • Slider
  • Date
  • Date and time
  • Temperature (with imperial/metric conversion)
  • Height (with imperial/metric conversion)
  • Weight (with imperial/metric conversion)
  • BMI (with imperial/metric conversion)
  • File (for example pdf, docx, pptx)
  • Image (for example jpeg, gif, png)
  • Video (for example mp4)
  • Nutritional input (Open Food Facts database—3,000,000+ food and drink items)
  • Cognitive tests (Stroop, PAL, RAVLT)

On their own, data types do not have much context. For an integer, the only rule is that it is an integer (1, 56, 23990, and so on). Without context it does not mean anything—but when you create a data type you name it for the role it plays in your forms, for example current_age. You can set minimum and maximum values (field validation) so submissions stay sensible. In a study recruiting 18–45 year olds, you might set current_age to a minimum of 18 and a maximum of 45. Values outside that range are not permitted.

Creating a data type

Important: For every distinct value you store, you need a separate data type. If you have 25 Yes/No questions, you need 25 Yes/No choice data types (for example is_current_smoker, is_participant_pregnant, is_participant_on_medication).

Data types: good practice

  • Use naming schemes such as 1.1_first_name, 1.2_last_name to keep types organised when you create many of them.
  • Keep names short but clear enough that you can skim a long list.
  • Configure validation (limits, ranges, choice options, character limits) wherever you can to reduce bad submissions.
  • Clone similar types to save time (for example many Yes/No fields).
  • You can edit data types later (names, limits, ranges, options).

When you have enough data types for the values you need, you combine them into a stage.

Step 3 — Stages

In Trialflare, stages can be thought of as forms. A stage groups the data types you defined into a sensible set—for example a baseline questionnaire with demographic fields such as date_of_birth, first_name, smoker, overall_mood_today, and so on.

You order fields in the layout you want and add question titles, supporting text, instructions, or images. For a slider overall_mood_today (1–10), the title might be: “In the last 7 days, how would you rate your overall mood?” with supporting text: “1 = worst mood, 10 = best mood.”

When a data type is placed on a stage with a question title, it is a field. A field has:

  • A question title
  • The underlying data type and its validation
  • Whether it is required before submit
  • Optional conditions (for example only show a text box when the participant chooses “Other”)

Creating a stage

Stage settings (advanced)

Trialflare offers many stage options under Settings, for example:

  • Site-specific stages when participants are delegated to different locations—see Part 10 — Team members, collaborators and sites.
  • When the stage is available: not for participants, for participants (app or web), or after another stage or event.
  • How often it runs: one-off, repeating on a schedule (for example weekly for 8 weeks), or ad hoc for unlimited or occasional entries (food diaries, bowel movement logs, and similar).

You can add post-submission text (thank-you messages or next steps). You can also use a stage as an anonymous poll when you are not running a traditional trial with arms.

See also: Part 12 — Anonymous polls and branded QR codes.

Stages: good practice

  • Use titles and section dividers on long forms; dividers can include images.
  • Use required fields sparingly—each submit will block until required items are filled.
  • Explore stage settings for recurrence, ad hoc collection, push reminders, and more.

With a few more data types you can build your first forms and start gathering data. Continue with Part 2 — Creating participants.