Once you’ve added a form and section you can add a field using the Add a field link in the section. There are several field types to choose from depending on the type of data you are collecting.
Use for descriptive data such as initials, medication name or adverse event. A maximum of 80 characters are allowed.
Use for recording longer descriptions or notes. There is no limit to the amount of text that may be stored.
Use for recording numbers. Decimal places and whether the number can be negative are controlled by the format option. For instance ### format allows positive integer numbers from 0 to 999 only. -#.## allows numbers from -9.99 to 9.99. Both hard and soft ranges can also be specified for number fields to limit values or warn of unusually low or high values.
Use for recording dates in dd/mm/yyyy format. Options are available to limit dates to past dates (which includes today) or future dates.
Use for recording boolean data.
Use for recording a category such as sex or ethnic group. Categories are specified with a semi-colon separated list of values. Categories are presented as a drop-down select control in Red Pill unless the field is required and has 3 or fewer values. In this case the category will be presented as radio buttons.
Use for recording the time of an event in 24 hour clock format (e.g. 19:50).
Use for recording durations in hours and minutes (e.g. 36:30).
Used to add arbitrary text to a form. Does not store data.
Entering a form with every field type in Red Pill
The label is shown on the form in Red Pill above the control for entering data. It is the question or information sought.
The name field is used to name the underlying database column. Because of this, names must be alphanumeric, start with a letter, and have a maximum length of 32 characters. The name is used when downloading data from Red Pill.
All field types except explanation can optionally be set as required. The user will see an error message for this field if they skip it when entering data in Red Pill.
Fields can optionally be set as PII. The value will be encrypted when stored in the Red Pill database.
Help can be added to any field to provide instructions or additional context to the user. The help is shown in a popup on the form in Red Pill. You can add bold to emphasize words in the help by surrounding them with asterisks *like this*.
A field with help in Red Pill
Other options such as field size, number format, hard and soft ranges are shown depending on the field type chosen.