What every piece of data in the task system actually means, in plain English — no code required. A starting point for new hires and anyone who wants to understand what these screens are showing.
Who is in a study and where they belong.
A single clinical trial — the research project a sponsor is running. Everything else in the system belongs to a study: its participants, its sites, and all the work participants are asked to do.
Think of it like: Think of a study as a whole school year: it has a roster of students, classrooms, and a calendar of assignments.
Relates to: Participant · Site · Task
A person enrolled in a study who completes activities on their phone. In the app and these screens they're identified by the username they sign in with — not a raw ID code.
Think of it like: The student in our school-year analogy — the individual doing the assignments.
Relates to: Study · Site · Task · Appointment
A physical clinical location taking part in the study — a hospital or research clinic where participants are enrolled and seen. Each participant belongs to a site.
Think of it like: The school building a student is enrolled at.
Relates to: Study · Participant
The work that shows up on a participant's dashboard.
A single piece of work assigned to one participant — fill in today's diary, complete a survey, record a symptom. A task has a status (open, started, completed, expired) and usually a window of time when it should be done. There are three flavours: Scheduled, Timed, and Episodic (below).
Think of it like: A single homework assignment with a due date — one student, one deadline.
Relates to: Activity · Appointment · Task Result
Scheduled tasks land on fixed calendar dates (e.g. every Monday). Timed tasks open relative to an event — typically a number of days around an appointment. Episodic tasks are on-demand: the participant can do them whenever needed, often many times (e.g. 'log a headache when it happens').
Think of it like: Scheduled = a weekly class. Timed = 'turn this in two days after the field trip.' Episodic = a journal you write in whenever something happens.
Relates to: Task · Appointment
The definition of what a task contains — its screens, its questions, and the rules for filling them in. One activity is reused to create many tasks: a single 'Daily Diary' activity becomes a separate task for every day it's due.
Think of it like: A worksheet master in a teacher's folder. One master is photocopied into many assignments — one per student, per day.
Relates to: Task · Question
One question or input within an activity — a rating, a number, a date, a free-text box, a photo. Questions are grouped into the screens a participant taps through.
Think of it like: A single question on a worksheet.
Relates to: Activity · Task Answer
A planned visit between a participant and the study — either in person at a site or a televisit. Appointments matter because timed tasks are often anchored to them: move the appointment and the related tasks shift with it.
Think of it like: A doctor's appointment in your calendar that some of your to-dos are pinned to ('do the pre-visit form 2 days before').
Relates to: Participant · Task · Site
The data a participant generates by doing their tasks.
A draft answer saved automatically while a participant is partway through a task, before they submit. It's a safety net so nothing is lost if they close the app. Once the task is submitted, temp answers are cleared — so seeing zero of them is normal.
Think of it like: The auto-saved draft of an email before you hit send. It disappears once the email is actually sent.
Relates to: Task · Task Answer
A participant's finished, submitted answer to one question. These are the real responses the study collects and analyses.
Think of it like: The answer written on the worksheet that was handed in.
Relates to: Question · Task Result
The record that a task was finished — when it was started, when it was completed, and by whom. One per completed task; it ties together all the answers for that submission.
Think of it like: The grade slip stapled to a handed-in assignment: who did it and when.
Relates to: Task · Task Answer
A timeline of every status change a task went through — opened, started, completed, expired. Useful for understanding exactly what happened to a task and when.
Think of it like: The tracking history of a parcel: each scan from 'shipped' to 'delivered.'
Relates to: Task
One clinical measurement a participant recorded — a blood pressure reading, a weight, a temperature. Each is a concrete value tied to the question that collected it.
Think of it like: A single entry in a health journal: '12 June — blood pressure 120/80.'
Relates to: Data Point · Question
Supporting concepts that help explain the data above.
The reusable definition of a kind of measurement — 'systolic blood pressure (mmHg)' — separate from any single reading. Individual readings are Data Point Instances.
Think of it like: The label on a form field ('Weight, in kg'); the number someone writes in it is the instance.
Relates to: Data Point Instance
A breadcrumb of app usage — a screen view, a tap, time spent on a page. These power engagement analytics and help diagnose where participants get stuck. They're about behaviour, not clinical answers.
Think of it like: The 'recently viewed' and time-on-page history a website keeps about how you browsed it.
Relates to: Task
Participants' phones work offline first, then sync to the cloud when connected. Sync state tells you whether a given record has made it from the device up to the central database yet, or is still waiting locally.
Think of it like: The little cloud icon on a shared document — saved on your laptop versus fully uploaded.
Relates to: Task · Task Answer