Mosio is a messaging service specifically tailored for REDCap users, allowing for automated survey invites, alerts, and survey invitations via SMS/text messaging. Mosio is available for project teams through a monthly subscription model. For more information about the subscription plans and how to get an account, please read Getting a Mosio Account.
This article will provide you with instructions on how to create custom "Project variables" in Mosio, which can be used to store additional data (aside from the default fields) within your Mosio project. The appointment reminder functionality is made available to all Mosio accounts with at least a Basic plan.
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How to Create a Project Variables
From your Mosio project dashboard, click on the "Tools" dropdown menu.
From the "Tools" dropdown, click the "Project Settings" option.
Once on the new page, click on the "Tools" dropdown menu again.
From the dropdown menu, select the "Project Variables" option.
You will now see the following overview - if you have existing project variables, they will be listed here.
To create a new variable, click the "Add Field" button.
This will open the following pop-up window, with 8 different editable fields.
1. System name - the name of your field that will be used when including data from the custom field in SMS messages. This is comparable to a REDCap field name, and has restrictive formatting.
2. Friendly name - the label for your field that will appear in reports and other locations you have chosen to display the variable. This is similar to a field label in REDCap, and should be kept short.
3. System Only - Selecting "Yes" means that this field will not appear in the user-facing interface of your Mosio project, but this field still can be used to collect data within Mosio. If "No" is selected, this field will appear on pages such as your project's storyline and appointment reminder overviews.
4. Contacts Page - this dropdown has three selectable options: "Hidden", "Admin Only", and "All Users". Selecting "Hidden" will hide this project variable from the Contacts page within your Mosio project. The "Admin Only" selection will configure your contacts page to only show this field to those identified as an Administrator on your Mosio project. "All Users" will cause this field to appear for any Mosio user when accessing the contacts page of your project. These settings will also impact whether or not the project variable appears on storylines.
5. Add Contact Page - the options are the same as the Contacts Page dropdown with the same permissions just applied to the "Add Contact Page" instead. These selections are restricted to the "Add Contact Page" of your Mosio project. This maybe be helpful if you would like to introduce these values while adding contacts to your project through the Mosio user interface.
6. TextChat - the dropdown options match those described for the "Contacts Page" and operate in the same fashion, but for the "TextChat" page in your Mosio Project.
7. Participant Profile - offers the same dropdown options as options 4, 5, and 6. This will limit what fields are viewable from a participant's profile page.
8. Field Type - this setting will dictate what type of data may be entered into the project variable. The dropdown options are "Text", "Options", and "Advanced Options". Each of these dictates what type of data may be saved to the field, and how that data is stored.
- "Text" allows virtually any value to be entered into the project variable. This formatting is preferable for open response options, dates, or values that you wish to import into Mosio directly from REDCap.
- "Options" is a structured data field, where the response options are limited to those defined when designing the field. This would act as a multiple choice field. See the following screenshot for example.
- "Advanced Options" is a structured data field, where the values assigned to response options differ from the value label that appears for the end-user. This functions similarly to how REDCap dropdown fields.
After the desired selections have been made from the pop-up window, click the "Save" button.
Once a project variable has been saved, it will appear with a summary of your selections on the "Project Variables" page. If you would like to edit a Project Variable, click the "Edit" button
With the settings above, I can now view/update the "coord_name" field's value on the "Contacts Page" -
Here is the field will appear on the "Add Contact" page -
This is what the field will appear as on the "TextChat" page -
Finally, here is how the field appears on the "Participant's Profile" -
How to Move Project Variables Values from REDCap to Mosio
For Mosio projects that are linked to a REDCap project, you can define automated triggers that will move data from REDCap into Mosio at a user defined frequency. This can be done using Mosio's %Tags% functionality, along with REDCap's alert function.
To start, identify the name of the Mosio project variable(s) you want to use. In our example, we'll be using dis_date and coord_name.
After we have identified the variables we want to be transferred into your Mosio project, you will want to identify their REDCap field counterparts. In this example, the REDCap fields will have identical names, but this is not a requirement for this feature.
Now that we have determined the names of our REDCap fields and Mosio variables, navigate to the "Alerts & Notifications" page from the left-hand sidebar of the REDCap project.
Once you have reached the page to configure alerts, click the "+ Add New Alert" button.
In the new pop-up window, we will configure our alert conditions. You may choose to customize Step 1 and Step 2 of your alert in anyway. Read the Alerts & Notifications article to learn more about configuring alerts. Keep in mind, a message designed to send multiple times will mean that the value in Mosio will update each time the given conditions are met. This may be desirable in some cases, as data may change over time for the participant, and we want to be sure that these values are up-to-date. In the following example, we will have REDCap trigger an alert every time the "Fill Mosio Variables" instrument is saved with new data.
In Step 3, we will select the "SMS Text Message" option for the Alert Type.
We will also select the primary phone number that Mosio is using for communications for the "Recipient phone number(s)" field.
In the body of the message, we will start with a single line with the text %notext%
On the following line, we'll use the following formatting:
%set:mosio_variable_name:[redcap_field_name]%
If we were to do this for the Coordinator name field in both platforms, I would want:
%set:coord_name:[coord_name]%
If I only want to update this field with the alert, I would then click "Save".
Before triggering the alert logic, my storyline would appear as it does in the following screenshot -
If I were to then trigger my alert logic -
The alert would send, and my Mosio storyline would now show the value specified in the alert -
Due to my alert logic, saving the "Coordinator" field again in REDCap with a new value would update Mosio almost immediately.
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It is also possible to update multiple fields in the same alert. If we edit the content of our original alert to include %set:dis_date:[dis_date]%, this value will also update after saving the specified instrument.
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Next Up
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