What’s new in version 1.0.6 (February 2024)

Version 1.06 is a maintenance release that adds REDCap Version 14 compatibility along with bug fixes and minor enhancements.

From the Change Log:

1. Modified as required for REDCap v14 compatibility. Tested on v14.1.4 (php 8.1.2) and v13.7.31 (php 7.4.3).
2. New documentation model: All documentation has been moved to a separate repository for which a GitHub pages site is deployed off the main branch. The “document explorer” plugin has been replaced by a link, identified with a “book reader” icon, to the GitHub pages site.
3. Permission model changed, to distinguish between ‘exporter’ and ‘designer’ roles. Export ‘design’ permission is granted only to project designers. Export permission is granted to only users having REDcap export permissions on all forms involved in the export specification, regardless of designer or superuser status.
4. Export specifications will be selected or excluded based on (1) the user’s design and export permissions and (2) the results of a basic export validation check prior to being loaded into the export manager. Export validation checks include:
   • verifying that an export specification is complete enough to be executed
   • verifying that all forms, fields and events are still defined on the project
   • for longitudinal projects, verifying that all forms are still assigned to events.
5. Results of the permission and validation checks, if any, are reported to the browser console. The user is alerted to the presence of the console log and instructed to press Ctrl+Shift+J to access the browser console. In a future release the validation check will be stored with the export specification.
6. Once an export specification is selected and loaded, a message will be posted indicating the user’s ‘design’ and ‘export’ permissions for that specification. The ‘download’ and ‘export to file system’ action icons will be disabled if the user lacks the necessary permissions.

What’s ahead: version 1.1.x

The next feature release will include the following upgrades, among other enhancements:

1. A redesigned UI that we hope is much more intuitive. The current “exporter main” tool will be replaced by a new “export manager” tool. The export manager will list all export specifications for the project, and will allow the user to edit, reorder, delete, and execute export specifications.
2. Multiselect fields can be exported either as multiple columns (one per option) for which 1=selected and 0=not selected, or as a single column holding the list of selected options.
3. Support for repeating events and forms for vertical and horizontal layouts. The ‘repeating form’ layout will be deprecated as it is equivalent to a vertical layout for a single repeating form.

Here is a preview of the new export manager: