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YES3 Exporter II

Version 2.0.15, October 2025

Welcome to YES3 Exporter II

YES3 Exporter II complements REDCap's reports and data export tool by adding functionality of interest to statisticians and data managers presiding over datamarts (particularly SAS datamarts, but support for R is in the pipeline).

Perhaps the most important feature is support for "horizontal layouts", that is exported datasheets for which there is one column per event-field combination.

Other features include:

  • An expanded documentation model: our goal is to put all the information you need to operate Exporter II into the User Interface (UI). Documentation tools include:

    • Dynamic tooltips on every interactive UI element (buttons, textboxes, etc.).
    • Detailed topic-specific popups that can remain open and be resized and moved around as you work.
    • Detailed online usage and technical documentation (this document).

  • Support for comma-delimited (CSV) or tab-delimited (TSV) export datasheets.

  • Options for coding and conditioning data values:

    • Remove PHI, free text, and/or date fields from the export, similar to REDCap’s reporting options.
    • Perform REDCap-compatible date shifting and record hashing (validated as of REDCap v15.5).
    • Convert exported data to pure ASCII.
    • Drop unprintable ASCII and UTF8 characters (newlines and tabs are converted to spaces).

  • Export-specific data dictionaries (Excel-friendly CSV files) that include data distribution summaries for each exported column. Depending on the field type, the distribution summary will include:

    • Univariate calculations: n, mean, min, max, sample standard deviation, sum of values, sum of squared values.
    • For date and date/time fields, formatted mean, min, and max are also provided.
    • Frequency table (JSON structure; nominal fields only).
    • Maximum observed string length (for text fields). This is intended for optimizing storage requirements for analysis datasets (SAS, R, SPSS, etc.).

  • The ability to organize export items by form and/or event.

  • Rigorous auditing of every export, optionally with daily summaries mailed to a designated user.

  • The ability to roll back an export specification to any previous version.

  • Optional execution-ready SAS code to build datasets and format libraries. The code is optimized for the specific export. For example, character variable lengths are tuned to the observed max lengths in the export, potentially saving significant storage space. The INPUT program will not replace an existing dataset if any error is encountered. Formats can be assigned only as needed for reports, etc. Formats are shared between variables, across all exports.

YES3 Exporter II vs the original YES3 Exporter

YES3 Exporter II and the original YES3 Exporter are different EMs. You can have both enabled at the same time. We did not want to force you to immediately upgrade to Exporter II if you already had a major workflow investment in the original, but you should migrate from the original YES3 Exporter to YES3 Exporter II as time permits. We will not be supporting the original YES3 Exporter going forward.