Importing and Exporting Data Through the REDCap API

Manual exports are useful for learning, but many routine workflows benefit from automated export. The REDCap application programming interface, or API, allows approved users and scripts to request data directly from a REDCap project. In R, an API workflow can reduce repetitive manual downloading, ensure that the same export options are used each time, and support scheduled data quality reporting. However, API use introduces security and governance responsibilities. API tokens grant access to project data and must be protected carefully [@harris2009redcap; @harris2019redcap; @kenya2019dataprotection].