Data Access Groups

Decide whether groups represent hospitals, laboratories, field teams, countries, study arms, or another operational unit. In most clinical multisite studies, the access unit is the enrolling site.

Central access should be limited to users with a documented need, such as data managers, trial managers, monitors, or approved investigators. Broad access should never be granted simply for convenience.

A record must be assigned to the correct DAG through a defined workflow. Assignment may occur at record creation, through a site field, through import, or by a data manager. The process should be tested.

Reports are filtered by the user's access. Site staff may see site-specific outputs, while central users may see all sites. Training should explain this difference clearly.

New users, role changes, site transfers, temporary access, and staff departures should be documented in an access log and reflected promptly in REDCap.