Skip to content
YouEDC docs

Export builder and formats for statistics

The forms and variables you need, a row per visit or per patient, in SPSS, Stata, SAS, R, Excel or CSV.

The plain export gives the whole study. The export builder gives exactly what the analysis needs: the forms and variables you pick, a row per visit or a row per patient, in the format of your statistics package. Variable and answer labels, numbers and dates are already in place, with nothing to recode.

Long and wide layouts · the same data Long a table per form, a row per visit SUBJECT VISIT SBP 0001 Screening 190 0001 Month 6 176 0002 Screening 120 Wide one table, a row per patient SUBJECT SBP_V1 SBP_V2 0001 190 176 0002 120 · Long suits mixed models and the analysis of repeated measures. Wide is what a t-test, a before-and-after regression or Excel needs. Visits are numbered V1, V2… in the study schedule; a repeat adds _2, _3.

How to build an export

  1. Open Data export and press Export builder. The statistician opens the builder from the data cuts page.
  2. Data: the study's live data or one of its cuts. A cut gives the same numbers at every download, so a statistical analysis is better taken from a cut.
  3. Forms and variables: tick the forms; a form's variable list unfolds, and All and None help to choose. If you wish, add the status, source and save time of each form, the events table with visit dates and windows, and the consents table.
  4. Layout: long or wide.
  5. Format and Download.

How a field becomes variables

Field → variables · the labels stay in the file SMOKER yes / no SMOKER = 1 / 0 numbers labelled “Yes” and “No” RISK several answers RISK, RISK_1, RISK_2… 0 / 1 per answer: “ticked” WEIGHT number, may be ND WEIGHT, WEIGHT_ND the number; the ND / UNK / NA mark apart VS_DATE date VS_DATE a real date: intervals count at once Name length: SPSS and R up to 64 characters, Stata 32, SAS 8. What had to be shortened is listed in README.txt.
  • Numbers stay numbers, whole ones without decimals. Dates and date-times become dates of the package.
  • Yes / no, one answer of a list: a number with answer labels when the answer codes are numbers; text otherwise.
  • Several answers: a variable with the codes separated by commas, and a 0 / 1 variable per answer.
  • “No data” marks (ND, UNK, NA) do not fit a number column, so such a field gets a _ND variable.
  • Why there is no data: when the site gave reasons for the marks of a field, a _NDREASON variable comes next to _ND with the codes ROUTINE, NOTREC, REFUSED, NA, UNK, and empty where no reason was given.
  • The wide layout labels a variable with its visit: SBP_V1 “Systolic BP · Screening”. When the same field code is in two forms, the form code goes in front: VS_SBP_V1.

Formats

FormatWhat is in the fileNames
SPSS (.sav)a file per table with variable and answer labelsup to 64 characters
Stata (.dta)a file per table with variable and answer labelsup to 32 characters
SAS (.xpt)a v5 transport file per table and the read_data.sas program with the answer formatsup to 8 characters
Ra CSV per table and the read_data.R script: labelled factors and datesup to 64 characters
Excela sheet per table, a variables sheet and an “About the file” sheetas in the study
CSVa file per table, UTF-8, commaas in the study

Every archive holds VARIABLES.csv with all variables, their labels and full names, and README.txt: where the data comes from, the layout, which names were shortened for the format and which texts were cut (SAS v5 holds up to 200 bytes of text).

Permissions and audit

Live data is exported by those with the export permission: the project administrator and the data manager. A member with access to some sites gets the patients of those sites only. In a blinded study the forms for the unblinded team stay out for the blinded. A cut can be taken by whoever sees the cuts and every site; the statistician always gets a cut de-identified, the others choose. Every builder export shows in the export history and goes to the audit trail: the format, the layout, the forms and the number of variables.

© 2026 Т.Г. (contact@youedc.com), YouEDC. All rights reserved. Terms of use. Data entered by users belongs to them.
MainEDC™ is a trademark of DM365.