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Pathway versioning lets you evolve a study’s participant pathway — questionnaires, schedule of activities, study arms — through a formal lifecycle without disrupting participants already enrolled on a prior version. You can iterate in a draft, validate on designated test sites, approve for production, and retire old versions when they are no longer in use.

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What Gets Versioned

A CRF version bundles everything that defines the participant pathway for a study:
  • All questionnaires (CRFs)
  • The schedule of activities (pathway structure)
  • Study arms
  • Citations
Each version has a human-readable label (for example, “Version 1.0”) and a short identifier. A draft can be created from scratch or “based on” an existing version — the latter copies all forms and settings so you only need to change what differs.

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Lifecycle

Transitions are one-way. To iterate on a Testing or Approved version, use Copy as new draft to create a fresh Draft that is “based on” the locked version.

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Where to Find It

Pathway versioning lives on the Participant Pathway page under Study Design. The dashboard groups versions by status (Approved, Testing, Draft, Retired) and shows the “based on” lineage between versions.

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Creating and Editing a Draft

1

Create Draft

On the Participant Pathway dashboard, click Create Draft. Choose to start from scratch or base the draft on an existing version.
2

Edit Content

Edit questionnaires, the schedule of activities, and study arms as you normally would. All edits are saved against the draft without affecting any other version.
3

Name and Describe

Set the version label (e.g. “Version 2.0”) and an optional description. Both can be updated until the draft leaves Draft status.
Study arms can only be modified in Draft status. After a version is submitted for Testing, its arms are locked.

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Submitting for Testing

When a draft is ready to validate:
1

Submit for Testing

Open the draft and click Submit for Testing. The version transitions to Testing and becomes immutable.
2

Validate on Test Sites

On any site that is designated as a test site, enrol participants against the Testing version using the version selector.
3

Iterate If Needed

If validation finds issues, create a new draft with Copy as new draft and start again. Testing versions cannot be edited directly.
A site becomes a test site through its organisation type (set by an organisation admin). Test sites can enrol participants even when the study is not yet active, and they see a version selector when both Approved and Testing versions exist.

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Approving for Production

1

Approve the Testing Version

Open the Testing version and click Approve. The version transitions to Approved and the previous Approved version (if any) is automatically retired.
2

New Enrolments Use the New Version

All participants enrolled from this point forward are bound to the new Approved version.
If the Approved version has more than one study arm, the public participant self-registration portal is automatically disabled. Manual enrolment through sites is unaffected.

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Participants Already Enrolled

Participants are bound to the version that was Approved when they were enrolled. When a new version is approved, in-flight participants stay on their original version — they do not migrate. The previous Approved version moves to Retired, which preserves all its historical data for ongoing data collection. This means:
  • Existing participants continue to complete the pathway they were enrolled on.
  • New participants enrol on the newly Approved version.
  • Retired versions remain visible on the Participant Pathway dashboard so you can see which pathway any given participant is on.

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Audit Trail

Every version event is recorded in the study audit trail:

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Permissions

Version lifecycle transitions (Submit for Testing, Approve, Retire) require the Study Manage permission and are typically held by Chief Coordinating Investigator, Deputy Coordinating Investigator, and Study Administrator roles.

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Best Practices

Use Testing + a test site to dry-run every non-trivial change. Approved is final — to fix a mistake, you have to create a new draft.
Unless you are starting a fundamentally different pathway, use Copy as new draft from the Approved version so that participants already on it stay comparable.
Treat the version label like a software release tag. “Version 2.0 — add safety follow-up at week 12” is more useful to future you than “v2”.
Testing is for validation, not long-term parallel production. Approve it, or discard it and start a new draft.

Participant Pathways

The participant-facing view of the pathway.

Study Arms

Arms are versioned along with the pathway.