The release notes offer brief, high-level descriptions of enhancements and new Medable Axon features. Click on the headers for more detailed setup information and implementation tips.

Version 4.0.0 Release Notes

Active Tasks

Some studies may need more data than is provided by responses to survey questions or the data collection capabilities of the HealthKit and CoreMotion APIs on iOS. Active tasks invite users to perform activities under partially controlled conditions using iPhone sensors to actively collect data. For example, an active task for analyzing gait and balance might asks the user to walk a short distance, while collecting accelerometer data on the device. Axon supports the following Active Tasks:

Audio
Short Walk
Fitness Check
9-Hole Peg Test
Tower of Hanoi

For more information, please read the full documentation for Active Tasks.

Export Study Data

Medable Axon allows Administrators to export data from a study into a CSV file format. This feature allows users download Study Responses, HealthKit Responses, and a Study Key along with the ability to download file data like image files, consent documents, and active task responses.

For more information, please read the full documentation for Exporting Study Data

Bug Fixes and Flask App Updates

There were several bugs that were addressed in this release. Here is a list of what was updated.

There was a bug fixed in the Flask App that addresses issues with leaving a study and accessing a new study
There was a refactor of the Research Authentication and Research Registration scripts that fixes a known bug with timeout errors when logging into flask
There was a bug fixed in the Flask App that addresses UTC Time zone conversions when evaluating Task schedules
There was a bug fixed in the Researcher portal that addresses an error that showed when viewing image links in the response viewer.
There were several improvements to the UI of the Flask App including updates to the Onboarding Screens and color scheme change
Several bugs were resolved that resulted in a spilled flask error in the Flask App.

February 2017 Release Notes

In the February 2017 Axon release, we've adding some great new features. Axon now supports the HealthKit Permission step. A HealthKit Permission step allows you to collect data from any device that writes to the Health App on the iPhone. The new Flask App has an improved UI. We've also fixed several bugs that are outlined below.

NOTE: There were large changes to the Flask app. We recommend that you delete the old app and install the app new from the App Store. You must reinstall the app with this update or you may see unintended issues with the Flask app.

HealthKit Permission Step

Many Axon researchers want to capture important connected device information on the participant while also capturing survey data for that participant. This data can then be used to correlate survey data with HealthKit data and produce insights otherwise not possible without Axon.

How it works

The researcher portal admin must configure the HealthKit Permission step to be part of a new task or include it as part of an existing task.
When the participant completes the step in the app, it is no longer asked again unless you delete the app or you get a new phone and reinstall the app on the new device.
After permission is granted, the app will check for data 10 seconds after authentication or 10 seconds after the public user is established in a public study, then every minute the app will check if there is data not previously uploaded and starts a process to upload anything new. If the app goes into background mode or if the phone goes into sleep mode, the app will continue to upload. If the app is killed or the phone dies, the background upload will stop and pick up where it left off when the app is opened again.

For more information, see HealthKit Permissions Step.

Bug Fixes

There were several bugs that were addressed in this release. Here is a list of what was updated.

Addressed Null Pointer Exceptions that were occurring in the Flask App when values on the Time of Day and Integer Scale Step were left blank in the researcher portal
Resolved several bugs around group assignment and registration
Fixed a bug related to Calender Week schedules
Fixed bugs related to View Responses performance

December 2016 Release Notes

In the December 2016 Axon release, we've added some exciting new features. Medable strives to offer the best functionality to help you manage your study better and provide the best user experience for your participants. We've added some advanced functionality for enrollment and viewing responses within the Researcher Portal. Not to mention some key bug fixes to the base ResearchKit SDK. We've also made our Axon Test app available in the Apple Appstore so you can test any study that you build in Axon with just a few taps in the Axon App!

Advanced Enrollment

We've added 4 types of study enrollment settings. The following grid will explain the different combinations of the settings and how the app will work with each configuration.

Type	Limited	Public	Description
Open Enrollment	FALSE	FALSE	Anyone can download the app and create a user and join your study. This configuration requires a user to register or login with an existing user account. User registration requires you to have an authentication task in the public group.
Limited Enrollment	TRUE	FALSE	Anyone can download your app but they cannot create a user or register unless they enter their email and a 4 digit code that is emailed to the user when they are enrolled to the study. This configuration requires a user to register or login with an existing user account. User registration requires you to have an authentication task in the public group.
Public Open Enrollment	FALSE	TRUE	Anyone can download your app and participate in the study anonymously
Public Limited Enrollment	TRUE	TRUE	Anyone can download your app and participate in your study anonymously but they must enter their email and a 4 digit code that is emailed to the user when they are enrolled to the study.

For more info, see Enrollment.

View Responses

Now you will be able to view your responses for your study in the Researcher Portal in real-time. You can view the data at the Study Level, Task Level, Step Level, and the Study/User Level. A researcher will be able to download files submitted from Image Capture Steps right from the Portal. Each grid view will have search capabilities to narrow your search results.

For more info, see View Responses

Flask

Now you can download Flask directly from the Apple Appstore and test your study immediately. All of the functionality you've configured is available to test and view On-Demand. Available in Late December 2016/Early January 2017

For more info, see Flask.

Research Kit 1.4 Mods, Extensions and Bug Fixes

There were several ResearchKit related bugs that were addressed in this release.

Image Capture Step - Did not allow the user to change the camera orientation in the Axon App for the Image Capture Step. We built in a setting into the Image Capture Step to allow a researcher to default the setting in the Researcher Portal so that the right camera orientation is displayed to the user in the Axon App.
Email Step - There was a bug in iOS 10+ where the email step text would not show when you typed into the field in the Axon App.
Text Step - There was a bug in iOS 10+ where the Secure Entry property was not masking text entered into the Text Step in the Axon App.
Continuous Scale Step - UI value and result value mismatch when using fraction digits.
Date Step - Mismatch between picker.date and what is shown in the UIDatePicker.
Date Step - Date not being set correctly on Date Step. Set a default date on the step to 1/1/1975. Set the date to something in the Axon App and then move to the next field. The date will change to the day before.
ORKTextAnswerFormat - Added a validation block to validate the user's input.
ORKResultPredicate - Added more result predicates to do answer matching tests for branching (Scale, Date, Time Interval, Time Of Day).
ORKTimeOfDayQuestionResult - Added a method to convert the TimeOfDay answer to minutes, so it's easy to create predicates for comparison.