✨Avicenna September Update: Futuristic

Mojtaba Javan -

Hello Avicenna Community,

Autumn (Avicenna Update That Unlocks Major Needs) is here. Last month was a busy one as we focused on enhancing stability and fixing a series of issues you reported, as well as those identified by our quality assurance team. Additionally, we introduced some new features and improvements. Among them is the new Test Participants feature, which marks the first step in a chain of important updates leading up to the pricing system and license management.

Here’s a look at what we accomplished in September:

🚀 Test Participants

You’ve likely been using the participant label for distinguishing between main and test participants. Now, you can set or invite participants as test participants without affecting the labels. This will aid in more precise study analysis and improve the upcoming quota calculation feature. You can read more about this on our Learn website.

🚀 Fitbit Weight Log

We already integrated Avicenna with Fitbit. Now, you can also collect the Fitbit Weight Log. This new metric captures users’ weight logs, including weight and BMI. For more details, please visit Fitbit Weight Log on our Learn website.

🌟 Improvements

  • VAS questions with decimal support
    We improved Visual Analog Scale (VAS) questions in surveys to support decimal values for the minimum, maximum, step, and labels’ lower bounds. You can read more about this on our Learn website.
  • Multiple texts for Stroop’s neutral rounds
    We improved the settings for neutral stimulus rounds of Stroop by allowing researchers to set multiple texts instead of just one. Each neutral round will use one of those texts randomly. Additionally, we added an option to ensure texts are shown an equal number of times. You can read more about it on our Stroop documentation.

🐞 Bug Fixes

  • Video call hang-up confirmation
    We fixed an issue where participants on mobile apps did not receive a hang-up confirmation prompt when ending a video call that was being recorded.
  • Discarding the first draft changes of a survey
    We resolved an issue where the Discard button was incorrectly shown for the first draft version of a survey (when no version had been published yet).
  • Incorrect status for “All Activities Responses” exports
    We addressed an issue where the status for “All Activities Responses” exports was incorrectly reported. Previously, the status was marked as Failed initially and then changed to Finished.
  • Incorrect video orientation in recordings and Firefox
    We fixed an issue in Televisit videos from participant mobile apps where, regardless of the device’s orientation, they were being recorded in landscape mode and displayed in landscape mode by the Firefox browser.
  • Decimal number input for survey questions
    We fixed an issue on the participant iOS app where entering a decimal number for number-based survey questions would clear the input if a comma was used instead of a dot. Now, the app automatically converts commas to dots to ensure the correct number entry.
  • “No Data” representation for sensor data
    We resolved an issue in the researcher dashboard where, despite collected sensor data being available, some data sources showed a “No Data” message instead of the expected plot under the participants’ Devices details.
  • Skipping the last question in surveys
    We fixed an issue where participants on the web app were unable to skip the last question of a survey if it was not mandatory.
  • Survey sessions responded to or edited by researchers
    We addressed an issue where submitting responses would fail on survey sessions that researchers had responded to or tried to edit the responses.
  • Sessions from user triggering logics
    We fixed an issue on the participant web app where participants encountered an error while trying to open a session with a user triggering logic.
  • Expiry time countdown timer for activities
    We fixed an issue on both Android and iOS apps where the expiry time countdown timer for activity sessions was not refreshing correctly. This update ensures the timer shows the correct value every time the home page is visited and refreshes at the correct intervals. It also removes expired activity sessions from the page even if the participant keeps the study homepage open.
  • iOS crash on empty options of single answer question
    We addressed an issue causing the participant iOS app to crash when a single answer question contained an answer option with whitespace text (" "). Apparently, such answer options have their own use cases.
  • iOS crash on reopening surveys with multiple answer questions
    We resolved an issue on the participant iOS app where reopening an in-progress survey containing multiple answer questions caused the app to crash. The crash occurred because previous answers were not loaded correctly upon reopening.
  • Stroop and Matrix Reasoning activities on iOS
    We fixed an issue where activities like Stroop and Matrix Reasoning were not working on the participant iOS app, resulting in an error when opening the activity.
  • Placeholder reference to non-existing survey questions
    We fixed an issue in the participant web app where question content placeholders referring to non-existing survey questions still showed as placeholders instead of an empty string.
  • Incorrect position options for moving survey sections
    We resolved an issue in the survey editor where, regardless of the selected section, only sections 1 and 2 were available as options to move the section before/after them.

🔍 Reflecting on the Impact

Your experience with Avicenna is crucial to our growth. Each update aims to streamline your research, focusing on usability and efficiency. We strive to support your research effectively.

📣 We Value Your Feedback – And Your Stories

Have the updates improved your research? We encourage sharing your experiences on our Community Forum or via email. Your feedback helps shape our future updates and motivates the Avicenna community.

⭐ What's Next?

We remain dedicated to improving Avicenna. New features are in the pipeline, aiming to further enhance your research workflow. To name a few upcoming features, we're introducing:

  • Disable Previous Button in Surveys: You will have the option to prevent participants from changing previous responses in the same survey to ensure data integrity and reliability.
  • Reset Participation: As a next step to the Test Participants feature we introduced above, test participants will be able to reset their participation and start as new participants in the study right within the app.
  • PII (Personally Identifiable Information): No need to contact Avicenna support to enable/disable PII for your study anymore. We are bringing the toggle to your dashboard.
  • And more: Stay tuned for additional features and improvements as we continue our mission to optimize your research experience.

Avicenna is about to get even better, and we're excited to reveal all the improvements to you.

Let's keep pushing the boundaries of research together.