Once you are in a study, most days follow a gentle rhythm: open the app, see what is due, and complete a short check-in or an assessment. This page explains each kind of task — and what happens on days when you cannot do them, because those days are expected too.
Home is your daily starting point#
Home shows your active study, key tasks, reminders, self-trial cards, and actions that help you keep the study moving. You do not need to remember a schedule — if something needs attention today, Home shows it.
From Home, you can open:
- Assessments due now.
- Daily check-ins.
- Medication tracking, when it is part of your study.
- Calendar and study timeline views.
- Study search and study history.
- Self-trial setup or active self-trials.
- Symptom reporting and safety flows.
Daily check-ins#
Daily check-ins are designed to be short. Depending on your study, a check-in may ask about your overall symptoms, post-exertional malaise (PEM — the crash that can follow exertion), and specific symptoms the study team selected.
To keep the effort low, the check-in may prefill yesterday's answers. Instead of starting from scratch, you adjust only what changed — often a few taps and you are done.
Assessments#
Assessments are questionnaires or guided study tasks scheduled by the study team. They can be baseline tasks, daily tasks, weekly tasks, custom-week tasks, or one-time tasks. Each one shows an estimated time before you begin, so you can decide whether now is a good moment.
- Open the assessment from Home or the assessments list.
- Review the estimated time.
- Select Start — or Resume if you began earlier.
- Answer each question.
- Submit when complete.
If you need to pause partway through, TrialPilot can keep your progress so you can resume later. You do not lose your answers by stepping away.
Guided physical assessments#
Some studies include guided physical assessments, such as NASA Lean or sit-to-stand style tasks. These screens guide you through each step and may use timers, heart-rate capture, sounds, and live readings when your device supports them.
Stop if you feel unsafe
Medication tracking#
If your study includes medication or intervention logging, use the medication tracker to record the doses or adherence events the study team asked for. It appears on Home when your study needs it — if you do not see it, your study does not use it.
Missed a day?#
That is okay. Missed days are normal and expected — especially with an energy-limiting illness, where a crash can take a day (or several) off the table. When you are ready, come back and pick up with today's tasks.
A missed day is also honest data, not a failure. For many studies, the days you could not check in say something real about how you were doing, and researchers expect to see them. There are no streaks, no penalties, and no guilt mechanics anywhere in TrialPilot — your contribution adds up over the whole study, not day by consecutive day.
Next: see what your data looks like over time in Trends, pacing, and readiness.