Publishing is the moment a study stops being a draft and becomes enrollable: validation passes, the study is set to enrolling, and its real invite code starts working. This page covers the publish flow itself, how visibility controls who can find the study, and the four recruitment paths — invite codes, join links, QR codes, and the TrialPilot research registry.
Before you publish, rehearse. Every draft study is a sandbox where your own team can run the full participant experience with flagged test data — see Test mode. Publishing ends the sandbox and starts enrollment from a clean slate.
Publish the study#
The Publish tab in the Study Builder is where you confirm the study is ready for enrollment:
- Select Review to validate required fields across the whole study.
- Review any validation errors, grouped by the Study Builder section they belong to.
- Resolve missing or invalid configuration in those sections.
- Select Publish. When validation passes, the study becomes enrolling.
IRB approval gates enrollment when it applies
Visibility: public or invite-only#
Each study is either public or invite-only, and the difference is about discovery, not access control alone:
- Public studies may appear in participant-facing discovery surfaces, so participants can find them without being invited.
- Invite-only studies do not appear in the public TrialPilot study feed. Participants need an invite path — a code, link, or QR — to reach them.
Invite codes#
Every study has an invite code. Copy it from the Study Builder, or share it from the study dashboard with Share Invite. A participant enters the 8-character code in the app to open the study and start enrollment.
The code only works once the study is published. While the study is a draft, only the separate TEST- sandbox code resolves, and only for accounts on the tester list.
Join links and QR codes#
A join link wraps the invite code in a URL of the form https://www.trialpilot.app/j/{code}, which you can put anywhere a link goes — an email, a flyer, a clinic portal. QR codes encode the same link for print and posters.
What participants experience#
- With the app installed, opening the link — or scanning the QR code — opens the TrialPilot app directly on the study.
- Without the app, the link opens a landing page that shows the study and guides the participant to install. The invite code carries across the install, so after account creation, consent, and profile setup the study appears without retyping anything. If the automatic handoff does not complete, the participant can always enter the code manually.
- The carried code holds only the invite code itself — no identity — and expires after 24 hours; an expired handoff falls back to normal app startup with manual code entry still available.
Link visits and installs feed the anonymous recruitment funnel shown on the study dashboard, so you can see how a campaign converts without seeing who clicked. For the participant-side walkthrough, see Join a study.
Recruit from the research registry#
The Recruitment workspace queries the TrialPilot research registry for potential participants beyond your study's direct reach. Registry recruitment is built to protect member privacy:
- Researchers see counts only, never identities.
- TrialPilot sends the invitations — your team never contacts registry members directly.
- Members are not contacted more than once every two weeks.
- Large campaigns may deliver gradually rather than all at once.
Organization admins, study admins, and investigators can run feasibility queries and invite matching registry members when the server grants the required permission.
Next#
Once enrollment opens, move to Monitor participants to track enrollment progress, completion, and wearable coverage — and keep an eye on the safety queues described in Safety operations.