Viedoc Running Studies in China Webinar Q&A
This video is a recording of the Running Studies in China webinar, part of the "Working Smarter series":
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Running Studies in China - Q&A
Q: Should I use the Chinese server for studies in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Singapore?
A: The China server is only necessary for the Chinese mainland. Studies in Taiwan typically use the Japanese server. Taiwan also uses the traditional Chinese characters, so there is a translation issue there as well. Hong Kong can use the EU or Japanese server just fine for now. Most of the entire world is served best from the EU server. The EU server is generally the best default to use – even for remote regions like Australia.
Q: Do you already have experience of helping customers running their studies in China already and how was the outcome?
A: Yes, this is part of our daily operations. We’ve had a presence in China since 2016, and have many clients that operate global and local studies with Chinese sites and partners. Our work in China isn’t remarkably different from that in EU or US: we build studies in China, we support Chinese users, and we train Chinese CROs to use Viedoc effectively. Our office is in Shanghai and we have a team of product specialists and sales representatives working there in the local language as well as English.
Q: Can the EU server URL be changed to "eu.viedoc.net" to make more sense and align with the other URL names?
A: While this may seem like a sensible thing to do we must consider that many clients may have written very specific instructions or hardcoded integrations depending on our URL. Thus, we would inadvertently cause a lot of rewrites if we were do this minor change. There are several studies that run for decades and count on things not drastically changing during that time. At Viedoc we always consider backwards compatibility as one of our highest priorities.
Q: What does the "v4" part of the URL mean for the European and Japanese servers?
A: There are different product versions of Viedoc. The original product was called Viedoc 3, which should have its final study end this year (2025). Afterwards that product will be decommissioned entirely and we shall have a proper Viking funeral for it. Viedoc 1 and 2 were “beta versions” of Viedoc 3.
Q: Can you be logged in to different Viedoc servers at the same time?
A: Technically yes, but it should never be necessary. Just like you have two separate accounts for the training and production server, you’ll have an entirely separate account for the other servers as well. So it’s possible to have 8 separate Viedoc accounts (as there are 8 different servers: EU production, EU training, US production, US training, Japan production, Japan training, China production, and China training). It’s only necessary to have access to one training server.