Move on. Open the Interactive Web Response System to confirm the screening number assignment will work. The portal loads, but the landing page shows the training environment banner. The site was supposed to be switched to live mode last Friday. It was not. The coordinator cannot assign a real screening number in a training environment, and the IVRS help desk does not open until 9:00 AM Eastern--which is 8:00 AM at the site.

One more. Open the sponsor's safety reporting portal to confirm the bookmark is correct and the login works. The page returns a certificate error. The institution's IT department updated its security certificates over the weekend, and the sponsor's portal has not been added to the exception list.

Three systems. Three failures. And a participant arriving in ninety minutes.

This scenario is not hypothetical. I have seen versions of it play out at sites that did everything right during start-up--regulatory submissions filed on time, essential records collected, SIV completed smoothly--but treated system access configuration as an administrative afterthought. Something the IT department handles. Something that "should just work."

System access configuration is not an administrative afterthought. It is a critical operational prerequisite, and the coordinator who manages it systematically--with the same rigor applied to regulatory submissions and essential record collection--is the coordinator whose first enrollment day runs without surprises.

Move on. Open the Interactive Web Response System to confirm the screening number assignment will work. The portal loads, but the landing page shows the training environment banner. The site was supposed to be switched to live mode last Friday. It was not. The coordinator cannot assign a real screening number in a training environment, and the IVRS help desk does not open until 9:00 AM Eastern--which is 8:00 AM at the site.

One more. Open the sponsor's safety reporting portal to confirm the bookmark is correct and the login works. The page returns a certificate error. The institution's IT department updated its security certificates over the weekend, and the sponsor's portal has not been added to the exception list.

Three systems. Three failures. And a participant arriving in ninety minutes.

This scenario is not hypothetical. I have seen versions of it play out at sites that did everything right during start-up--regulatory submissions filed on time, essential records collected, SIV completed smoothly--but treated system access configuration as an administrative afterthought. Something the IT department handles. Something that "should just work."

System access configuration is not an administrative afterthought. It is a critical operational prerequisite, and the coordinator who manages it systematically--with the same rigor applied to regulatory submissions and essential record collection--is the coordinator whose first enrollment day runs without surprises.