The UWE TREvolution team have been getting users to test SACRO in their environments this is their reflections on the learning so far, Dr Elizabeth Green summarises the team’s progress
One of the most exciting and humbling moments in any software project is when it moves beyond the development environment and into real use. SACRO (Semi-Automated Checking of Research Outputs) has now reached that stage, with data services and researchers beginning to trial it within their own workflows.
This transition has reinforced something every software team eventually learns: there is a world of difference between software that works in development, and software that works in the wild.
The reality of real-world research environments
During development, SACRO was tested extensively using controlled examples, known configurations, and carefully structured outputs. But real research environments are far more complex. Researchers use different software versions, different workflows, and sometimes entirely unexpected commands or approaches.
Some of the early feedback we received was technical. In a few cases, SACRO didn’t run as expected because users were working on older versions of their statistical software. The solution was straightforward updating their software resolved the issue, but it highlighted an important lesson for us: successful deployment is not just about building functional code- it’s about ensuring compatibility across diverse and evolving environments.
In other cases, we encountered commands that SACRO had not yet been explicitly programmed to interpret. One example was the use of the ‘xi: regress’ command in Stata, which combines data manipulation (creating dummy variables from categorical predictors) and querying (creating a regression model.) While this is a well-established approach, it required us to consider how SACRO should handle these transformations. In practice, the solution involved prompting users to do this in two stages for example:
‘xi year‘
‘regress wage i.year age‘
These kinds of interactions are invaluable. They help us identify edge cases, refine SACRO’s logic, and ensure it behaves in ways that align with real research practice.
Beyond code: Building guidance and trust
What has become clear is that technical functionality is only part of the challenge. Equally important is building clear guidance, intuitive workflows, and documentation that supports users at every stage.
We are asking researchers and data services to integrate SACRO into established workflows. That requires not only reliable software, but also confidence. Users need to understand how to install SACRO, how to interpret its outputs, and what to do when something unexpected happens.
This is why community feedback is so critical. We have actively encouraged users to share honest, even blunt, reflections on their experience. This kind of feedback is invaluable. It helps us identify friction points, clarify instructions, and improve usability.
Co-developing SACRO with the community
Testing SACRO in real-world environments is not simply a validation exercise it is a co-development process. Every issue raised, every unexpected behaviour, and every question helps us make SACRO more robust, more intuitive, and more useful.
Our goal is simple: SACRO should be easy for researchers to adopt and easy for data services to install and support. Achieving that requires more than good engineering. It requires listening, adapting, and working closely with the community it is designed to serve.
The progress so far has been hugely encouraging. Each round of feedback brings us closer to a tool that integrates seamlessly into real research workflows and supports safe, efficient, and trustworthy access to sensitive data.
Supporting safe research: Your views on semi-automated output checking (SACRO)
We invite researchers working with sensitive data in secure data services or Trusted Research Environments (TREs) to take part in a short, anonymous survey about research output checking.
The survey explores experiences of output checking, turnaround times, and views on SACRO, a new semi-automated tool designed to support statistical disclosure control and reduce delays in releasing research outputs.
Click below to take the survey (best completed on a laptop or desktop computer).
Get involved
If you are interested in trialling SACRO or sharing feedback, we would love to hear from you. Your experience will directly shape the future development of the tool and help build a stronger, more usable system for the research community. Please email us on sacro.contact@uwe.ac.uk.
About TREvolution
TREvolution is a programme of work shaping the future of sensitive data research in the UK by promoting shared standards and building trustworthy innovations to make research faster and more effective for the public good. SACRO is one of the areas of focus for TREvolution to accelerate research and build trust.
