Surveybe Newsletter & EDI Tanzania Country Director at UNICEF symposium

Announcing a CAPI software world first:

Dynamic Multi-Responses

We’re excited to unveil what we believe to be a world first: the ability to dynamically populate the multi-response options in a questionnaire based upon the live and contextual answers provided elsewhere in the questionnaire and/or through external data sources.

Surveybe then facilitates the further use of the selected options from the dynamic list of possible responses to populate subsequent questions for that respondent.

Most people are comfortable with the presentation of multi-response options within questionnaires but, to date, these are usually formed as a static list of potential options and are not dynamically created.  Some extensions to this results in the masking of irrelevant options but these remain from a pre-determined list of responses.  Once again Surveybe pushes the boundary of what is possible and re-defines the highest standard in research and CAPI data collection.

The ability to dynamically present options that can be multi-selected opens up the research possibilities for those designing questionnaires and Surveybe provides this in a simple, easy-to-use manner:

‘Row source’ is where SQL statements are written to populate the response options from the ‘Ref table’ which comprises a .CSV file containing all possible options.

This functionality can further be combined with our filtered roster capabilities (nested tables) to populate sub-sets of the respondents or unit of study during the live interview.  The power of this is virtually unlimited as questionnaire designers can build an efficient, logical and expandable questionnaire structure to follow any number of variables in a dynamic manner.

In this example every time a response option is selected in Q1 a new row relating to that is dynamically added to the roster below in order to answer supplementary questions.

You can enable subsequent questions based upon the specific response or even as a result of the number of selected responses.  Additionally one can combine these features with Surveybe’s ‘label’ options to present calculations for the number of selected responses if this is of use.

Control is also provided for the display of the multi-response options by allowing Designers to define the ‘wrap count’ for each row of options.  This wrap value will be applied no matter how many responses are presented via the dynamic presentation of options; an example is shown through the two images below:

As ever with Surveybe development we are keen to provide the questionnaire design tool of choice that can easily handle any level of complexity required but also to do so in the most efficient and user-friendly manner possible.  The ability to draw upon dynamic elements for such questions and to leverage the flexibility of Surveybe ‘Ref tables’ within the questionnaire design really does achieve our development aims.

In order to experience this power and flexibility for yourself then please request a trial licence by clicking here.

Metadata and Auto-import transform file handling in the field

Following the successful release of Surveybe v4 users are reporting increased efficiency in checking and managing files in the field via the inclusion of metadata headers and auto-import functionality.  The ability to see from within the user dashboard the validation status and number of errors/warnings contained within each file has ensured that data or HQ teams can focus their attention in the most targeted manner.

One user in India states: ‘Survey became easier’!

For those who haven’t seen it the metadata display is like this:

EDI Country Director at UNICEF symposium

Respicious Mitti, the Country Director for EDI in Tanzania recently addressed the International Symposium on Cohort and Longitudinal Studies in Developing Contexts in Florence, Italy.

His paper was entitled: Using Surveybe to improve the collection of panel data: Experience from a number of surveys conducted by EDI.

This invitation-only event was an excellent opportunity for participants to explore how cohort and longitudinal studies can contribute to policy and research as well as to share lessons and best practice from such studies.  Ultimately to also look at determinants of local ownership and sustainability of these studies.

Sneak preview: Image capture

Yet again we are proud to announce that Surveybe delivers upon feedback from users: due to requests from the field users are now able to select an ‘image’ response type and capture live images from the integrated or installed camera being used on the tablet or netbook PC being used in the field!

This is an exciting development and one that allows for the previewing of images within the interview once captured AND that uses novel file conversion and compression solutions to keep the file size as small as possible so Surveybe’s excellent file transfer protocol is not diluted.

This feature is in testing currently and will be released in the coming weeks. Naturally we will include more detail of it in future newsletters.

Trial Surveybe NOW!

Our software is available for trial, for free and without obligation.  Why not experience the benefits its brings and its ease-of-use for yourself?  Simply email info@surveybe.com for more information or visit our website by clicking here.