Recalculate Fields

Programming requirements often evolve over the course of a survey project life cycle. To accommodate changes to the survey program, survey data collected prior to a given change needs to to be edited to resemble data collected after the change is made. The Recalculate Fields applet is one tool that helps this process. It is a feature which updates data fields for survey variables and quotas which utilize cvalue or selectby tags. It is used to re-code existing data in the event that option logic is modified, or to populate previously non-existent or blank fields.

Suppose, for example, that preliminary data for a survey shows responses skewing heavily towards one income demographic. To correct this, researchers might want to put a quota on an income question. Adding the quota variable to the survey program is only half of the work: it is also necessary to update existing response data to punch this quota, so that the quota counts are accurate in survey reports. Recalculate Fields is the tool of choice for this task.

Recalculate Fields case scenario

Researchers may not always know in advance how sample populations will skew for certain questions or sets of questions. Consider the following hypothetical pair of questions in the same survey:

5. For which of the following categories do you make the final purchase decision?
type: checkbox
1. CNC Machines (New and used/re-manufactured)
2. Barstock/Raw Materials
3. Shop supplies (Rags, aprons, hand tools, etc.)
4. Tooling inserts
99. None of these {exclusive: y}

...
 
9. How many employees of your company are employed full or part-time on the machine shop floor?
type: pulldown
1. Less than 50
2. 51 - 75
3. 76 - 100
4. 101 - 200
5. 201 or more

In the early stages of fielding, imagine that despite healthy response rates, there are not many respondents who both make the final purchasing decision for CNC machines and have 101 or more employees on their company's shop floor. To help correct this skew, it may be helpful to add a quota involving logic for both of these questions:

PURCH_EMP. Purchasing decision by employee count
type: quotas
1. Makes final decision on CNC 101+ employees {if anyChecked($Q5,1) and anyChecked($Q9,4,5)}
2. Does not make final decision on CNC or fewer than 101 employees {if noneChecked($Q5,1) or noneChecked($Q9,4,5)}

Obviously, respondents entering the survey after this quota is added have data for the new PURCH_EMP field, but existing respondents do not. Recalculate Fields will re-run the previously completed records through the logic for the new quota and populate the field with those values.

Using Recalculate Fields

To access the Recalculate Fields applet from the Survey Dashboard, expand the Data button group on the Survey Navigation menu, and click Recalculate Fields.

The Recalculate Fields applet is only available to be used with Pub (published) versions of a survey. By default, the applet will allow the user to recalculate results for all records, not just completes. The Record Selector will allow users to select from the filters Completed, IDs, Date/Time, or Data Cut, or a combination of these. 

Existing data cuts may be applied to filter the records requiring updates. The All records and All completed records default data cuts are automatically available for selection in the Data cut dropdown menu. Any user-created data cuts for the project also appear in the menu, and new data cuts may be created via the Expression Builder modal by clicking on the wrench icon.

After selecting the appropriate filters to apply to the data, select the Fields to Recalculate. Any quotas included in the survey will be listed here. Users also have the option to Recalculate fields that already contain data. This checkbox is unchecked by default, which means that it will only populate fields that are empty. This is useful for adding a new field and wanting to leave any existing fields alone so the data is not disrupted. Note that choosing this option will overwrite existing data.

Click Next to proceed.

Users will be taken to a confirmation screen where they will be notified of any issues and provided counts for the number of records that were updated with new data for each recalculated field. Users should check the survey's Response reports to verify that data has been repopulated correctly. Press Back to view or modify your previous selections. To recalculate any additional fields without the previous calculations settings, press the Start Over button.