Headquarters

Import the Questionnaire

A questionnaire document prepared in the Designer site needs to be imported to the Survey Solutions data server before the data collection may start in that survey. This article outlines how to import a questionnaire from the Designer to the HQ. 🛈 The questionnaire import operation is available to users in HQ or administrator roles. In the main menu select Survey setup, then Questionnaires. Click the Import questionnaire button. Enter the Designer credentials (under which you’ve designed your questionnaire).

February 6, 2024

Server Audit Log

Survey Solutions server administrator may inspect the server audit log. The audit log lists important events that were initiated by the users on the server, identifying who made that action, and when. For actions of interviewers, see the detailed actions log. The server actually provides two kinds of audit logs: per workspace and server-wide. To view the server audit log, the admin user should proceed to Menu → Administration → Audit log.

August 20, 2023

Audio audit

Description Audio auditing enables audio recording of the interviewing process for quality control. Audio auditing automatically records the full interview for selected assignments, stores the recording in encrypted audio files, and synchronizes these audio files along with the linked interview files. It is not possible to record only parts of an interview, but it is possible to select which assignments will be recorded. How to enable/disable audio auditing Before creating an assignment In the main menu of the Headquarters navigate to Survey Setup > Questionnaires; Click on a questionnaire; In the context menu that appears, select Details; Click in the box next to Record audio to enable audio auditing.

March 19, 2023

Exposed Variables

Exposed variables are special variables that are made available by Survey Solutions for speedy access that can be utilized for the filtering of observations in the interviews lists and map reports. All questions and variables from the cover page of any questionnaire are automatically considered to be exposed and no action needs to be undertaken by the user to expose them. In addition the user may expose up to 15 questions or variables from the main level of the questionnaire (the interview level).

May 11, 2021

Questionnaire Details Page

Questionnaire details page reflects information about the questionnaire that has been earlier imported to the Headquarters. You access it by clicking a questionnaire in the list of imported questionnaires (Survey Setup/Questionnaires) Notably, the information properties reflect the structure of the questionnaire as designed (number of sections, rosters, questions, etc) and the information about how the questionnaire is configured at the Headquarters (whether the web mode is on, whether the audio recording is turned on for new assignments, etc).

November 19, 2019

Components of the Headquarters Software

The headquarters software is a suite of connected tools for the administrator and headquarters users: to track the overall progress of the survey (Reports) to review completed interviews (Interviews) to manage the human resources (Teams and Roles) to specify survey instruments, create survey assignments with those instruments(Survey Setup) to export the data collected from these assignments (Data Export) to find a check the status of particular case assignments (Troubleshooting) The difference between the headquarters and administrator users is that the administrator can create headquarters/observer user accounts, archive user accounts, and delete questionnaire templates from the headquarters server.

June 29, 2016

Distributing Assignments to Interviewers

Step 1 Log in to your server using a supervisor account. If you are testing Survey Solutions, log in at demo.mysurvey.solutions using a supervisor account. Step 2 Once the supervisor’s dashboard has loaded, select the Assignments tab. The list of assignments can be filtered by questionnaire template, person responsible, and/or archived status. From the list of assignments, the supervisor the supervisor should select the assignments that they would like to assign to one of their enumerators.

June 28, 2016

Installer Command Line Parameters

Survey Solutions installer may be launched with command line parameters. ParameterMeaningExampleDefault Siteport port number on which the site shall be installed in IIS 8080 9700 Connserver part of the DB connection string identifying the address of the database server data.warehouse.com 127.0.0.1 Connport part of the DB connection string identifying the port of the database server 443 5432 Connusername user name for connection to the DB johnsmith postgres Connpassword password for connection to the DB MyPassword911 Installfolder full installation path where the Survey Solutions server should be installed C:\World Bank\Survey Solutions C:\Survey Solutions Additionally, specify /s for a silent install.

May 11, 2020

Alternative maps for servers in China

Survey Solutions map reports at the data server utilize maps provided by Google through their online service. The installation sets the parameters regulating access to this service with the parameters applicable to the majority of users, but these servers are known to be inaccessible from the networks in China. To enable access to Google maps from China, a different server, specific to China, must be used. The following two parameters should be changed in the GoogleMap section in appsettings.

May 6, 2020

Changing the Interface Language

Survey Solutions interface for Headquarter and Supervisor users can be presented in different languages. This article describes how to switch the interface to be presented in an alternative language. Recall that both HQ and Supervisor users work via a web browser. Switching the interface is done by telling the browser to request the content in a particular language. Note that this affects both Survey Solutions and other sites that are visited with the same browser.

June 16, 2016

Report: Survey Statistics

Survey Statistics report is accessible to supervisors and headquarter users, observers, and administrators. The report presents basic statistics calculated on survey data currently on the server and eliminates (in some cases) the need to export the data for calculation of these statistics. The report is always built within a single survey and is built for one of the questions in that survey. The report may be presented in one of the two modes: tabulation or summary statistics.

January 15, 2020

Detailed action log

The detailed action log allows the headquarters users view important actions undertaken by the interviewers on the tablets, such as application start and login activities, starting or discarding an interview, synchronization attempts, and other actions undertaken in the last 7 days. The actions log is updated with any synchronization of the tablet. (But if the tablet does not synchronize, there is no way for the HQ personnel to know what actions were undertaken, since this information won’t be sent).

June 8, 2018

Downloadable Report on Interviewers

This report is accessible in CSV, TSV, or Excel formats from the list of the interviewers screen and contains important information about the equipment being used by the interviewer and various statistics about the interviewer accounts, equipment status, etc. Thematically the indicators reported here are placed in the following groups: Indicator naming Group i_* indicators related to the interviewer account these indicators represent static or accumulated information about the interviewer account t_* indicators related to the tablet device;

December 6, 2017

Reports Tab: Track the Overall Progress of the Survey

Reports provide headquarters with a summary of the status of fieldwork—of progress by questionnaire, by team, by status duration, by devices/interviewers, by geography, by quantity, by speed, or on detailed survey statistics. All the reports under this tab can be exported in XLSX, TAB, and CSV formats. To export, navigate to the bottom right of the report, and click on the desired download format. By questionnaire template The Surveys and Statuses report summarizes the progress of each survey that headquarters is overseeing (i.

June 29, 2016

Menu Map

This article describes the structure of the main menu and dialogs structure of the Survey Solutions Data Server. The items in curly brackets { } are links and buttons present in the dialogs. The rest are items in the main or context menus. [workspace] Reports Surveys and Statuses Teams and Statuses Status Duration Devices/Interviewers Map Report Cumulative Interview Chart Quantity Speed Survey Statistics Interviews {Map dashboard} Open Show Status History Open responsible’s profile Open assignment Assign Approve Reject Change to CAPI Change to CAWI Unapprove Delete Survey Setup Questionnaires {Import questionnaire} Questionnaire details PDF preview New assignment Upload assignments Upgrade assignments Web interview setup Download web links Send invitations Clone questionnaire Delete questionnaire Export questionnaire Assignments Assignment details Maps Maps Update user-to-map linking User maps Data Export Administration Workspaces Open Edit Settings Email providers Device logs Audit log Tablet information packages Interview packages Disable Delete Users Create Batch upload Audit log Diagnostics Help [account] Manage account Profile Change password Two factor authentication Setup authenticator Reset authenticator Logoff Please note:

May 13, 2021

Digital Map Formats

Survey Solutions offline maps may be prepared in any of the following formats: FORMAT EXTENSION TYPE EXTERNAL LINKS ESRI tile package. *.tpk raster USDA Tutorial on creation of TPK tile packages.ESRI documentation Create Map Tile Package ESRI mobile map package. *.mmpk raster ESRI tutorial on creating MMPK mobile map packages. GeoTIFF*.tiff raster OGC GeoTIFF standard Example file and description. Pacific Community (SPC) tutorial How to generate offline maps for Survey Solutions in QGIS.

January 9, 2024

Map files

In Survey Solutions all maps are first uploaded to the server, then distributed to the interviewers based on assignments of maps. This functionality is accessible for the users in roles headquarters and administrator only. The Map files page is the page where the maps are managed at the Survey Solutions server (Headquarters). It can be accessed by The Maps dialog is using two icons to denote types of the uploaded maps:

December 14, 2022

Shapefile maps

Survey Solutions Interviewer App displays maps for two purposes: The dashboard depicts the assignments and interviews on the map by placing markers that correspond to the coordinates of an identifying question. Geography questions (single- and multiple points, polyline and polygon) allow capturing geographical information by marking it on the map layer, typically a satellite or aero-photography. Survey Solutions has been employing this functionality for several years already using the ESRI ArcGIS Android SDK components.

June 14, 2022

Deleting accounts

Deleting accounts An account that is created in Survey Solutions can not be deleted. Ever. This is because the account is mentioned in the history of the events that were originated by that user (such as created or completed an interview). Yet an account can be archived, which is the closest thing to deleting it. This action is available to an administrator only, which can (1) select the interviewer account to be archived and (2) click the Archive button to perform the action:

July 28, 2020

Two factor authentication (2FA) for user accounts

Setting up two factor authentication login to the server using your login and password; navigate to your account settings (for interviewers: Interviewer profile –> Edit personal info); click the Two factor authentication tab; click the Setup authenticator button; You will be presented with the Configure authenticator app form showing a QR-code. Now take your Android, IOS or Windows phone or tablet and set up any of the following applications: Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, or another authenticator as designated by the survey coordinator.

May 13, 2020

Survey Solutions Server Observer

Observer is an optional account, kind of an HQ user with a limited functionality, to passively monitor a survey. Observer accesses information through impersonation, looking through the eyes of a different user. An observer can do: Read individual interviews including any comments left; See reports; See lists of users and their profiles. An observer can not do: approve/reject interviews; create/delete assignments. any other change-state operations; download data. An observer account is created for a server, not for a survey!

October 6, 2017

Dynamic filters for interviews

Dynamic filters are used to filter responses in the interviews list and in the map report. The filters can be formulated based on the variables belonging to the cover page and/or exposed variables. Rules Rules utilize comparative operators, that are logical operators for comparing the value to a constant. Which operators are available depends on the type of the question/variable: For categorical single-select: equals, not equals. For numeric: =, <>, <, <=, >, >=.

May 11, 2021

Headquarters user: Browsing the Completed Interview

Step 1 Log in to your server using a headquarters account. If you are testing Survey Solutions, log in to the demo server Step 2 Go to the Interviews tab Step 3 From the filter on the left side of the screen, select Approved By Supervisor Step 4 Click on the interview key for the survey case that you would like to browse. Now you can see all the answers given by the respondents—the answers marked in red are invalid according to the validation rules.

July 19, 2016

Interview Tab: How to Find, Review, and Delete Survey Cases

The Interview tab is designed for taking action. Under the Interview tab, headquarters may search for survey cases, reallocate them to different teams, review them for quality assurance, and delete them to fix problems. The interview tab consists of the following tools: Database of survey cases. The rows are survey case entries. The columns capture details about survey cases, such as the respondent’s address, interview status, and an indicator that the interviewer has or has not received the survey case.

June 30, 2016

Survey Workflow

Workflow Demonstration Check out the video below (starting from 0:30) to learn about the survey workflow in Survey Solutions. Workflow Description Headquarters, designated by the PC at the top of the figure, determines the subjects that need to be interviewed (households, firms, geographic area, etc.) and their assignments across team supervisors. Assignments can include one or more interview cases. Team supervisors, denoted by the laptops in the middle, first receive these assignments and then allocate them to the members of their team.

June 29, 2016

Stata export file format

When Survey Solutions v5.18 is writing an exported data file in Stata format it is producing it according to Stata 14 data file specification, available from StataCorp LLC. Stata versions prior to version 14.0 (e.g. 12.0, 13.1, etc) cannot open these files because these older versions of the software are not aware of the newer file format. The message that the user will see on the screen varies, and may look, for example like the following:

April 11, 2017

Rosters-Export File Anatomy

Recall that each exported file corresponds with a level of observation in the questionnaire. Rosters and their source question are exported as follows: Source question: Export file at the questionnaire level (corresponds with the name of the questionnaire) Roster: Export file at the roster level (corresponds with the roster name) List Roster In the export file at the questionnaire level, a list roster source question generates as many columns as the defined maximum number of list elements.

November 9, 2016

Questionnaire Data - Export File Anatomy

Every questionnaire will contain at least one data file corresponding to the main level of data, and potentially one or more subordinate files corresponding to additional levels defined by the rosters. Questionnaire level file: file name corresponds to the title of the questionnaire The questionnaire level export file consists of the following columns: Id, question variable names including roster trigger questions, and the system generated case Id. 1. Id. Survey Solutions generated identifier for each survey case.

September 23, 2016

Data Export Files

Overview The exported data will be in a .zip file containing one or more files. The number of such files is a function of the structure of the questionnaire, meaning that exporting produces one file per level of observation in the questionnaire, or in other words in addition to one file at the questionnaire level, each roster in the questionnaire will generate another export file. For example, one file for household-level variables, one file for household member-level variables, and one file for asset-level or consumption item-level variables.

August 18, 2016

Data Export Tab

Overview The Data Export tab enables headquarters to export: Data for all survey cases or by survey case status (interviewer assigned, completed, approved by supervisor, or approved by headquarters Binary data Metadata Paradata How to export data Step 1 Log in to the server as the headquarters user. If you are testing Survey Solutions, log in at https://demo.mysurvey.solutions. Note that each institution using Survey Solutions will utilize their own server. Consequently, the server address above may not be applicable.

July 11, 2016

Upgrading assignments

Survey Solutions assignments play a critical role in the survey process because they regulate who is supposed to deliver the incoming data (interviews). Each assignment is referring to a particular questionnaire. It is best to not modify the questionnaire during the survey. Some of the undesirable effects of this are: the survey becomes split between several databases, each has to be downloaded separately from Survey Slutions and appended later using external tools; the data may no longer be comparable (e.

December 12, 2018

Protecting pre-loaded answers

Starting with v18.06 Survey Solutions allows protecting values of trigger questions that have been preloaded from being subsequently modified by the interviewer. The protection applies to reduction, but permits extension. This is commonly needed in the panel surveys, where, for example, the names in the list of household members that are preloaded should not be eliminated by the interviewer, but new household members may be added if needed. The protection applies to questions that may perform the role of triggers: numeric, text list, and multiple-select categorical (in regular or Y/N-mode).

June 6, 2018

Errors in user-supplied files for preloading

Survey Solutions allows preloading assignments with data, including answers to questions inside rosters and nested rosters. It is the user’s responsibility to supply valid input files for this process. The user-supplied files will be validated to match the questionnaire template that is being preloaded. Survey Solutions can detect a number of inconsistencies and common problems and will indicate them during preloading. Each detected error is having a code listed in the table below.

March 9, 2018

Survey Setup Tab: Import, Copy, and Delete Questionnaire Templates, and Create Assignments

The survey setup tab lets you do several things: Questionnaires Import template. Import questionnaires from the Designer site to the headquarters software. Create assignments: Headquarters provides two ways of creating assignments for a given questionnaire: one at a time, or in a many at a time (batch). Clone questionnaire template: Copy the questionnaire templates previously imported to the server. This feature is only available to the administrator. Delete questionnaire. This feature is only available to the administrator.

June 29, 2017

Creating Assignments One at Time

Step 1 Log in to your server using the headquarters username and password Note that each institution using Survey Solutions will utilize their own server. Consequently, your username can differ from the one depicted above. Step 2 Select the Survey Setup tab, and click on Questionnaires. Step 3 Create the new assignment for your questionnaire. Click on the questionnaire template you want to create a new assignment for, and then click on New Assignments from the pop-up menu.

June 29, 2017

Numbering in subordinate rosters during preloading

It is important to make sure that during preloading of multiple files the subordinate records are correctly identified. The numbering depends on the kind of trigger used for determining the size of the roster: fixed: the Id variable in the subordinate file should contain the code of the item specified in the Designer. multiple choice: the subordinate file should contain the codes of items as specified during setting up the multiple choice question in the Designer.

February 23, 2017

Uploading Many Assignments at a time

For many surveys, creating assignments one by one will be a tedious and time intensive task. To help speed up your work, Survey Solutions allows you to batch upload many assignments at once using a tab delimited. Follow the steps below to perform a batch upload of assignments: Step 1 Create a tab-delimited file with the identifying information for your assignments Before performing an interview, data collection teams must know the name (e.

June 27, 2016

Configuring Amazon SES as an email service provider

Amazon provides a number of services (free and paid) that may be of interest to the application developer. Here we are specifically interested in utilizing the Simple Email Service (SES) from within Survey Solutions for mass email sending. Usage of this service may cost you money. Make sure you understand all charges, limits and policies before utilizing this service. Amazon Simple Email Service is available at the following address: https://aws.amazon.com/ses

May 24, 2021

Webpage Templates

Survey Solutions presents several web pages to the respondents to the web surveys (CAWI). These pages may need to be customized at the web interview setup page: Menu → Survey Setup → Questionnaires → YourQuestionnaire → Web interview setup. Changes made to these templates take immediate effect: any new page of the corresponding type will be shown using the most recently saved template. Web page Description Welcome page This page is shown to the respondent opening the link to a web interview.

November 26, 2020

Email Templates

Survey Solutions can send email notifications to the respondents to the web surveys (CAWI). These notifications can be configured at the web interview setup page: Menu → Survey Setup → Questionnaires → YourQuestionnaire → Web interview setup. Survey Solutions server automatically determines, which notifications need to be sent out to the respondents. Every hour the notifications of the type marked with ^ in the table below are sent out, if a bulk email service provider has been set up.

November 26, 2020

Web Interviewing

In addition to CAPI surveys on Android tablets, Survey Solutions provides two distinct possibilities: Interviewing: Interviewers conduct interviews using the web interface (without a tablet); Self-enumeration: Respondents fill out interviews in the browser. The difference is essential: In the first case the person filling out the interview is a known member of the team, has an account created in the system, assigned to a team of a certain supervisor and so on.

October 30, 2020

Configuring Sendgrid as an email service provider

SendGrid is a bulk email service provider that can be used in Survey Solutions for delivering invitations for CAWI surveys as an alternative to Amazon SES: https://sendgrid.com/ Usage of this service may cost you money. Make sure you understand all charges, limits and policies before utilizing this service. SendGrid reqires you to have a domain and confirm yourself as a domain owner. The sending address must belong to this domain. For example, if you want to send emails from name@site.

March 31, 2019

Bulk email service providers

Bulk email service providers solve the task of sending out a massive ammount of emails. Survey Solutions may utilize such a service provider to deliver email invitations for CAWI surveys to the respondents. At the moment the following providers are supported: Amazon SES; SendGrid. You don’t have to use the above services to conduct a CAWI survey, but in that case (just as it was in versions prior to 19.04) it will be your responsibility to deliver the links for the interviews to individual respondents.

March 31, 2019

Customize web interview messages

Web interviews conducted with Survey Solutions contain reasonable default messages suitable for many surveys. But if the default messages are not suitable for a certain purpose, they can be customized in the web survey setup dialog at the Survey Solutions Headquarters: For every parameter select if you wish to display a built-in default message, or a custom one, and if so, provide your custom (formatted) text of such a message. You can use the formatting toolbar provided in the editor to adjust the font color and font attributes, include numbered and bullet lists, and include hyperlinks.

April 2, 2018

API: R-package

Introduction to the Survey Solutions API R-package Why this package The World Bank’s Computer Assisted Survey System (CASS) Survey Solutions is a powerful tool for high quality data collection and used in many statistical offices around the world. Besides the standard GUI, it also comes with a powerful REST API. For details see https://docs.mysurvey.solutions/ To further facilitate its integration in a fully automated workflow we have developed this R package, which covers almost all of the available API calls.

May 10, 2023

Survey Solutions API

Survey Solutions includes a powerful and flexible API which allows automating some tasks and allows our users to build larger systems, which may compliment Survey Solutions to achieve larger goals. Some examples of use could be: schedule periodic export of collected data an external dashboard or monitoring and reporting system, which updates some indicators every night and publishes them to a website, or an external checking and validation system which verifies collected data against some external sources of information and rejects automatically the incorrect interviews, or an integrated system, which utilizes Survey Solutions for data collections tasks and a statistical package for continuous analysis, facility management, inventory and price monitoring systems, etc, etc.

May 1, 2022

API: .NET package

Introduction to the Survey Solutions .NET API Client package There is a client library aviable to be used in .NET runtime to execute API methods of Survey Solutions software. In order to get started install dotnet SDK. After done that you will be able to use included in SDK CLI to create a new project, execute the following command: dotnet new console This will create a sample console application. To add Survey solutions client library execute following command:

March 5, 2021

API interactive description

The following page contains an interactive description of the Survey Solutions API for the current release: https://demo.mysurvey.solutions/apidocs If your server’s version is different, check its API at: https://SERVERNAME.mysurvey.solutions/apidocs

January 23, 2021

API: Powershell Module

SSAW PowerShell module contains cmdlets wrapping Survey Solutions API to abstract away from some of the HTTP details. As PowerShell command-line shell is already present and all Windows machines, users can start automating their interaction with Survey Solutions application without any additional software development. PowerShell can be installed on Mac and Linux computers as well, but you may prefer to use the Python client insted. The module is still work-in-progress so not all API methods are implemented or documented yet.

January 22, 2021