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Beginners Guide: Load and tidy a survey
Beginners Guide: Load and tidy a survey
Updated over a week ago

In this tutorial you will learn how to upload survey data, create and refine codebook for ease of navigation and reporting, and share your databases with other users.

Step 1 | How to upload your data

Step 2 | Navigating the codebook and organising your data

Step 3 | Share a database with other users

We use a dummy dataset featuring different beverage brands to guide you through the steps. For access to the raw file please contact client services.

Step 1 | How to upload your data

First, create a folder to store your database and other relevant materials in.

  1. Go to My Space and click on the '+' icon.

  2. Select Folder and name it accordingly. To open your folder double click on it.

Once you are in your new folder, click on the create '+' icon again - but this time select Database.

  1. Enter a database name, we recommend the subject and fieldwork period.

  2. Click the Choose a file button and select your raw data file.

  3. Click Upload.

If you can't find the database creation icon, it indicates that you may lack the 'Database Creator' role. Contact your system supervisor or client services for the necessary access.

Create new database

Below you can see that the survey has loaded and is ready to use.

Uploaded database

Step 2 | Navigating the codebook and organising your data

Once you have uploaded your survey data, it's important to organise the questions (variables) and answers (categories) to ensure ease of use and navigation. This can be done by sorting them into folders, trimming titles, grouping questions or combining them to form new questions. This is all done within the Meta-Editor.

  1. In My Space, open your database by double-clicking on it;

  2. Then, click on the Project settings ('cog') icon to open the Meta-Editor.

Any edits you make in the Meta-Editor won’t alter the original raw file, but instead enhance it and make it more user friendly.

Trim and shorten titles

When raw data is first uploaded the labels of questions can look long and look messy. The trim function allows you to shorten these labels in bulk rather than editing each one manually, however they all must have matching words or characters that you want removed.

Here is an example of labels before using trim:

Pre-trim labels
  1. Find the questions that you want to trim and highlight them;

  2. Click the trim icon;

    Trim icon in Meta-Editor

  3. In the pop-up box the common text that can be trimmed is highlighted in red. You can choose to trim the prefix or suffix of the labels;

  4. Click OK.

    Trim prefix

Create folders

In this example, CSI (customer satisfaction index with 5 point scale) and NPS (recommendation with 10 point scale) questions are mixed together.

  1. Select the relevant variables. Search for these using the search box by the variable code (e.g. CSI_) or the beginning of the question.

  2. Click the ‘Create folder’ icon (red folder with +) in the toolbar.

  3. In the pop-up box, enter a subfolder name (e.g. CSI - Satisfaction) and click Create.

  4. Repeat the steps for ‘NPS - Recommendation’ questions.

Recode answer options

When working with scale questions, it is useful to combine some of these answer options e.g. into Top 2 or Bottom 2.

  1. Open the NPS - Recommendation folder you just created.

  2. Select all of the questions and click Group icon

    Group icon in ME


    The group icon is a time saver when dealing with a number of questions that have the same answers and need the same ‘treatment’. Any changes you make to one of the questions in the group will also be applied to the others.

  3. You can see that questions are grouped by this icon: :grouped: Select any of them to see their answers.

  4. Select the Top 2 scores, ‘9’ and ‘10 - Definitely would recommend’ and click on the ‘OR’ icon. This will create a new answer option for all grouped variables of people who answered Yes to either of these questions.

    OR-join icon in Meta-Editor


  5. Click the 'pen' icon to edit the title to Top 2, or Promoters, then Save.

  6. Repeat steps 4 & 5 for Bottom 2 and Detractors.

Multiple-response questions

Multiple response questions are those that allow more than one answer per respondent, and are coded as individual responses in your database e.g. yes and no.

In the database there are six ‘unaided awareness’ brands that people answered ‘yes’ to knowing. They all have the same variable code UA_[1-6] (same question), showing that they can all be pulled into one MR-set.

  • Select each question and click ‘Declare multi response set’

    Mr-set icon in Meta-Editor

    Once you have done this, a pop-up box will appear:

    Create multi-response set
  • Give the multiple response set a descriptive name.

  • Click ‘Yes’

  • Check the box ‘inclusion pattern detected’ to ensure that any variables that have the name ‘UA_’ will be automatically added to the MR set in future wave uploads.

  • Click Create.

Once you have created an MR set, the original variables will be automatically hidden (turned off) so you can't see them in the codebook.

To unhide these variables open More actions > Change visibility of selected > Turn on

Step 3 | Share a database with other users

To ‘invite’ a user/collaborator to a database, select the entity within My Space and click Share icon.

Share icon in My Space

In the pop-up window type in the user(s) email address and choose their rights (whether they can view, edit or share). If they don’t have a DataTile account they will be given a link to create one.

  • View - they can run crosstabs, create charts and access interactive dashboards.

  • Share - they can run crosstabs, create charts, and share this data with other users.

  • Edit - they can view, share, and access database settings (e.g. the Meta editor) or dashboards widgets and controls. You should be cautious about who you give editing rights to as they have full control over your database.

The invitee will receive an email with a link to access the shared entity, once they click the link they will be redirected to DataTile where they can either log-in or create an account. The shared entity will appear in ‘Shared with me’.

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