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When you enter the Respondent Data Editor for a survey for the first time, the respondents are listed with the “respid” displayed. No other system or user-defined fields are displayed. If you want to display all or some of the system and user fields, you can choose these fields in the Select Columns table.
To define which columns/variables are to be displayed:
- Click the Select Columns button.
- Either double-click the variable in the Available Items list, or select the items by ticking the checkbox next to them and clicking the >> button.
- When you have moved the desired fields over to the “Selected items” list, leave the “Select action on views” drop-down on “Update default” and click the OK button - .
The Select Columns pop-up window opens showing Available Items (all system fields and all user fields), and Selected Items - . By default, all items will be displayed in the Available Items list, meaning that these columns are currently not displayed in the Respondent Editor view.
To add the variables/columns to the Selected Items list:
When you want to remove the items from the Selected Items list, follow the same methods, but click the << button if you choose the items by ticking the checkbox.
Figure 1 - Selecting Available items
If the list of Available items is very long, you can search for items using the “Find what” field.
Figure 2 - Some fields selected
All the fields selected will appear as search fields in the main Respondent editor window - .
Figure 3 - The selected columns shown In the main window
In some cases you may wish to use different views depending on the information that you wish to display. To avoid adding and removing items numerous times via the Select Columns window, you may define these selections as predefined views. To save a column selection as a View, when in the Select Columns window, go to the Select action on views drop-down and select Save As New - .
Figure 4 - Saving a new View
When you select the Save As New item, a text field will appear next to the drop-down. In this text field, enter the name that you want to give the current view - .
Figure 5 - Naming the View
The views you create can later be updated and deleted as necessary by choosing either Update Existing and changing the fields, or by choosing Delete in the Select Columns window for a View.
The views you define will be available in the “Select a view” drop-down in the main window. When you select a view from the drop-down, the columns specified in that view will be displayed - .
Figure 6 - Example of the Select a View drop-down
Survey Link Column
The Survey Link column shows the URL that has been or will be sent to the respondent. The complexity of the URL will depend on the "Encrypt system request parameters" property setting in the Designer > Survey Settings > General Options tab.
When the "Encrypt system request parameters" property is unchecked, the security ID (sid) is added to the Survey Link "as is"; that is, the 8-figure sid is added directly to the URL - .
Figure 7 - Example of Survey Links when the Encrypt system request parameters property is unchecked
When "Encrypt system request parameters" property is checked, the 8-letter security ID is encrypted to a long string of number, upper case, lower case and sign characters before it is added to the URL - . This will obviously be far more difficult for an intruder to hack. For new surveys, the default value for this property is "checked".
Note: You are strongly recommended to leave this property box checked.
Figure 8 - The Survey Links for the same respondents when the Encrypt system request parameters property is checked
Note that when the "Encrypt system request parameters" property is changed, the survey must be re-launched for the change to take effect.
Due to new product releases and system updates, the encrypted sid generated for a particular respondent may differ to one created previously. That is, Forsta does not guarantee that encrypted sid generation will always be identical for the same respondent over time. Also, Forsta does not guarantee that the length of the encrypted sid value will remain constant; it could be longer or shorter depending on a number of factors. However Forsta does guarantee that any changes introduced will not cause previous encrypted sid values to stop working. So even if the latest encrypted sid for a respondent is different and/or a different length, the old encrypted sid value will still work.