Welcome to Rotator Surveys Data Entry Station. We are sure that your experience with this software will be friendly and productive. The use this software is very easy. However, follow these tips to help you understand the whole Data Entry process with Rotator.

How a Survey is prepared for the Data Entry?.

The administrator has used a software tool called "Rotator Surveys Modeler" where he has created a set of questions and has defined skips that control de flow of the interview. This process is called "Modeling" and basically consists of: (1) Creating questions, (2) Defining the flow of the interview and (3) Creating users with the role "Data Entry" (also named "Transcriber"). At the end of the modeling process, the administrator proceeds to "compile" the survey in order to detect possible problems and create the surveys database.

How to enter data?

• 1) The first step you need to do is to install the "Rotator DataEntry" software module on each workstation where data will be manually loaded. If you are reading these lines, it is obvious that this step was already completed, at least on this PC.


• 2) The administrator has to connect the survey you will process. To achieve this, there is a menu (that will show up when pressing "Main Menu" on your left), that allows to connect surveys or remove them from the list. (Removing a survey does not mean to delete it, but disconnect it, so it is not shown on the list anymore). To accomplish this task, the administrator login and password will be required.


• 3) Once the administrator connects the survey, and it is shown on the list, you can proceed to the data entry process. Double click on the desired survey, and type your login and password defined by the administrator.


• 4) Once you are on the main screen, press the "Add new interview" button on your left. Observe that there are two options: "Interview Mode" and "Typing Mode". Using the Interview Mode is the same as filling a Web survey, while using the Typing Mode shows a screen to type codes answered.


• 5) Assign a "questionnaire code" to your interview. If your Admin has indicated, you can let the system assign it for you automatically. In that case, you will have to write it on the paper interview in order to have control. Remember that the "questionnaire code" is a code assigned to each interview to avoid repeated cases.


• 6) As we indicated above, Rotator DataEntry provides two (2) ways to entering data, (A) "Typing Mode" and (B) "Interview Mode". The Interview mode is friendlier and useful for beginner users or for complex interviews. Using this mode is slow, but gives you minimal errors. The Typing mode is faster and it is the one preferred by advanced transcribers.

(Note: Never perform a phone interview using the Interview mode, because Rotator has a component called "Rotator Phone Interview"" for this specific purpose.)

A)"TYPING MODE"

• 1. Type each given answer of the interview you are entering. For this, you will need to use the central column (Find the mark: "Write here"). Proceed to type the code answered to each question (Use the same codes shown on the paper questionnaire generated by Rotator).


• 2. Observe that the cursor changes positions according to the interview flow (skips). This is to guarantee that the answers entered match the interview flow.


• 3. In the right column, you might see errors messages while the user enters data. Usually, these errors are related to inexistent codes, out of range data or unexpected data. If this occurs, you'll have to do the necessary checking until the error is not shown anymore.


• 4. Once you get into the last row of the screen, you are all set with the loading of that interview. At this moment, there is no need to save because the system will have already saved everything for you. If you need to load data for a new interview, just click the option "Add new" on the left of your screen and repeat all mentioned steps.

B)"INTERVIEW MODE"

• 5. Type each answer given by the interviewee, just as you would fill a webpage.


• 6. Once you have loaded all the answers, press the button "Finish and Save" located on the lower part of the screen.

Special utility options for Surveys:

• 1) The "Clean Interview" utility allows you to erase the data loaded, that is to say, deleting all the information from the interview, leaving everything empty in order to start over again.


• 2) The utility called "Delete Interview" can permanently remove a subject from the database. (It is recommended not to use this utility unless you decide to discard the interview completely).


• 3) The utility called "Show text" allows you to display text instead of codes in order to do a review of the data loaded; however, when loading data this option should be unselected.


• 4) The utility called "Modify the Interview Code" located at the top of the screen allows you to modify the code assigned to the interview.


• 5) The utility called "Sort subjects" located at the top of the screen, allows you to sort the questionnaires by the code entered.


• 6) The utility "Search Interview" located at the top of the screen allows you to find an interview according to multiple criteria.


• 7) The button "Review" at the bottom allows verifying the data input. In case of errors, a message to the user will be prompted.

There are different hardware configurations you can use in order to manually load data, these are: "Stand Alone", "Network" and "Terminal Server". Although, the most used one is "Network", which means loading data using a LAN (Local Area Network). In this case, the survey folder is shared between administrators and users (transcribers) who access the survey from their PCs. For large surveys with transcribers located on remote sites, you may choose to virtualize the application or execute it on a Windows Server environment with a "Terminal Servers" activated.