|
<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation: Reference Manual > Windows and dialog boxes > Combine data files > Combine data files |
From the Main window menu [Answers] [Combine data files] is used to combine any number of input data files into one data file for analysis.
To merge different parts of the same record (same respondent) or update parts of records use a merge file with Data merge.
The ZZZ session questions and ZZZSEQ question are very important for this procedure. They give each record a unique identity which is used to prevent the same record being included twice. For this reason, the data in these entries should never be changed.
When the files are scanned, the program looks for duplicate records and will only keep the last one if more than one copy of the same record is found.
It does not matter if you combine the same data file or records more than once because only one copy of each record will go into the combined file. If you have already combined a number of records into a new data file it is quite safe to combine this with additional input files to make a new combined file.
Serial numbers are normally put on the paper documents (questionnaires) before they are entered. In this case the serial numbers will be entered with the data and the serial number of a data record can be traced back to the paper document.
For paper projects the serial numbers should not be replaced for all records, only those with duplicate serial numbers. Any duplicates should be checked to make sure that the same paper document has not been entered twice.
When entering data in CAPI mode the serial numbers are not set; every file has serial numbers starting with 1.
For CAPI projects the serial numbers for all records should be replaced and duplicate serial numbered records kept. The ZZZ session data can be used to trace the original input data file and the ZZZSEQ data will pinpoint the record in that data file.