<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  User Guide > Data > Handling data > Combine input files

Companion

For most projects a number of different people will enter data for the project and often data will be entered by the same person in different sessions.  These files will need to be combined for analysis, see Combine data files.  For Android input the download study menu selections should be used

To merge different parts of the same record (same respondent) or update parts of records use a merge file with Data merge.

For new records input Companion stores the session data when the session was started in every record.  The original serial/sequence number is also stored in the ZZZSEQ question.

This unique identifying system has the following benefits:

•It prevents any record from being included twice when combining data files

•Every data record can be traced back to its original data file if using Android input