Reference Manual > Windows and dialog boxes > Raw data tidy

Extended or CATI licence

Use [Collate] [Tidy collated file or change serial numbers] from the Raw data view window to repair data structure errors or to change all the serial numbers in a data file.

This enables you to globally fix structure errors and add (or update) all the serial numbers in the data, see User Guide, Handling raw data, Change serial numbers.

You need to set the location for serial numbers in Project global settings beforehand. If the serial data locations are empty, as they will be if you are adding new serial numbers, then every record will be faulted during Collate; these errors can be ignored.

Faulty serial numbers

For any questionnaires with a faulty or missing serial number, this section allows you to choose:

•Discard records - delete these records from the file view

•Allocate new numbers - give a starting serial number to be used to replace the first faulty serial number, the next faulty serial numbers will be given the next number up, and so on

•No change - do not change the faulty serial numbers

Missing cards

For any questionnaires with missing card numbers, this section allows you to choose:

•Discard records - delete the whole of the records from the file view

•Add empty cards - create empty cards with no data for any missing card numbers

•No change

This is only concerned with "fixed" card types. Missing "optional" card types are not an error.

Faulty card numbers have already been discarded when the file was collated. If you want to fix faulty card numbers, you need to do this in the Raw data view window before collating the file.

Duplicate serial numbers

For any questionnaires with the same serial number as another, this section allows you to choose:

•Discard - all but the last one are deleted from the file view, this assumes that the final one in the data file is the correct one

•Allocate new numbers - give a starting serial number to be used to replace the first duplicate serial number; the next record with a duplicated serial number will be given the next number up, and so on, this renumbers all the records that started with duplicate serial numbers

•No change - do not change the duplicated serial numbers

Replace serial numbers

This should not be used with other sections.

For all the records in the file, you can choose to replace the serial numbers:

•Allocate new numbers - give a starting serial number to be used to replace the first record, the next record will be given the next number up, and so on

•Add value - adds a given number to all the serial numbers

•Combine two column locations - make a new serial number by combining two numbers from the data, the two numbers have a data location and a width; the second number will be padded with leading zeros added to its width, if necessary

•No change