Two types of appointment can be made from the "Appointment" dialog box:
These are usually made when the line is engaged or there is no answer and so on. You begin by selecting from the 3 radio buttons "Soon" "Later" or "Tomorrow".
If you choose "Soon" the date box will display "today’s" date, and the time in 10 minutes, so the interview will be displayed in 10 minutes (and will become late 10 minutes after the time displayed). The "Later" button will cause the interview to be presented in 1 hour after the time displayed and it will not become late until 1 hour after that. The "Tomorrow" button will cause the interview to be presented at the same time tomorrow (and it will become late 1 day after that).
You may also modify the "Priority", "Who should call back" and "Comments" settings (see below).
These are usually made when the interviewer has spoken to the respondent, or someone else, and a specific date and time to call back is agreed. Fixed appointments are first set by using the "Today" or "Next day" buttons.
Selecting "Today" means that the current date, and the time in 1 minute, will be displayed with a delay of 1 minute before the appointment becomes late. The "Next day" button is used to move on in time day by day, for each day the time in 1 minute will be displayed (with a delay of 1 minute). If a future date is displayed the "Previous" button becomes active so it is possible to move back and forth day by day.
Again these settings and the "Priority", "Who should call back" and "Comments" settings (see below) may be modified as required.
After choosing a Vague or Fixed appointment, the date and time may be modified, by using the "Night", "Morning", "Afternoon", "Evening" and hours and minutes buttons, or by typing in the boxes, as required. There is a calendar that can be used to set the date.
TIP: when an appointment becomes late it is marked LATE, the icon changes and it appears on the appointment list of all users (even if it is not marked using the "Any user" radio button) at the "Start of interview with sample file" dialog box, see section Appointment icons.
The priority responses displayed on the left of the "Appointment" dialog box are those set by your supervisor in entry ZZZPRI. Up to 30 responses with any text can be used, but response 1 must be given the highest priority because QPSMR will arrange the appointment list, shown at the "Start of interview with sample file" dialog box, with each time band sorted into priority (the lower the number the higher the priority).
When making an appointment simply select the appropriate priority response.
TIP: when the "Appointment" dialog box is first displayed, if the "Today" button is selected, the priority setting will automatically default to response 1 (which you may alter if you wish).
At the "Appointment" dialog box the number of times the interview has been tried in total, the number of times it has been tried today and the percentage of the interview that is complete are shown.
The "History" button can be used to see the "History" dialog box, where the dates and times when the interview has previously been tried, and the results of the calls are shown. The Short and Long Comments and the percentage of the interview that is complete, are also displayed.
There are 3 radio buttons used to specify who should call back; "Any user", "Me" or "Someone else".
If "Someone else" is selected the list box above the radio buttons becomes active and you can choose the user number and name of the interviewer who should make the call. The number is taken from the User Numbers file located in the default start-up folder, see section Starting input.
TIP: the user number of the interviewer who made the appointment is also stored.
If you wish to allocate a short comment to the appointment, up to 20 characters may be typed in the short text box immediately below the "who should call back" radio buttons. This short comment is normally used to display "in-house comments" or characters which have a special meaning. Any short comments are listed at the "Start of interview with sample file" dialog box, alongside the appointment details.
It is also possible to allocate a longer comment to an appointment; for example, you might wish to include details about the interview or the respondent. Simply type the comment in the text box at the bottom of the "Appointment" dialog box. The amount of text that you can enter is determined by the width allocated to ZZZDET by your supervisor.