It is possible to stop the interview at any time and save all of the information entered so far in a Partial data file, from where it may be retrieved and continued at a later time. Once a questionnaire has been completed the finished interview is saved to the Main data file, and it is removed from the Partial data file.
Partial records are most commonly saved when working in Telephone mode, usually when a respondent asks to complete the questionnaire at another time, see section Making an Appointment. Information from paper questionnaires, however, can also be saved to a Partial data file and continued later.
To save part of an interview (the information entered "so far") use the [F12] key, and select [Continue later].
IMPORTANT: verbatim comments are always written to a separate file and are not retrieved when partial records are recalled.
Once a user has asked that an interview be [Continued later], the serial number along with all of the information entered so far, is stored in a Partial data file which is created automatically by the program. The Partial data file is stored in the same folder as the Question Definitions (QDF) file and is named as follows:
Project Partial.typ
where Project is the name of the Question Definitions (QDF) file and typ is the data file type - either CBA or ASC. For example, a project called Phones200311.QDF with an ASC Main data file would have a Partial data file called Phones200311 Partial.asc. Note that this naming structure is always used regardless of the name of the Main data file.
For CATI users, records that are saved to the Partial data file are NOT counted as saved interviews in the quota
It is possible to stop the interview at any time and save all of the information entered so far in the Partial data file, from where it may be retrieved and continued at a later time. Once the questionnaire has been completed the finished interview is saved to the Main data file and it is removed from the Partial data file.
Partial records are most commonly saved when working with CATI projects, usually when a respondent asks to complete the questionnaire at another time, see section Making an appointment. Information from paper questionnaires, however, can also be saved to a Partial data file and continued at a later time.
You can call up an appointment simply by double clicking the serial number in the appointments listing at the "Start of interview" dialog box or the [Details] list.
Partial interviews can also be called-up by typing the required serial number and using the [Get serial] button, or using the [Partial list view] button to see the "Partial interviews" dialog box (see section Partial interviews).
TIP: if, when a record is retrieved from the Partial data file, it is immediately rejected, interviewers can use the [Up] selection to see which question caused the rejection. An example of this would be if a quota cell (which was only partially full when the interview was started) had been filled whilst the record was "waiting" in the partial file to be recalled.
If the interview is completed successfully (or terminated) it is then removed from the Partial data file and saved in the Main data file for the project. If the record is not completed, it is possible to, once again, save the information entered so far (in this and any previous sessions) as a partial interview to be continued (by pressing the [F12] key, then selecting [Continue later] from the "Suspended input" dialog box). Partial interviews can be retrieved from the Partial data file and continued as many times as required, until they are finally completed.
IMPORTANT: verbatim comments are always written to the CSV file for the Main data file, never to a CSV file for the Partial data file.
TIP: if your Partial data file is very large and retrieving a partial record seems slower than you would expect, we recommend that you inform your supervisor who may wish to "sort and compact" the Partial data file to remove any wasted space.
TIP: If the CATI question definitions file (QDF) is modified after some interviews have taken place, the supervisor may need to [Sort and compact] the Partial data file, before the program will allow interviewers to select serial numbers from it (usually to "call back" respondents, who have made an appointment). This is because records already held in the Partial data file must be the same length as any new records entered using the modified Question Definitions (QDF) file.