Dialsmith

Sometimes it is necessary and convenient to edit raw Perception Analyzer data in a text editor or Excel. This may be done to add data for questions that were not asked during a dial session or to edit existing dial data. The new or edited data may then be reimported into PA for viewing.

Exporting the file for editing:

If want to add a question to the questionnaire that did not yet exist during the dial session(s), first add the question in PAEdit. To get this “empty” question and any other dial data to a text editor or Excel, the data must be exported from PAReport as an ASCII text file. To do so, open the PA project in Report and select the sessions to include in the export in the Edit>Views dialog.

Next, select File>Save As. At the prompt, specify a filename of your choice. Note that the default “Save As File Type” for this dialog is the desired “ASCII (Tran) format.”
After clicking OK, an additional dialog will appear allowing you to specify which questions’ data to export. Generally it is more convenient to only export the questions for which you need to make changes or add data. You may also export a column to the file identifying the read numbers for moment-to-moment questions. Column (space) delimited is the preferred choice; PAReport cannot reimport comma-delimited data.

Editing the file in a text editor:

When the column-delimited file is opened in a text editor like Microsoft WordPad you will see the respondents listed in session and dial order across the top row. Each row down is labeled on the left with a question name and represents the data for a single question for all respondents. Incidentally, the reason PA files have the rows as question variables instead of respondents is that during data collection data is appended to the file on a question by question basis. Telephone or web surveys typically append data to their files on a respondent-by-respondent basis.

In the text editor it will be helpful to have “Word Wrap”, the function which wraps text at the right side of the screen, turned off. Note that moment-to-moment questions have one row of data for every interval. Note also that for files including respondents with IDs higher than 100 or sessions numbered higher than 9, the data columns will no longer line up with the respondent labels in the top row. If this is the case for your data you will instead want to do your editing in Excel. Otherwise, you can make edits by hand in the file and save the changes. New questions you have added in PA will have the entry “-1” for all responses. “-1” is PA’s code meaning there is no valid response. To enter valid responses, replace the “-1”s with the actual participants’ response codes for the question. “-1”s also appear where a dial failed to return a response during polling of a question.

Editing the file in Excel:

When the column-delimited data file is opened in Excel, Excel’s Import Wizard will open allowing control over the import formatting. On the first screen change the data type to “delimited” and click Next. On the second screen change the delimiter to “space” and click Finish. The file will import into Excel with each respondent’s data in a single column. Make edits or enter response codes as desired.

When you are finished editing, click Save in the Excel toolbar to save the changes. The Save As dialog will open with your existing filename shown in quotes. If not, change the filename back to your original including the “.asc” file extension. Make sure that the “Save as type” field is set to “Text (Tab delimited).” Click Save when ready. Excel will change your file to a tab-delimited format that can be reimported back into PAReport. Because the file has been changed to tab-delimited, if you reopen the file in Excel you will need to select tab-delimited formatting in the import wizard. Also, the file will no longer appear neatly formatted if you open it in a text editor (although it is still properly delimited). NOTE: When exiting Excel you will prompted to save again –as an Excel workbook. This is not necessary; as long as you have saved the file as a tab-delimited text file (with the .asc file extension) it is not necessary to save again.

Importing the edited data back into P.A.:

To import the data back into PA, open Report and select File, then Import. Make sure the “Files of type” field is set to “ASCII (Tran) format” and locate your “.asc” file. Note that it is not necessary for this file to have the same filename prefix as the project. When ready, click Open. The edited data will be imported and saved into whichever session data files it originally came from. The data will be immediately available for viewing. It is not necessary to save the changes –the changes are saved automatically.