Technical Strategy and Solutions BASE PROFESSIONAL. V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 1

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1 BASE PROFESSIONAL V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 1

2 Contents 1 Overview STARTING PROFESSIONAL Professional Window Menus FILE TYPES WITH PROFESSIONAL PROFESSIONAL TOOLBARS CREATING A NEW SURVEY Metadata Web - Routing Section OPENING AN EXISTING SURVEY SAVING AND CLOSING A SURVEY TOOLS IN DETAIL MetaData or MDM Explorer Locals Pane Using the Expressions Pane Breakpoints Change Control V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 2

3 1 OVERVIEW Professional is a complete set of tools that supports the building of automated market research processes. Professional includes an integrated development environment (IDE) that enables you to create, edit, run, and debug PASW / Dimensions scripts. In simple terms this is computer software that assists programmers in developing scripts. Two additional options are available for Professional: The Interview Option includes components that enable you to develop and test interviews, and activate them in Interviewer Server. The Tables Option includes components that enable you to create batch tables using a script. 1.1 STARTING PROFESSIONAL To launch Professional, follow the steps below: Start (From the bottom left corner of Windows) All Programs IBM SPSS Data Collection 6 Base Professional Base Professional V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 3

4 1.1.1 Professional Window The individual panes are described in more detail in the table below. Tab Panel Edit Description This is the main part of the desktop, where you edit your files. If you open an interview script (.mdd) file, the Edit pane is separated into a Metadata section and one or more Routing sections. By default, the individual sections can be selected by clicking on the tabs at the bottom of the Edit pane. Breakpoints Lists the breakpoints that have been set in a script. When you are debugging, you use breakpoints to indicate points in your code at which you want to suspend the running of the script--for example, so that you can V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 4

5 Tab Panel Description then step through the following lines. Output Displays status and other information when you run a script using F5. Use this pane to evaluate an expression or inspect the value of a object property when you are debugging a script. You can also use this pane to change the value of a variable. You can also use the Expression pane to Expressions change the value of a variable. For example, if you type a = 15 into the text box and press Enter (or alternatively, click Execute), Professional will set the value of the variable to 15. Find Replace Browser Workspace Metadata Types Functions Locals Auto Answer Repository Help Use to search for text. Use to search for text and replace with a different text. Use this pane to interact with the interview when you run an interview script (.mdd) file. Lists the files in the current workspace. The workspace feature is particularly useful when you are working on a number of linked files--for example, a data management script (.dms file) that has a number of associated Include files. You can add new and existing files to the workspace by right-clicking in the Workspace pane and choosing Add New Item to Workspace and Add Existing Item to Workspace, respectively. See the topic Using the Workspace Feature for more information. Use to browse the questions, variables, and categories in a metadata document (.mdd) file. This is useful when you need to refer to individual variables and categories in your script. Similar to the Visual Basic Object Browser, this shows the properties and methods of all of the default objects and details of the associated enumerated constants. Similar information is shown whenever possible for objects created in the script. When you click on an object, its properties and methods are listed. To insert a property or method into your code, rightclick it, and from the shortcut menu, choose Add member. Lists all of the functions in the Data Collection Function Library, showing brief details of their parameters. To insert a function into your code, rightclick it, and from the shortcut menu, choose Add Function. For detailed information about the functions, see PASW Data Collection Function Library. Shows the values of the variables in your script when you are debugging it. Shows a list of the questions that have been answered when you run an interview script (.mdd) file in Auto Answer mode. Shows all currently defined Question Repositories. You can navigate for topics and survey assets, and add asset metadata and routing information to the working.mdd file. Shows context-sensitive help topics. To access context-sensitive help, select an element of your script and press F1, See the topic Using Context- Sensitive Help for more information. V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 5

6 1.1.2 Menus We will quickly get you familiar with the menus that exist. You will get to see more of them throughout the course. Menu File Edit View Debug Tools Description This is a standard file menu with features like open, close and new. This is a standard edit menu with features like cut, copy, paste and undo. You can control what toolbars and Panels you can see from this menu. This menu contains items related to the testing of scripts or surveys. This menu provides access to additional tools and macros. Also the access point to Professional options. Window The Windows menu allows you to switch between open scripts and surveys. Help The help menu allows you to open the DDL from inside Professional. 1.2 FILE TYPES WITH PROFESSIONAL Professional has been designed for working with PASW / Dimensions script files of the following types: Interview Script (.mdd) files These scripts are used to create interviews that can be activated in version 3.0 (or later) of Interviewer Server. Interview scripts have a Metadata section, and one or more Routing sections. The Metadata section is used to define the questions that will be asked during the interview and is written in mrscriptmetadata. A Routing section is written in mrscriptbasic and defines which of the questions will be asked during an interview, and in what order they will be asked. You can have individual routing sections for different interview environments, for example, "Web" and "Paper". mrscriptbasic (.mrs) files. mrscriptbasic is a programming language that enables scriptable access to PASW / Dimensions components. You would typically use a standalone mrscriptbasic script to perform tasks that do not involve transforming data, such as creating reports, topline tables and charts. Sometimes you might develop a mrscriptbasic script for use as an Include file in one of the Event sections of a data management script. You can run and debug your mrscriptbasic scripts from the Professional IDE or by using the mrscript Command Line Runner. V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 6

7 Data Management Script (.dms) files These scripts are used for performing data management tasks, such as cleaning and transferring data, creating derived variables for use during analysis, and setting up weighting schemes. A data management script has two or more different sections, which have different coding rules and use different technologies. For example, the InputDataSource section uses property definition and SQL syntax, whereas the Metadata section is written in mrscriptmetadata, and the Event sections are written in mrscriptbasic. A data management script is particularly useful when you want to clean and transfer data and create derived variables, because it handles the connections to the input and output data sources, the merging of the metadata, and gives you scriptable access to the case data (in the OnNextCase Event section). You can run your data management scripts from the Professional IDE or by using the DMS Runner command prompt utility. In addition to PASW / Dimensions scripts, you can also use Professional to create and edit the following types of files: Text (.txt) files HTML files XML files Rich text format (.rtf) files You can also open other types of text files, such as log files. 1.3 PROFESSIONAL TOOLBARS Details can be found at mk:@msitstore:c:\program%20files\spssinc\paswdatacollection5.6\ddl\documentati on\ddl.chm::/professional_toolbars.htm 1.4 CREATING A NEW SURVEY If you do not have Professional open, please launch it now. 1. From the File menu choose: New > File The New File dialog shows you a list of available file types. Click the item labeled Metadata File. 3. In the bottom section of the New File dialog is the File Name, this probably reads Untitled1.mdd. Change this to MyFirstInterview.mdd and click the Open button. 4. Professional has created your new file. A Metadata file, also referred to as the MDD, is the name of the survey file type. It contains all your questions, responses, languages and survey logic. The survey edit is now available. On the bottom left corner you will see two tabs, Metadata and Web. V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 7

8 1.4.1 Metadata The Metadata section is where you will define the questions and responses that will make up your survey. The Metadata editor should look like below: Metadata(en-GB, Question, label) End Metadata Always having three arguments passed on the Metadata function: en-gb: the locale or base laungauge for the interview Question: is the context Label is the label type NOTE: It is not mandatory to specify the language, context, or label type, as defaults will be used if they are not provided. See below table for detailed explanation. Positional Parameter Language(en-US) Context (Question) LabelType DataSource (NOT in IOM) Description The language portion of the line (shown here as en-us) will vary according to the regional settings for your computer. For example, if your regional settings are set for the UK you will see en-gb instead. Defines the current user context for the metadata. User contexts define different usages for the metadata, so that different texts and custom properties can be used depending on how the metadata is being used. For example, the Question user context is typically used to define the default texts to be used when interviewing and the Analysis user context is typically used to define shorter texts for use when analyzing the response data. Defines the current label type. Label types enable different types of labels to be created for different types of information. For example, the default label type of Label is used for question and category texts and variable descriptions, and the Instruction label type is used for interviewer instructions. This parameter, used only when the Metadata section is part of a Data Management Script (.dms) file, identifies the data source to which the Metadata section relates. You specify the data source using the name defined for the InputDataSource section in the Data Management Script. V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 8

9 1.4.2 Web - Routing Section The Web Routing section is where you define the order in which questions are asked and the circumstances in which they should be asked. A script can have different Routing sections for different contexts, such as Web, CATI and Paper. The default context is Web, so you see a Web Routing tab. When initially created the Routing section of an MDD contains the following script: Routing(Web) End Routing 1.5 OPENING AN EXISTING SURVEY From the File menu choose: Open > File Browse to the required file and click the open button in the bottom right hand corner NOTE: Notice that inside Professional along the top you still have your "MyFirstInterview" file open. You can switch between surveys by clicking on the tabs at the top of the editing window. 1.6 SAVING AND CLOSING A SURVEY To save your file: 1. From the File menu choose: Save. If this is a new file it will open a standard Save As box for you to choose the location to save the file in. 2. Alternatively from the File menu choose: Save As to save your file with a different name or to a different location. This will open a standard Save As box. When you run a survey it will also check whether it has been saved since you last made changes, and if not it will try to save it. To close your file: 1. From the File menu choose: Close 2. If you have made edits since you last saved your file you will be shown a dialog box asking if you want to save your changes. If you click Yes it will open a standard Save As box. 1.7 TOOLS IN DETAIL MetaData or MDM Explorer MDM explorer use to explore the variable and object in MDD. V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 9

10 To Open Search for shortcut on desktop (see below). Double click the icon. If no Shortcut on desktop then check Program Files\SPSSInc\PASWDataCollection5.6\DDL\Code\Tools\VB6\MDM Explorer\MDM Explorer.exe" Explorer window Open file file -> Open Document There is a short delay while the file is loaded. You can now explore the structure of MDM Document. For example, to display the objects that correspond to the questionnaire items, expand the Fields folder. MDM Explorer displays a never-ending loop for Variables and VariableInstances - A VariableInstance object has a pointer to a Variable object and the Variable object has a collection of related VariableInstance objects. MDM Explorer merely reflects the properties on each object. This means that you can open an endless list of Variable and VariableInstance objects. V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 10

11 1.7.2 Locals Pane While debugging a script, Professional displays in the Locals pane the current value of all of the variables in the current scope. In addition, Professional shows in the Locals pane the current value of the properties of the objects in the current scope. You can expand and inspect objects by clicking the plus icon next to the object, but note that an object can only be expanded while the script is halted during debugging, not when the script has completed. V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 11

12 1.7.3 Using the Expressions Pane You can use the Expressions pane to evaluate an expression or to inspect the value of an object's properties. There are two ways of doing this: 1. Type the expression in the text box and click Evaluate. 2. Type a question mark, then type the expression and press Enter. For example, type?a and press Enter to display the value of the a variable. You can also re-evaluate an expression that you previously evaluated by selecting the text of the expression in the text box and clicking Evaluate. For example, here is the Expressions pane after using the Sqrt function to evaluate the square root of the a variable: V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 12

13 Note that sometimes you might need to resize the pane in order to be able to see the output. Here is the Expressions pane after evaluating the label of q2 : You can also use the Expression pane to change the value of a variable. For example, if you type a = 15 into the text box and press Enter (or alternatively, click Execute), Professional will set the value of the a variable to 15. The Expression pane can also be used to declare variables, which you can then use to store the current value of another variable when you are debugging a script. For example, type dim temp in the text box and press Enter to declare a variable called temp. Then assign the value of a to temp by typing temp = a and pressing Enter. To restore the original value of a at any point, type a = temp and press Enter Breakpoints Breakpoints are added into code at the points where you want the execution to stop/hault, so that you can step through the following lines. This is particularly useful when you have a rough idea where the problem lies. How to add - either of ways listed below Choose Toggle Breakpoints from the Debug menu. Press Ctrl+B or F9 Click the Edit pane to the left of the line number. V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 13

14 Professional then highlights the line in red and adds the breakpoint to the list in the Breakpoints pane. To run the code up to the next breakpoint, press F5 or choose Start or Continue from the Debug menu. To run single Line step to following code press F10. To clear a breakpoint, follow any one of below steps:- Choose Toggle Breakpoints from the Debug menu. Press Ctrl+B or F9 Click the Edit pane to the left of the line number. To clear all breakpoints, press Ctrl+Shift+F9 or choose Clear All Breakpoints from the Debug menu. V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 14

15 2 CHANGE CONTROL This Document may have been through various revisions. This table shows updates over time and details any specific updates Change Summary Date Doc Change detail Version Document Launch 02 Apr 2012 V1.0 Initial document launch V e r s i o n 1. 0 P a g e 15