- We require a SAV file.
- No personal information permitting the identification of respondents (PII) should be transmitted to Telmar. All data such as name, full street address, telephone number, email address must be removed before delivery.
- If the data for a particular variable/value is not to be used in eTelmar then that variable should be removed. For example, if a ‘no’ answer isn’t required for analysis, it should be removed.
- We do not use alpha text so all variables should be of numeric type. Open-ended or String questions (if required) should be re-coded into a numeric format or will be ignored.
- The Variables should always be the minimum necessary Width & Decimals and not the SPSS default of 8 & 2 (F8.2). For example, Gender would be Width 1, Decimals 0 (F1.0). Sometimes it is necessary to have more digits, e.g. Actual Age would normally be Width 2, Decimals 0 (F2.0).
- The number of decimal places should be set to zero except for the weights or other appropriate answers requiring decimal precision.
- Variable widths:
- Integer variables: maximum width is 10 (F10.0).
- Non-integer variables: Maximum overall width is 18 including decimal point (F18.x).
- maximum width of the integer part is 10, regardless of the overall length (i.e. F18.7, F17.6,..., F12.1).
- maximum width of the decimal part is 16, only possible if the integer part is 0 (F18.16).
- There should always be text in the Variable Label (field cannot be empty)
- The full question text should be entered in the Variable Label. For example, if the question is “Which of these statements do you agree with on a scale of 1 to 5”, the statement text should also be included. The answer text should not be included in the variable Label.
- If the question text includes a secondary question then the label should show the primary question first, with a consistent delimiter joining them, i.e. “::” For example “Which of these statements do you agree with on a scale of 1 to 5 :: I prefer online shopping for choice”
- The full answer text should be used as the Value Label for each value present in that Variable. Only those answers that are required for analysis should be captured.
- There should be NO negative values used in the data or Value Labels. We only process positive values therefore such values as -99 or -1 need to be re-coded with an appropriate value.
- Missing answers should ideally be coded as 0 with a value label of “No answer” if 0 is not already used as a valid answer value. If 0 is in use, e.g. “Number of foreign trips last year”, then missing values (i.e. non-answers) should be left blank.
- Questions with multiple-choice answers should not be duplicated. Answers should only be coded once with all relevant respondents included.
- To support trending (track overtime trends) in Telmar crosstab, we require the variable IDs to remain consistent between waves (unique ID to a question and corresponding answers). Variable IDs should not be repurposed, i.e. a new question requires a new unique ID.
- Due to analysis techniques in our system, we require a minimum of 256 total respondents (sample size). Where the sample size is lower than 256 respondents, the total respondent count will be increased to 256 in crosstab.
- The Dataloader currently has an upload size limit of 2GB (browser limitation)
