Release notes - IBM SPSS Data Collection Desktop 6

Installation

• The installation program verifies the required prerequisites out-of-order.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00147996.

Author Desktop Edition

Note: Most of the known problems in this section also apply to Author Server Edition

Data Entry Player

• Clicking previous, to go back and change the answer given to a previous iteration of a categorical loop question, results in follow-up questions being skipped. A work-around for this issue is to close and restart the Data Entry Player and reenter the correct grid size.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00150111.

• Questions that are defined as hidden in an unbounded loop are asked in the Data Entry Player. A work-around for this issue is to ensure that labels and categories are not hidden.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00150222.

Questions pane

• The display order of items in the Question pane design view can change when questions are placed into a section.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00028791.

Routings pane

• An exception occurs after redoing a group action, and then clicking the routing pane while pressing the Shift key.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00150037.

Shared Lists pane

• The context menu is missing for shared lists in the Shared Lists pane.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00029383.

• If the name of the shared list is the same as one of its responses' names, the shared list cannot be attached to a question.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00071286.

Question Repository

• The Question Repository features are only applicable when the IBM SPSS Collaboration and Deployment Services - Server Adapter for Data Collection is installed on the appropriate IBM SPSS Collaboration and Deployment Services server.

  Refer to the topic “IBM SPSS Collaboration and Deployment Services - Server Adapter” in the Data Collection Developer Library for more information.

• When inserting a question item with multiple routings, only the first routing is inserted.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00029452.

• A misleading “not authorized” error message is displayed when you fail to access a repository due to a problem with its configuration.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00103674.

• Question icons in the Routing or Question panes do not match the icons in the Insert Questions drop-down box.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00141755.

General issues

• After modifying a routing name, section name, or page name, you cannot undo/redo the modification.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00071419.

• It is not possible to base an If..Goto on special responses.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00052020.

• A CATI routing activated through Author can change the question order when imported into Interviewer Server - mrInterview.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00029392.

• Validating a document does not catch duplicate label declarations. This can cause Interview Preview and Activate to Interviewer Server - mrInterview to fail.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00052022.

• It is not currently possible to use numeric grids for If..Goto items.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00052024.

• When performing an Edit | Replace, all instances are replaced, instead of prompting to replace each found instance.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00029402.

• The Questions pane is not correctly updated when copying questions between Author instances.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00052241.

• Cannot display the correct page after using the script "LoopName.Ask()" in the Routing Section.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00030673.

• The write to data source function is not working correctly. Possible work-arounds include: 1) save the document before adding the data source 2) do not use unsupported data sources.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00150048.

Survey Reporter Desktop Edition

Note: Most of the known problems in this section also apply to the Survey Reporter Server Edition

• You will occasionally encounter an error when populating results using "Sort by Column Significance."

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00029492.

• You cannot change a variable name, and then change the name back to its original value.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00029499.

• When running table results from a .pkd file, Survey Reporter ignores calculations done with the Keep and OP= options applied in Quantum.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00103423.

• The generated data has no value when exporting the triples (museum_asc.xml) and quantumn dataset to DAT format.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00150059.

• The Japanese message, when populating Summary tables with charts, is incorrect.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00150296.

Base Professional

• The Data Link Properties dialog box sometimes creates the “mrOleDB.Provider.2” Provider connection property without the trailing ".2". When using the Data Link Properties dialog box to select data sources and generate a connection string, either by double-clicking on a .udl file, or from within WinDMSRun, the Provider connection property may sometimes be created as mrOleDB.Provider instead of mrOleDB.Provider.2. However, this does not appear to lead to any problems.
• Working with IBM SPSS Statistics .sav files. Base Professional provides only limited support for running multiple exports to the same .sav file and for .sav files that contain Japanese characters.

  For further information, please refer to the topics entitled “Transferring Data From SPSS” and “Transferring Data To SPSS” in the Professional Data Management Scripting section of the Data Collection Developer Library.

• The HTML Tidy feature in Base Professional moves mrRef tags from the head to the body of the template.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00026436.

• Debug does not correctly refer to the line or position that contains the error.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00138090.

• Routing contexts created in Author do not save to .IVS files.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00150104.

Data Model

• The Quantum DSC does not recognize { as a valid punch character.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00025717.

• It is not possible to call web-service methods via the MSSoapClient from mrScriptBasic.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00150207.

• There is currently no support for unbounded level variables that exist under bounded level variables.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00135726.

Interviewer

• An error is encountered during synchronization when attempting to load an unassigned project. A work-around for this issue is to manually configure the web.config file's SyncWebService time-out value:
  1. Remote or login directly to the Interview Server.
  2. In Notepad, open the web.config file (C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\SPSSMR\SyncWebService)
  3. Add the following section to the <System.web>... </System.web> section: <httpRuntime executionTimeout=”900”/>
  4. Save the web.config file.

  In the above example, the timeout value is changed to 900 seconds (15 minutes). You can also configure the time-out value on the Interviewer client. To configure the time-out on the client, add an attribute to the <Connection>... </Connection> section in the InterviewPlayer.config file. For example: <Connections Timeout="33330000">

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00143141.

• You may encounter a Validation function. Error when re-keying duplicate entries. A work-around for this issue is to close and restart the Data Entry Player and reenter the correct grid size.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00149298.

Translation Utility

None at this time.

Paper and Paper — Scan Add-on

• Problem starting certain versions of Word 2003. If you are running Word 2003 with no service pack, or a service pack earlier than Service Pack 2 applied, you may encounter the following problem when attempting to start Word: "Word cannot open this document template (C:\Document and Settings\...\mrScan.dot)".

  To solve this problem, please install Office 2003 Service Pack 2, obtainable from Microsoft.

• Using Word XP with Paper. If you have Word XP and want to use it with Paper, it is advisable to uninstall Word 97 or Word 2000 before installing Word XP. It has been noticed that upgrades to Word XP without uninstalling earlier versions can cause some Word options to change. Depending on which options change, this may affect the validity of the questionnaires that you create with Paper. For example, the Hidden Text option is normally switched off so that scanning information is not visible when you display the questionnaire. If this option is switched on by the upgrade to Word XP, then any questionnaires that you create will contain incorrect scanning definitions until you switch the option off again. If you use Word XP with its default settings, you will see additional information displayed at the end of some of the character styles in the drop-down list of style names. For example, the Paper style mr Question Short Name will be displayed as mr Question Short Name + Bold, and mr Category Is Go To will be mr Category Is Go To +7pt.

  To change the default settings so that just the basic style names are shown, choose Format > Styles > Formatting and then select Custom Configuration.

• Scanning illegal responses. The Illegal Value option for Mark Fields in Paper — Scan Add-on allows you to replace invalid responses with a response code of your choice. However, because this value does not appear as a valid code in the questionnaire definition (.mdd) file the DSCs cannot export it to the output datasource. We therefore recommend that you do not use this option if exporting using Paper — Scan Add-on Transfer. Instead, use the Allow Illegal responses option to accept the data as it appears on the questionnaire and then clean the output data source before analyzing the data.

  Refer to the Paper — Scan Add-on User’s Guide help file for information about the Allow Illegal responses option.

• Effect on Paper and Microsoft Outlook of using Word as your e-mail editor. If you use Microsoft Word as your e-mail editor, and you have Outlook and Paper running at the same time, the two applications share the same instance of Word rather than each having their own instance. This may affect the way Paper and Outlook behave in certain circumstances:
  • When you open a questionnaire in Paper, the questionnaire is locked to prevent other users trying to change it at the same time. Paper unlocks the file when you close it. However, if you use Microsoft Outlook with Word as your e-mail editor, and you leave Outlook running in the background, any questionnaires that you open with Paper will remain locked until you close Outlook. This is because Outlook keeps Word alive all the time that Outlook is running, even though you may not be editing a message at the time.
  • If an Paper dialog box is open while you are editing a message, any keystrokes you make while editing the message are ignored. This is because the Paper dialog box has control of the keyboard. To be able to edit the message you must close the Paper dialog box.
• Alignment of questions in compound grids of fewer than five questions. In compound grids of fewer than five questions it may occasionally look as if the columns in a compound grid are misaligned. If you view the questionnaire in Print Preview mode you will usually see that the misalignment is not visible, and will not affect the printed questionnaire.
• Uneven column widths in compound grids. When a questionnaire contains a compound grid, Paper generates a table for each question in the grid separately and makes all columns in a particular table the same width. It then joins the tables to form a single table and adjusts the column widths so that the compound grid fits into the available page width with the columns evenly distributed across the grid. (Word’s AutoFit option for tables is turned off so that all table formatting is controlled by Paper.) Finally, Paper inserts an mrSeparator item after the grid. Most of the time this process works as intended. Occasionally, however, the insertion of the mrSeparator item causes the column widths to change so that the columns are no longer evenly distributed. Detailed investigations of this feature prove that Paper is working correctly and that the problem is caused by Word itself. Unfortunately, we have so far been unable to identify what causes Word to behave in this manner.

  For the time being, if you encounter this problem you will have to set the column widths manually.

• Misaligned fields in EHF Manager. When you view questionnaires in EHF Manager you may sometimes see fields that are slightly misaligned on certain machines but not on others. With ‘comb’ fields for numeric responses, for example, you may see that the start or end bar of the ‘comb’ is missing. Tests have shown that the exact cause of the problem varies across operating systems and machine configurations, and is usually related to the way the individual machines have been configured.

  If you think you have encountered this problem, contact your Support Representative for assistance.

• ‘Comb’ Boxes for numeric fields in scanned questionnaires. Tests have shown that using ‘comb’ boxes for numeric fields can sometimes result in incorrect data from scanned questionnaires. This is because EHF sometimes interprets part of the ‘comb’ as data so that, for example, the number 4 is interpreted as 14. The problem is intermittent and inconsistent. Rescanning a questionnaire often results in the problem disappearing altogether or in a different numeric question being scanned incorrectly.

  If you encounter this problem, contact your Support Representative for assistance.

• Working with non-western languages. In Paper, there are a number of limitations to the display of characters in languages that are not supported by the default code page selected on your computer. (A code page is a table of the binary character codes used by computer programs and the characters that they represent. You select the default code page under Language Settings in the Regional Settings of the Control Panel.) For example, when you have the Western Europe and United States code page selected as your default code page, you can use and display all of the characters used in Western European languages. However, Paper will not always display Japanese characters correctly, even when you have Japanese installed on your computer.
• Language codes. Paper can recognize a language only if the standard three-character code is used for the language in the questionnaire definition.

  For information about the standard three-character language codes, see Microsoft's Global Development reference topic: http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/winxp/langtla.mspx.

• Questionnaire definition files exported from In2Form do not display the correct information for ranges in the respondent serial number and open-ended text fields. For the respondent serial number, the text displayed is ‘Write in answer 1’. For an open-ended question whose max value is set to 35, Paper displays ‘Write in answer:35’ instead of ‘Write in answer. Maximum number of characters:35’. This problem is related to the problem with exporting Quantum data from In2Form questionnaire definition files (see Quantum Data from In2Form and Quanquest 2.4 Questionnaires above) and can be corrected by running mdm2quantum on the .mdd file before opening it in Paper.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00073922 .

• Text, diagrams or images added to a template to go at the end of the questionnaire do not appear at the end of the questionnaire. Instead, Paper inserts them within mrSeparator tags at various points throughout the questionnaire. A work-around for this problem is to add an AutoText entry to the template containing the closing matter and then to insert the AutoText entry manually at the end of each questionnaire that you create with that template. To create an AutoText entry, type the text you want to use and/or insert the images in a document that uses the template. Highlight the text and/or images and press ALT+F3. When prompted, enter a label for the AutoText entry that describes its purpose (for example, ClosingTextHere). To insert the closing matter in a questionnaire, type its label name at the point you want the closing matter to appear and press F3 to replace the label name with the text and/or images it represents.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00075257.

• A problem in Microsoft Office 2000 and Office XP can cause tick boxes in grids to be misaligned near adjustment or recognition fields when scanning fields are inserted in a questionnaire. The misalignment is most visible when the mr Grid Subquestion text field contains long texts. Although the text alignment of the cells is set correctly as center-bottom, the tick box appears at center-top. A solution to this problem is to create a Look with a wider grid subquestion text area and to apply this Look to the affected questions. Although this will not solve the misalignment problem completely, it will reduce the number of rows required for the subquestion text and so reduce the row height so that the misalignment is less obvious. Other suggestions that may be of use are as follows:
  • If the grid spans more than one page, divide it into a number of smaller grids each of which fits onto a single page. This ensures that the grid column headings appear at the top of the page rather than the page starting with a row of tick boxes, and this appears to prevent the misalignment happening. Note: We do not recommend grids that span more than one page because this can affect the naming of variables in EHF.
  • Move recognition fields from the right of the page to the bottom of the page.
  • Change the adjustment fields so that there are none on the right of the grid.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00075283.

• Transfer fails with application errors in ReadSoft DOCUMENTS for FORMS 5.3 Patch 1.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00137177.

• At this time, Readsoft DOCUMENTS for Forms 5.3 does not support Microsoft Windows 7 or Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (x64bit).

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00138307.

Data Collection Developer Library

• You may experience missing help topics when the Data Collection Developer Library is installed after the Data Collection applications are installed. You can restore the missing topics by manually deleting the IBM Eclipse Help System’s cache files:
  1. Navigate to the Windows Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services and stop the DataCollectionHelpCenterService service.
  2. Go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\IBM\SPSS\DataCollection\6\Documentation\ibm_help\eclipse and delete the workspace directory.
  3. Open the configuration directory and delete the four child directories (org.eclipse.core.runtime, org.eclipse.equinox.app, org.eclipse.osgi, and org.eclipse.update). Take care that you DO NOT delete the file config.ini.
  4. Restart the DataCollectionHelpCenterService service.
  All of the help system topics should now display as expected.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00144484.