Release notes - IBM SPSS Data Collection Server 6 Patch 1

Contents

• Description
• Compatibility issues with earlier versions
• System requirements and installation
• Known problems

Description

• IBM SPSS Data Collection Interviewer Server Administration — used for running a variety of Data Collection Web activities on a project of your choice. It provides management and maintenance facilities for editing projects, user administration, generating usage reports, and managing logs.
• IBM SPSS Data Collection Web Interviews — a collection of associated applications and activities that are used to build and run Web-based interviewing questionnaires.
• IBM SPSS Data Collection Phone Interviews — a collection of associated applications and activities that are used to build and run phone-based interviewing questionnaires.
• IBM SPSS Data Collection Author Server Edition — used for creating and previewing surveys for use in a variety of output formats. Author Server Edition is deployed from the Interviewer Server. When you have created your survey, you can activate it to an Interviewer Server or open it in Paper to format it and add scanning control information.
• IBM SPSS Data Collection Survey Reporter Server Edition — a survey and market research analysis tool that provides options for creating tables and analyzing the data collected from surveys. Survey Reporter Server Edition is deployed from the Interviewer Server.
• IBM SPSS Data Collection Survey Reporter Developer Kit — provides a server installation of the components needed to automate the processing of data management and analysis scripts. This enables organizations to benefit from the additional processing power of a server when running large numbers of scripts.
• IBM SPSS Data Collection Survey Tabulation — a browser-based survey and market research analysis tool. Web Reports for Surveys provides options for creating tables and analyzing the data collected from surveys.
• IBM SPSS Data Collection Dialer Connection — provides a connection to Dialer, an autodialer for Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI).
• IBM SPSS Data Collection Remote Administration — an Interviewer Server activity allows you to monitor the remote interviewers working on a given project. Remote Administration is the server component of IBM SPSS Data Collection Interviewer, which remote interviewers use to conduct interviews and synchronize their data. The activity provides status information on each remote interviewer, including the number of interviews completed, the number of suspended interviews, and the last time the interviewer synchronized.
• IBM SPSS Data Collection Data Model — acts as a data access framework that sits between applications and data stored in various formats or database schemas. You can consider the Data Model to be an interpreting or translation service that enables an application to understand the data. This capacity of the Data Model, together with its open architecture, removes the data storage and access restrictions of older, proprietary architectures.
• IBM SPSS Data Collection Developer Library (DDL) — an information-rich resource for anyone learning about and working with Data Collection products. The DDL comes with a number of samples, including scripts, tools, example data, and source code.

New features

IBM SPSS Data Collection Server 6 Patch 1 provides the following new features:

• Updated role-based security — New application features were added in patch 1. As a result, the Activation and Author application features have been grouped in Interviewer Server Administration based on their function. Role-based access allows you to customize and manage permissible tasks assigned to Author users. Role-based limitations restrict users from viewing, editing, and adding components in a survey without the proper privileges. Role-based access applies to both the desktop and web-deployed versions of Author when the application accesses projects that are located in IBM SPSS Data Collection Interviewer Server Administration.

  The new activity features require an Interviewer Server Administration administrator to manually add the features to the appropriate users and roles. Refer to the Assigning users or roles to activity features topic in the IBM SPSS Data Collection Interviewer Server Administration User's Guide for more information.

Refer to Readme.txt in the root installation directory for information pertaining to the IBM SPSS Data Collection license agreement.

Compatibility issues with earlier versions

System requirements and installation

When you run the IBM SPSS Data Collection Server 6 Patch 1 installer on your machine, it will verify which applications are installed, and install only the required files for the applications currently installed. If no applications are installed, you must first install the appropriate applications from the IBM SPSS Data Collection Server 6 installation DVD.

Important:

• Ensure that you backup all customizable files prior to installing the patch. For example, many of the application configuration files can be customized to meet your business requirements. The patch will overwrite these files.
  • The patch updates the Users and Roles table schema. As such, you should manually backup your mrUserData database before installing the patch.
  • The patch updates user management SQL. If user management SQL has ever been configured in the Windows registry, you should manually backup your user management SQL.
• Ensure all applications are closed before starting the patch installation. The IBM SPSS Data Collection Server 6 Patch 1 installer may initiate a system reboot to complete the installation procedure.

Caution:

Do not attempt to install IBM SPSS Data Collection Server 6 Patch 1 over the following products:

• Release 5.6 or earlier Data Collection products.

Installing the patch

Copy the IBM SPSS Data Collection Server 6.00.010.exe file to your computer, and double click the file. You will need to have administrative privileges, and if you installed the products using a specific user, you should log on to the machine as that user to install the patch.

Install patch updates for Survey Tabulation Export Components

On each Survey Tabulation client computer that requires the patch updates, double click the appropriate language file (for example, SurveyTabulationExports_en.msi for the English language version). Before continuing, the exports installer will ask if you want to proceed with the installation. Note that you need to install the patch updates for Survey Tabulation Export Components only if the client computer’s browser settings do not allow Survey Tabulation to download the export components from the Survey Tabulation server.

Post-installation steps

• If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.x or above, you may experience various issues when using the Data Collection Server applications. You can avoid these issues by adding the appropriate Data Collection Server application URLs to the Internet Explorer 8.x Compatibility View list. Refer to the Compatibility View topic on the Microsoft Internet Explorer 8: Features website for more information.
• If you install the Data Collection Server patch onto a machine that is running Survey Tabulation, and you have set up Survey Tabulation to use SSL accelerators, you must recreate the Webservice.wsdl file by following the instructions in topic Setting up Survey Tabulation to use SSL Accelerators in the IBM SPSS Data Collection Server 6 Installation Instructions (available in the Data Collection Developer Library or from the IBM Support site).
• When using multiple web servers, change the registry settings VariableCacheUrl and VariableCacheDir to point to a single location for all running servers, in the form http://singleserver.com/spssmr/mrTables/Cache/.
• When running Survey Tabulation Front End server and the web service on different machines, if the host in the URL used to launch Survey Tabulation is different from the host of the web service, change the security settings for Internet Explorer. Open Internet Options | Security, and check that Access data sources across domains is enabled for the zone (even if the GUI and the Web Service are on the same domain).
• After the Data Collection Server patch has been installed, all users who connect to Interviewer Server Administration using Internet Explorer must clear the Internet Explorer cache before running the Survey Tabulation activity.
• If you install the Data Collection Server patch onto a machine that has Interviewer Server Administration installed, you will need to reset IIS on that machine. The installation procedure will tell you if this is necessary and will give you the opportunity to cancel the installation if this is not an appropriate time to reset IIS.
• If you install the Data Collection Server patch onto machines running the Interview Engine, or the mrDPMServer3 or mrPerfMonitoring services, you are advised either to stop and restart these services or to reboot the machine once the installation is complete. If a reboot is necessary the installation procedure will tell you.
• After installing the patch, Internet Information Services (IIS) must be reset. Refer to the Resetting IIS topic in the Data Collection Developer Library for more information.

Uninstalling the patch

You cannot use the Windows Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs feature to uninstall the patch. If you need to uninstall the patched applications, you can do so by running the patch executable file.

Notes

• IBM SPSS Data Collection does not support products patched at different levels. When the patch installer prompts you to select which products to upgrade, any products currently installed on your system are selected by default. If you elect not to patch a product installed on your system, the patch installer removes that product.
• When you install the patch, it will add an entry to the Windows Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs list, indicating that it is present.
• If Windows automatically repairs an IBM SPSS Data Collection Server 6 product after the patch has been installed, you will need to uninstall and install the patch again in order to restore the patched files for the repaired product. A repair will typically occur only after one or more product files have been deleted. When a repair takes place, the product installation dialog may appear after you start an IBM SPSS Data Collection product, and details of the repair may also be logged in the Windows event log.
• If you uninstall the patch, it will delete all the new files that it installed but it cannot restore the original versions of files that it updated. Therefore, uninstalling the patch can result in IBM SPSS Data Collection products that do not work correctly.

For information on system requirements, see the IBM SPSS Data Collection Server 6 Installation Guide. The guide is located on the IBM SPSS Data Collection Server 6 installation DVD at: DVD:/Documentation/<language>/Server_Installation_Guide.pdf

Known problems

Survey Tabulation

Load balancing

• A number of problems have been found when using Interviewer Server Administration load balancing with Survey Tabulation. It is therefore recommended that you do not use Interviewer Server Administration load balancing with Survey Tabulation. Load balancing using other methods, for example, IIS load balancing or hardware accelerators, works correctly.

Exporting charts to Microsoft Word

• When you use the option to export charts to Microsoft Word, the Word Export component creates the charts using Excel. This requires that Word is installed with the option to embed Excel charts enabled. If this option is not enabled, exports of charts to Word will fail. To verify whether this option is enabled:
  • Start a new document in Word.
  • From the Insert menu, choose Object.
  • From the list of object types, select Microsoft Excel Chart.
  • Click OK.

  If this fails, it generally means that the option is not enabled and you will need to install the option before you can export charts to Word.

General issues

• When text-only elements are used on the top axis of a table, they are displayed as an empty column. You can work around this problem by not using text-only elements on the top of the table. When variables have these elements built in, you can remove them using the Edit Axis dialog box when necessary.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00037702.

• A “RegisterAppWithDPM” error message is encountered when re-installing Survey Tabulation via the Repair option.

  For more information, refer to ClearQuest defect # ECM00071374.

Author Server Edition

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

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.

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.

Survey Reporter Server Edition

Note: Most of the known problems in this section also apply to the Survey Reporter Desktop 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.

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.