CfMC news
the latest news about CfMC software and services
December 5, 2007
CfMC Research Software Releases Survent v8.1
Release brings browser-based supervisor and greater efficiency with multiple modes and languages
CfMC is pleased to announce the latest release of Survent for CATI and Web surveys. Survent version 8.1 includes greater online and CATI survey capabilities and the first release of webSuper, a browser-based supervisory tool.
In addition, greater enhancements have been made to allow up to 1 million questions per survey, increased sample-dialer integration and reporting, and greater multi-modal project management features.
WebCATI for conducing remote interviewing while maintaining project, sample, and quality control in a central location has also been further enhanced.
Here is brief summary of the new features available in version 8.1
enhanced project and interviewer capabilities
introducing webSuper
Manage your interviewers and your CATI shop from anywhere with few clicks of the mouse. WebSuper includes several new features including:
- enhanced “Web dashboard” with real-time study and interviewer information
- send programmed messages to dashboard screen
- activate/deactivate multiple interviewers on multiple studies
- manage multi-modal surveys (phone to web and vice versa)
- monitor interviewers in remote locations. Monitor screens include detailed lists of responses to previous questions
- across-study sample reports
- change and add sample on the fly
- data manipulation. Supervisors have direct access to the VIEW program where they can alter data including open ends
- Links to Reformat and Phone Report utilities for interviewer productivity and call status reports
enhanced supervisor controls
- allows independent shutdown of numbers tagged with standard names
- active study ample access. Supervisors can now add sample, list sample, zap call histories, kill sample, alter times and gather specials all while the study is active.
- active study stack-management. You can move sets of phone records from stack to stack, including moving them to a “call first” stack to give immediate calling priority even while the study is active.
- “Manana” report. shows numbers scheduled by hour of day for up to 60 days
- market availability screens include subsets by market group
- new security features
- load multiple studies using file pattern
interviewer improvements
- real-time dashboard reports have been enhanced with “current status," "phone number" and more
- custom information can be now sent from the interview to the log record for that interviewer session
- unlimited terminal screen sizes supported
- response code lengths of up to 20 characters
- “child” questionnaires can now return to their “parent” questionnaires
utility features
- web versions of PHONERPT and REFORMAT utilities
- ‘phonerpt’ has a new timed-call report
- ‘reformat’ now exports "SQL readable" files for databases
- ‘suspres’ converts suspended records writes all records to one file, allowing unlimited number of suspend files
- enhanced reports available by market.
- web "view" mode supported in webCATI or terminal-based Survent
about Survent v8.1
- project and interviewer capabilities
- questionnaire and survey improvements
- CATI, sample management, dialer capabilities
- gathering survey data via browsers
- download the Survent v8.1 primer (pdf)
- Survent v7.7 features
For Clients only - these links require a password, please contact support for access
questionnaire and survey improvements
more questionnaire features
- 1 million questions allowed
- question size maximum is now 1 million characters, allowing approximately 10,000 codes - enough space for as many languages as you want
- multi-modal display features in webSurvent/webCATI/terminal mode
- study names and question labels can now be 30 characters long instead of 8. Mentor variable names can be 36 characters
- a single “master" quota file can control multiple studies
survey in more languages, easier
Our webSurvent and webCATI platforms now support UTF-8. This is the character set used by "UNICODE" language coding for all languages, so you can now have all languages in the same questionnaire.
UTF-8 and the increased capacity features makes it easier than ever to conduct multi-lingual, multi-country studies using the same survey files.
enhanced CATI, sample management, dialer capabilities
phone system features
- up to 10 million records enabled
- time zones: 24 time zones now supported – including those on the ½ hour (e.g. India)
- quota management. Quota information can now be included in the phone record enabling automatic quota checks before numbers are sent to an interviewer or a dialer. This practices can eliminate the chances of calling numbers in unwanted quota cells and can substantially reduce the chances of going over quota in specific cells.
- customized scripts can determine date/times
- report on scheduled calls in the next few days/weeks
- “do not contact” list support includes e-mail contact controls as well as phone numbers
- easier cluster design
- programmatically assign numbers to the “call first”/ highest priority stack
- interviewers can be assigned to call a set of markets
- greater call-back scheduling and management
dialer integration improvements
- dialer logging. numbers sent to the dialer are now logged for reporting. The CfMC server now logs the dialer type and dialing mode for all interviewers as well as all dialer statuses of numbers.
- caller_ID. Now supported with dialers, both generic and different IDs for different phone numbers are logged
- VOIP dialers supported
- Custom dialer integration service now available
gathering survey data via browsers enhanced
version 8.1 includes many new webSurvent and webCATI features, such as:
- improved ADA compliance
- greater portability of HTML/webSurvent code from survey to survey
- control of answer codes depending on webSurvent/webCATI session type
- easy to program error displays
- “keyboard input mode” makes all questions “box entry” instead of point and click for interviewer preference
- communications package rewritten for faster/more reliable communications
- new templates allow more information to be presented/updated between interviews.
- automatic list-removal buttons on “click”
New JavaScript Capabilities in v8.1 webSurvent
- customized/user JavaScripts can be now used in conjunction with CfMC JavaScripts
- URL customization. Customize survey instructions passed to the survey (password, user name, sample source, etc) via URL
- Allow up to five other response items per screen to be checked, hide the specify box until needed
- ‘Summing’ Grids can count both across and down
- control minimum number of characters or responses
- make checkbox questions behave like a single response question
- change the style/class of an object, or style elements of a class
- dynamically write text into a designated element on the page
- auto-submit a page after X seconds
