In this article
Note: Multi Project Reporting is designed to allow reporting across a limited number of projects that are closely related, for example trackers, repetitive surveys and projects using the same sample. Reporting on non-related projects or reporting on a large number of projects (more than 6), might cause errors in the reporting, or tasks to abort. Such use is not permitted, and Forsta will not be liable to the Client in respect of any problems caused by such unauthorized use.
As Independent Projects without any Relations
If you add projects to the data source without placing them in any UNION or JOIN folders, you will be able to build report pages with items from different projects into the same report, but you will not be able to run cross-tabs using questions from different projects.
The example in the figure below .- shows a Data Source with two unrelated projects. In the Data Source toolbox this will be displayed as a drop-down, where you choose which of the surveys’ questionnaire trees is to be displayed:
Figure 1 - The Data Source Toolbox
You can switch between the different projects while building your report.
Joining Projects
If you are reporting on questions in several different projects and all the projects have the same respondents, you should join your projects. Typical scenarios could be if you had different waves of an internal survey going to the same employees, or if you had a panel survey and wanted to report on several of the projects in which the panelists have participated.
Note: If one or more of the projects is using BitStream Files as the data source, the projects cannot be joined.
For each of these scenarios, you need a master survey and a unique field that identifies the respondents in all of the surveys, for example, a panelist ID or an employee/customer number or email address.
To set up a join between projects in the Data Source Designer:
- Right-click the top node in the Data Source and select Add Join .
- Right-click on the Join and choose Rename, or select it and press the F2 key on your keyboard, and give the Join a logical name.
A new Join is inserted.
Figure 2 - Adding a JOIN to the Data Source
You can now move projects into the folder. For each project added, you must specify the key – the unique field used to identify the respondents. To do this, right-click on the project and select Properties .
Figure 3 - Specifying the Join key
On completion, the Data Source tree will look something like the example belowhere:
Figure 4 - Example of a Join between projects
In the Data Source toolbox, the Data Source will be displayed as in the examplehere below:
Figure 5 - The Data Source Toolbox for the example
By expanding each project, you gain access to all of the questions within their questionnaires. All of these questions can now be used to create cross-tabs across projects. The unique key field will be used to identify the respondents within the different surveys.
Union between Projects
A Union is used if you have different respondents responding to several waves of a survey that has been set up as separate projects. An example of this would be tracker surveys. When using UNION, the projects must be identical. You will not be able to report on questions that differ (in question IDs or answer lists) between the different surveys, only on the questions that are the same.
- Add a Union in the same way as a Join: right-click the Data Source and select Add Union .
- Rename the union by right-clicking on it and choosing Rename or by selecting the union and pressing the F2 key.
- Add projects to the union as required.
Figure 6 - Adding a Union
There are no properties to set on the projects in a union.
In the Data Source Toolbox, the union will look ashere in the figure below:
Figure 7 - The Data Source toolbox
Only one of the projects will be visible in the Data Source tree because the data in the other projects is automatically included in the queries.
Combining Independent Projects, Unions and Joins in the same Data Source
You can combine independent projects, unions and joins in the same database, such as in the examplehere below:
Figure 8 - A Data Source with union, join and independent project
In the Data Source toolbox you can use the Select root drop-down menu to switch between the different projects . Note that your tables will fail if you try to cross-tab elements from the different parts. Only the questions inside the projects in the Join, and identical questions inside the Union can be set up in cross-tabs.
Figure 9 - The corresponding Data Source toolbox