Reconciliation view (AskiaSurf)

This view allows you to check and adjust a reconciliation just carried out by AskiaSurf, or to view the details of a previous reconciliation. The reconciliation view appears in the right-hand pane in two situations:

When you perform a reconciliation: you right-click a wave in the campaign tree and select reconcile questions. Note that you do not have to reconcile a wave immediately after adding a volume: you can continue adding volumes as required before reconciling. You will be asked if you want to apply a caption library, which allows you to define words or phrases to be treated as equivalent during reconciliation. See caption libraries for details.
When you view the results of a previous reconciliation: you right-click a wave that has already been reconciled, and select show reconciliation.

Note: when editing waves that have already been reconciled (e.g. wave 3 of 5) by performing a show reconciliation, you should be careful what changes you make, as this may have ramifications for later waves. For example, breaking the matching between two questions could result in both being unmatched in later waves, if inheritance is being used:

If any volumes in the later waves inherit from the wave you edited, then the matching will be broken automatically in these volumes too;

If the campaign question is matched to a different volume question in later waves, the matching will not be automatically broken in these waves;

If inheritance is not being used, the matching will not automatically be broken in the later waves.

Performing a new reconciliation

When you select reconcile questions in the campaign tree's context menu, AskiaSurf compares the questions and responses in all the unreconciled volumes in the wave with the existing questions and responses in the campaign. In the process, AskiaSurf identifies any matching questions and responses, and adds new questions and responses to the campaign as appropriate. When reconciliation is complete, the results are shown in the reconciliation view.

Note: for the first wave in a campaign, there is no matching to be done, and therefore AskiaSurf simply displays all of the questions in the wave.

Although AskiaSurf makes intelligent matches between questions and responses, you should review the matches it has made and make adjustments when necessary. The tools for adjusting automatic question matching are found on the context menu.

If you opted to use inheritance for the new wave, then any manual matchings previously made in the project are carried over for the new wave, saving you the work of performing these matchings again.

At this stage, it may be a good idea to view the reconciliation report, which indicates how many no-matches or imperfect matches were encountered, and thus how much work you have to do to finish reconciling the volume with the campaign. To do so, right-click the wave in the campaign tree, and select show reconciliation summary.

The screen display

The reconciliation view is split in two:

the upper pane shows the questions;
the lower pane displays the responses for the currently-selected question.

Note that you can determine what details are shown in the two lists by right-clicking in the column or row headers, and selecting the items you want shown. You can choose from question codes, shortcuts, short captions, long captions and source volume (for questions) and response codes, entry codes and source volume (for responses).

Beside each of the upper pane and lower panes is a vertical bar, known as the overview bar. This provides a visual overview of the reconciliation process, and how successful or unsuccessful it was. In the upper pane, the bar represents the entire campaign; in the lower pane, it represents all of the responses in the selected question. The black triangle indicates the section of the campaign or question you are currently viewing. Questions or responses that have been perfectly matched are not highlighted; questions/responses for which imperfect matches have been found are bolded, and highlighted in yellow; questions/responses that have not been matched at all are shown in red. You can click on an area of the overview bar to jump to the appropriate question/response in the right-hand pane. This allows you to quickly locate the questions where reconciliation problems have occurred.

In the right-hand list, the columns headed campaign questions or campaign responses (on the left) describe the questions and responses already present in the campaign, in the order in which they appear in the campaign. Meanwhile, the columns marked source questions or source responses (on the right) describe the questions and responses found in the new wave. They appear in the order dictated by the questions in the campaign (where a question is matched to a campaign question, it is presented on the same row).

You can click many of the column headers to sort the list according to that column (and click the header again to reverse the sort order).

The columns for questions are as follows (you can right-click in the headers, and select which columns are displayed):

Column	Description
Match state icon	Indicates whether a match has been found in the campaign or new wave (depending on whether this column is under campaign questions or source questions): match found match not found a newly-added question a source question that has been manually matched to a campaign question (appears only during the current reconciliation; if the wave is viewed again later, this icon does not appear) the question has been removed from the campaign in this wave and any subsequent ones
Question type icon	Indicates the question type (single, multi, numeric, etc.), or whether it is a chapter; the icons are the same as those found in AskiaDesign.
Code	The unique identifier for each question.
Shortcut	The shortcut for each question.
Short caption	The short caption for each question.
Long caption	The long caption for each question.
Volume	Indicates the name of the volume in which the question was found (for questions in the new wave).

The columns for responses are as follows (you can right-click in the headers, and select which columns are displayed)::

Column	Description
Match state icon	Indicates whether a match has been found in the campaign or new wave (depending on whether this column is under campaign responses or source responses): match found match not found a newly-added response a source response that has been manually matched to a campaign response (appears only during the current reconciliation; if the wave is viewed again later, this icon does not appear) the response has been removed from the campaign in this wave and any subsequent ones the response has been merged into another response in the same question; see merge campaign response
Response code	The unique identifier for each response.
Entry code	The entry code for each response.
Volume	Indicates the name of the volume in which the response was found (for responses in the new wave).

Imperfect matches between questions/responses in the campaign and their equivalents in the new wave are color-coded in the same way as in the overview bar:

Not shaded: a perfect match has been found;
Yellow: an imperfect match has been found (e.g. the shortcuts are the same but the short captions are not);
Grey: you have removed the question/response from the campaign in this and any future waves, either by dropping it or by merging a response with another in the same question.

Where no match has been found at all (i.e. the question/response exists in the new wave but does not appear to exist already in the campaign), the question/response is not colour-coded, but a cross icon appears against the question/response.

In the following example, a perfect match has been found for demographics: a green check-mark in both columns indicates it is present in both the existing campaign and the new wave. There is an imperfect match for gender, as it is highlighted in yellow. No match at all has been found for phone: the red cross indicates that although the question is present in the campaign, it has not been identified in the new wave.

surf_matching

There will not necessarily be a match for every question or response, since over time questions or responses are dropped from, or added to, the questionnaire.

Note: a question may have more than one match, but this should happen only when there is more than one volume file for a wave, and only for the link question(s) that are present in every volume file.

Toolbars

The following toolbar is active in the reconciliation view (for details of AskiaSurf's other toolbars, see AskiaSurf toolbars). You can display or hide this toolbar by selecting reconciliation toolbar from the view menu. It allows you to quickly find questions that do not have exact matches, find a specific question by shortcut, quickly fix all differences between the campaign and volume questions, and change the order of responses. It contains the following icons:

Icon	Name	Description
	Find question	Find a specific question, by shortcut. The find question dialog appears.
	Update all campaign questions	Quickly update all campaign questions and responses that are different from the volume questions and responses they are matched to. This is especially useful for fixing numerous trivial differences that would otherwise take a long time to fix individually. When you click this icon, the update dialog appears.
	Last difference	Jump to the last question in the list whose matching is not exact. You must first have selected a question in the list before you can use this icon.
	Next difference	Jump to the next question in the list whose matching is not exact. You must first have selected a question in the list before you can use this icon.
	Previous difference	Jump to the previous question in the list whose matching is not exact. You must first have selected a question in the list before you can use this icon.
	First difference	Jump to the first question in the list whose matching is not exact. You must first have selected a question in the list before you can use this icon.
	Move the response to the bottom	Change the response order by moving the selected response to the bottom of the list.
	Move the response down	Change the response order by moving the selected response downwards.
	Move the response up	Change the response order by moving the selected response upwards.
	Move the response to the top	Change the response order by moving the selected response to the top of the list.
	Sort responses by matched source response order	Sorts the responses according to responses in the matched source question. Note that you can sort the responses alphabetically by clicking the header of the appropriate responses column.

Context menu

When you right-click a question or response in the list, a context menu appears. It allows you to adjust the question or response matches made automatically by askiasurf.

The available commands when right-clicking a question are:

View question differences...: This command is available when you right-click a question that is shaded yellow; in other words, on a question that is imperfectly matched. The question differences dialog appears, which displays a list of differences between the campaign question and the volume question it is matched to. It allows you to copy all or some of the volume question's values to the campaign question.
Break this matching: This command is available when you right-click a question that has been matched (either perfectly or imperfectly) between the volume and the campaign. The command is useful when you notice a matching between two questions that you do not want matched. The volume and campaign question immediately become unmatched, allowing you to match one or both of them to other questions if you so wish.
Re-match source question...: This command allows you to change the existing matching so that the selected volume question becomes matched with a different campaign question. It is available when you right-click a question in the source column (i.e. a question in the new wave).
- After you select this command, click a question in the final state column to which you want to match the volume question. As you hold the mouse pointer over a question, the pointer changes to a hand if you can match the two questions; if the pointer changes to a crossed circle, you cannot match the two questions.
- Alternatively, you can drag and drop the volume question to the appropriate question in the final state column.
- If you select this command but then change your mind, you can continue without re-matching the question by pressing ESC or clicking a non-compatible question (where the mouse pointer is a crossed circle).
- When you re-match a volume question, any related matchings are broken (see break this matching above). If the volume question was matched, then that matching is broken. If the campaign question to which you match the volume question is matched, then that matching is also broken to facilitate the new matching.
Create new campaign question: This command creates a new campaign question based on the selected question. It is available when you right-click a question the campaign column (i.e. a question already in the campaign). The new question has a green + icon next to it.
Remove campaign question: This command allows you to remove a question from the campaign. It is available when you right-click a question in the final state column (i.e. a question already in the campaign). A dialog appears asking you to confirm your choice; if you answer yes, the question will be removed from the campaign in this and future waves.
- The question is then shaded in gray, and a blue trash can icon appears in the match state column to indicate that it has been removed; it will not appear at all in later waves.
- If the question was matched to a volume question, the matching is automatically broken.
Re-order campaign responses: This command allows you to change the order of the responses in the campaign question to reflect the order in the source question it is matched to in the current wave.

The available commands when right-clicking a response are:

View response differences...: This command is available when you right-click a response that is shaded yellow; in other words, on a response that is imperfectly matched. The response differences dialog appears, which displays a list of differences between the campaign response and the volume response it is matched to. This dialog allows you to copy all or some of the volume response's values to the campaign response, or to create a new response in the campaign to match the one in the volume.
Break this matching: This command is available when you right-click a response that has been matched (either perfectly or imperfectly) between the volume and the campaign. The command is useful when you notice a matching between two responses that you do not want matched. The volume and campaign response immediately become unmatched, allowing you to match one or both of them to other responses if you so wish.
Re-match source response...: This command allows you to change the existing matching so that the selected volume response becomes matched with a different campaign response. It is available when you right-click a response in the source column (i.e. a response in the new wave).
- After you select this command, click a response in the final state column to which you want to match the volume response. As you hold the mouse pointer over a response, the pointer changes to a hand if you can match the two responses; if the pointer changes to a crossed circle, you cannot match the two responses.
- Alternatively, you can drag and drop the volume response to the appropriate response in the final state column.
- If you select this command but then change your mind, you can continue without re-matching the response by pressing esc or clicking a non-compatible response (where the mouse pointer is a crossed circle).
- When you re-match a volume response, any existing matchings are broken (see break this matching above). If the volume response was matched, then that matching is broken. If the campaign response to which you match the volume response is matched, then that matching is also broken to facilitate the new matching.
Create new campaign response: This command creates a new campaign response based on the selected response. It is available when you right-click a response the campaign column (i.e. a response already in the campaign). The new response has a green + icon next to it.
Remove campaign response: This command allows you to remove a response from the campaign. It is available when you right-click a response in the final state column (i.e. a response already in the campaign). A dialog appears asking you to confirm your choice; if you answer yes, the response will be removed from the campaign in this and future waves.
- The response is then shaded in gray and a blue trash can icon appears in the match state column to indicate that it has been removed; it will not appear at all in later waves.
- If the response was matched to a volume response, the matching is automatically broken.
Merge campaign response...: This command allows you to incorporate the data from a response into another response in the same question. For example, if a brand has been dropped from the market, and therefore from the survey, you may want to incorporate the data from the dropped brand into its replacement.
- The command is available when you right-click any matched campaign response.
- To use this command, right-click the response that you want to drop and merge into another response. Select merge campaign response; the mouse pointer turns into a hand icon. Finally, click the response into which you want to merge the dropped response.
- You are asked to confirm your choice before the command is applied. The merged response is shaded gray and the merge icon appears in the match state column.
- Note: Any existing matching involving the merged response is automatically broken when you use this command.

You can also right-click on the column or row headers in the question and response lists. When you do this, the available commands are:

View question codes: If selected, question codes will be displayed in the question list.
View shortcuts: If selected, shortcuts will be displayed in the question list.
View short-captions: If selected, short captions will be displayed in the question list.
View long-captions: If selected, long captions will be displayed in the question list.
View response codes: If selected, response codes will be displayed in the response list.
View entry codes: If selected, entry codes will be displayed in the response list.
View volumes: If selected, source volumes will be displayed in the question or response list (depending on which list you right-clicked).

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