What are fields?
The answer to a question is stored in a field. Each field has a field-name that describes the information it stores. For example, every time a reporter answers the question ‘Where is the injury?’, the answers are stored in field-name ‘body part’.
Using fields
To find a field-name, select a report from the Reports tab, and the field-name is written in brackets next to the corresponding question.
A field-name is set when defining the characteristics of a question in App Design. A field-name can only be used once in a specific form.
In the web management system you use fields to:
- find all the reports with a specific answer when filtering forms in Reports
- analyse answers in the Dashboard
Fields allow you to do the following:
- filter and analyse data
- make changes to a question without disrupting the data
- combine the analyse of a question in different languages
- combine the analysis of a question across different forms
Changing a field name
If you change a field-name, any new data will be stored under the new name in a different place. The answers to the question will be split across 2 field-names and hence change the analysis. Note the date you changed the field-name, when interpreting your data. The following field-name changes do not impact on data analysis:
- capitalisation
- before data has been collected for that form (ie when first designing the form)