The September spring clean

It’s been a long time in the making, but we expect that our recent enhancement that allows you to customise your participant collection data fields was worth the wait.

The new enhancement allows you to do three things:

1. You can remove any of the default data fields that you don't require with the simple un-tick of a box.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Figure 1: Default data fields
   
   In Figure 1, I've created a new project and have un-ticked the data fields I don't require. If you make a mistake here you can always add or remove a field once you have created your project.
   Figure 1: Default data fields
   
   
2. You can add data fields which you require, and 3. Choose how the data is collected.
   
   In my example research project, I want to collect the participant’s blood type (Figure 2.). I fill in the usual data, data field name, description of the field.  Then under Type, I have a few options:
   
   
   • Text - you can add whatever text you like, text, numbers, symbols, etc. Use this for interviews, collecting large amounts of data or text that doesn't require any specific formatting.
   • Number - great for phone numbers, weight, distance, ID numbers, etc. Anything that uses numbers only.
   • Boolean - use this if you have a A or B option, e.g. Male/ Female, Yes/No, etc.
   • Date - this option allows you to choose your date from a calendar or you can enter it in this format, dd/mm/yyyy.
   • Email - it will validate the format of an email. Is there an @? does it have the right amount of .'s?  

I choose text. Then I can choose either a dropdown list or free entry. Dropdown lists are great if you have a limited number of options to choose from and there's no chance that there will be unexpected data, free entry is an option the answers can be abstract or ambiguous. I choose the dropdown list because there's a finite list of blood types (plus I won’t have to format the data if people enter A+ or A positive).
 
Figure 2. Creating a new data field.

For those who have already built their projects in Quadrant, you also have the option of removing unnecessary fields. On the left hand side menu, under Project Admin, click on Edit Project. From this page you can delete a data field by ticking the box on the far-right side. You can also add new fields at the bottom of the same page.

By customising the fields in Quadrant, not only can you focus solely on the data you want to collect, you also eliminate surplus data giving you a tidier and less congested workspace and data consistency across your project as demonstrated in Figure 3.


Figure 3. My less congested workspace.