Telephone File (T-file)

NIPO ODIN Version 5.17

Telephone File (T-file)

The Sample file (telephone file or T-file) is the file containing telephone numbers and addresses of the (targeted) respondents for NIPO CATI.

The following rules apply to telephone files:
Each respondent is stored in a separate record.
The record length of all records should be the same (no empty lines)
The minimum record length is 135 positions.
Prior to use, positions 18-19 and 20-21 must be set to a value (0000 for a regular available record).
T-files do not support Unicode.

Record description of the telephone file

Position	length	Description
1‑17	17	Telephone number (area code and subscribers number)
18-19	2	Response code. See Overview Of Response Codes for details.
20-21	2	Number of contacts
22-23	2	Response code of last contact
24-35	12	Date and time of last contact
36-43	8	Interviewer number of last contact
44-45	2	Response code of last but one contact
46-47	2	Response code of second last contact
48-49	2	Response code of third last contact
50-51	2	Response code of fourth last contact
52‑59	8	Interview number
60‑71	12	Appointed time or redial time in the format `YYYYMMDDhhmm`
72‑101	30	Name of appointed respondent
102	1	Indication to show second telephone number (1 = show second telephone number 2 = use second telephone number by default)
103-119	17	Second telephone number (area code and subscribers number)
120-127	8	Time interval for contacting respondent
128-133	6	Reserved for future use
134	1	Indicates whether the 2^nd telephone number was dialed instead of the first 1= second number was used
135	1	Number of address-fields to be shown on screen (1 = show first field only, 2 = show first and second field, etc.)
136‑180	45	First address-field (for example name)
181-215	35	Second address-field (for example street and number)
216-250	35	Third address-field (for example zip code and residence)
251-285	35	Fourth address-field (for example department, country)
286-...		Available for other data

For Omnibus surveys, the file format is somewhat different starting from position 251:

Record description of the telephone file in case of Omnibus

Position	length	Description
251-490	240	Stratification data for each sub-survey in a CATI-omnibus (20 positions per sub-survey, maximum 12 sub-surveys)
251-257	7	Name of first sub-survey
258	1	Contains a 1 if first sub-survey is successful
259-270	12	Free for stratification first sub-survey
271-500		Same for 2nd, 3rd et cetera sub-surveys
501-…		Available for other data

If required, interview numbers may be created in advance. These numbers will be used as interview number in all data files belonging to the survey. Make sure the numbers are unique values. If an interview number is not unique it is skipped. Interview numbers need to consists of 8 digits (leading zeros are required).