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Nfield update

4 March 2025

On Tuesday, 4 March 2025, we will release a new version of Nfield. This update includes a plan to delete stopped or inactive surveys, a new NIPO ODIN command, NIPO ODIN Developer, NIPO DSC for IBM SPSS, and some smaller improvements.

Deletion of stopped or inactive surveys

We want to inform you that we will soon begin deleting stopped surveys that have so far been exempted from the automatic cleanup feature. When we first introduced this feature, we allowed stopped surveys to be excluded from automatic deletion so that you could still download the data and any other necessary files or artefacts before manually deleting the surveys. However, we have noticed that most of these surveys remained to be inactive since, with no progress in data collection.

To keep the system organized and clean, we will include these stopped surveys in the automatic deletion process. We will configure a 'last stopped' date on each of these surveys that will trigger the survey deletion process to take place in 60 days. After that, the surveys will be deleted just like any other survey that is no longer active. If you still need the data or other artefacts from these surveys, please ensure that you back up now before the deletion occurs.

Before the 'last stopped' date is configured on any survey, we will notify the relevant Domain Administrators of the surveys in their domains that will be affected.

To understand this feature better, we suggest you watch the NIPO Academy #39 - Automatic clean-up feature session video.

For more information on this topic, you can also read the section "Automatic Deletion of Surveys" of the Nfield Online course.

Please remember that once a survey is deleted, it is deleted permanently, and its artefacts (scripts, data, quotas, media files etc.) cannot be restored.

Useful sources of Nfield information:
Nfield Status page
Self-learning
Academy videos
Useful tools
Software and documentation
Acceptable Use policy

Buffer command (*?) can now directly reference a question to retrieve answers

It is now possible to refer directly to an answer given to a question without having to store it into a text variable. You can do this by referencing the question inside the buffer like *?Qn

Example script:


      *VARS Answercode  
      *TEXTVARS Answerlabel 

      *QUESTION 1 *CODES 61L1  
      Do you want to use the buffer command to directly reference answers?  

      1:yes  
      2:also yes 

      *PUT Answercode Q1  
      *PUT Answerlabel Q1,Answercode 

      *PAGE  
      This is the answer given to Q1: *?Answerlabel 
      This is also the answer label given to Q1: *?Q1

As you can see, you no longer have to create variables and use *PUT commands to just get the answer to a question. Please note that for a *MULTI question, only the answer with the lowest code is displayed.

NIPO ODIN Developer version 5.18.032

The latest version of the NIPO ODIN Developer software is available for download from the NIPO website. This latest version has the following updates:

•		It allows you to refer directly to an answer given to a question, as mentioned in the above section.
•		It also supports the upcoming new *ID command. There is a NIPO Academy session (#58) planned on March 11 and 12. Please register if you would like to join.

NIPO DSC for IBM SPSS version 2.00.024

The new version of the NIPO DSC for IBM SPSS software is available for download from the NIPO website. This latest version includes the below update:

•

When the Nfield data is transformed into Dimensions metadata (mdd), and the original NIPO ODIN script had *IDs, these IDs are used to identify data items (questions) and answer categories in the generated mdd.

Your data is secure with Nfield: here's how

See what measures are taken to ensure both our team and our software solutions comply with the highest security standards.

Read more

As always, please share this information with all relevant people in your organization.

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