Interviewer Commands
Break
Put interviewers in “break” mode after the current interview is completed. If the interviewer is at the in-between interview prompt, they will go to Break mode immediately. This puts “Interviewer on Break” on the interviewer screen, “On Break” on the supervisor screen, and sends a log record to record the time interviewers went on break. Times can be be displayed using the log reports.
Syntax:
BREAK <ids|#ldevs|ALL/EVERYONE <studyname>>
Example:
BREAK EVERYONE Mystudy Everyone on study Mystudy will be prompted to go on break after they complete their current interview across all supervisors. BREAK ALL Mystudy Only interviewers under your control will be prompted to go on break for that study.
Change_Interviewers/CHI
Change interviewer(s) to a new study. This has the functionality of the combination of the STP (stop an interviewer on the current study at the end of the current interview) followed by a new STS (start an interviewer).
If you use CHI on an inactive interviewer, it acts like STS to start them.
Syntax:
CHI <ids|#ldevs> <study>
You have the same options for <ids|#ldevs> and <study> as you do on the STS command.
The Supervisor can also use CHI to change interviewers to a new version of a questionnaire. They would specify the name of the new QFF file to start, but the file has the same internal study code as the existing study; this allows you to switch interviewers to a new version of the questionnaire while the old version is still active.
In addition, you can control whether interviewers are running with or without “special interviewer type” mode when using the “CHI” command to change them to a new study.
Syntax:
CHI <ids|#ldevs> <study> <S=# or S=none>
“Interviewer list” can be a list of name or range of numbers, “studyname” can be any 3 to 30 character study name. “S=#” can be ”-1” or “none” to turn off special type, or as many of the numbers 1-9 as special types assigned.
Adding “Dialer” or ”-Dialer” are on/off switches, indicating whether or not a dialer is being used, and “Practice” or ”-Practice” are on/off switches indicating whether you are or are not in practice mode.
The “CHI” command defaults to “LIVE” mode in all cases. If you want to change studies by saying “CHI” the program will put you in “Live” mode unless you say otherwise. Previously, if you were in “Practice” mode you stayed in practice mode when you said “CHI” unless you also entered ”PRACTICE”.
Display_Active_Interviewers/DAI
Lists station information about each interviewer known to this supervisor session.
Syntax: DAI
By default, the following information is provided:
ID LDEV# STUDY START TIME INST_ST Starts Complt CASEID Mode Status ALF 27 MELMAC 2:46 PM 14:36 3 1 0032 LIVE ACTIVE Date: 11/13/2015 Interviewer Listing total: 1 time: 11:16:59 AM ID ldev# Study Starttime Itime Starts Complt Case ID Mode Status *** 5 bank 11:16 AM (0:12 0 0 000000 Auth Starting *** 6 bank 11:16 AM (0:10 0 0 000000 Auth Starting *** 7 phone 11:16 AM (0:02 0 0 000000 Auth Starting *** 8 phone 11:16 AM (0:02 0 0 000000 Auth Starting Scroll Interviewers Below Above Survsupr MAIN MENU where:
ID – *** is the interviewer ID.
LDEV# – 5, 6, 7, 8, are the ports or station numbers
STUDY – bank and phone are the interviewer’s assigned questionnaire study names.
STARTTIME – 11:16 pm is the session start time.
ITIME – Time of last interview start.
STARTS – Number of interview starts this session
Complt – Number of cases completed this SURVSUPR session.
CASE ID – is the ID of the last case written to the data file by this interviewer. If the interviewer is in Training mode, TRAINING will show in this field
MODE – is one of the following:
- Auth – Authorized to start, but not started yet
- Live – Currently doing live interview
- Train – Live interview, but in training mode
STATUS ACTIVE is the station’s status.
Valid Statuses
| Status | Description |
| Back from Break | Interviewer has resumed interviewing after BREAK |
| Back from Lunch | Interviewer has resumed interviewing after LUNCH |
| Back from Meeting | Interviewer has resumed after MEETING |
| Before first interview | Authorized by SURVSUPR but not interviewing yet |
| Between | Interviewer is at the end of interview prompt |
| Blown | Interviewing has been stopped due to a blow case |
| Doing Interview | Interviewing |
| In Meeting | Supervisor or interviewer invoked MEETING command |
| Monitored | Interviewing and being monitored |
| On Break | Supervisor or Interviewer has used the BREAK command |
| Out to Lunch | Supervisor or Interviewer has used the LUNCH command |
| Quitting | Interviewer quit normally |
In addition, the first 20 characters of the last !SPECIAL,SEND_TEXT_LINE,SUPERVISOR_DISPLAY question seen in an active questionnaire will be shown in the last field. This allows you to track the interviewer’s progress within the questionnaire.
Syntax:
DAI <type> <studyname>
There is an optional parameter that you can add to get additional information. You add the type of interviewer you want listed and the study.
Types:
| Type | Description |
| ALIVE | Lists all active interviewing stations |
| ALL | Lists all interviewers on the system, even other supervisors’ |
| DEAD | Lists interviewers who have Quit or been killed |
| MINE | Lists all interviewers under this supervisor |
Specifying LP or LP! at the end of the DAI command will send a copy of the screen to the file indicated on a previous LPDEV command. The default DAI screen is updated every 15 seconds with new interviewer information.
If you use the ALIVE option, you’ll get the standard DAI screen with the additional information of End time, Mode, S, and Ltime.
End time – End of last interview, or end of session if Quit.
S Special interview type.
Ltime – Time since last interview start.
Mode Options
| Mode | Description |
| Active | Active station but not interviewing |
| Blown | Interviewing has been stopped due to a blow case |
| Dialwait | Waiting for EIS predictive dialer to return phone number |
| Ended | Interviewer is at end of interview prompt |
| ID wait | At “enter interviewer ID” prompt |
| Killed | Interviewer has been killed by SURVSUPR |
| Live | Doing live interview |
| No study | Not able to load study requested for that station |
| Quit | Interviewer quit normally |
| Started | Authorized by supervisor but not interviewing yet |
| Starting | SURVSUPR has acknowledged the existence of the station |
| Stopped | Interviewer has been stopped by supervisor |
There is a subset of options to the DAI command when displaying station information, as well.
Examples:
DAI SUPER 88 - Displays all interviewers owned by supervisor 88 DAI 1-20 - Display interviewers at stations 1 – 20 DAI 1 - Display the interviewer at station 1
Optionally you can ask for stats to display more information on a particular interviewer.
Syntax:
DAI STATS <intv ID>
NOTE: The “Dashboard” parameter must be set in the study header of any study you want to get interviewer statistics on. Note that this requires additional overhead for the Survox® server.
This shows you the following:
Interviewer statistics: abcd TOTAL SHIFT TOTAL <Last hour> Total abcd Total abcd Total abcd Completes/total hours Completes/active hours Dialings/total hours Hit rate (Completes/resolved) % dialings ==> Completes COMPLETES RESOLVED DIALINGS SUSPENDS CALLBACKS TOTAL HOURS ACTIVE HOURS
NOTE: The shift totals are reset to zero by using the END_SHIFT command.
DAI_Web_Cati/DAIWC
Displays active interviewers in WebCATI.
Syntax:
DAIWC - This will show the stations for a particular study. OUTPUT: LDEV Study PID last qffname 10004: rvsurvey 20087 10:54:52 rvsurvey.qff
Where “LDEV” is the Survox assigned device number, “Study” is the study name, “PID” is the survent process ID for that session, “last” is the last time the session contacted the server, and “qffname” is the questionnaire file name.
DAI_Web_Survent/DAIWS
Displays active interviewers in Websurvent.
Syntax:
DAIWS - This will show the stations for a particular study. Output: LDEV Study password PID last qffname 10004: rvsurvey NOMCBI 20087 10:54:52 rvsurvey.qff
Where “LDEV” is the Survox assigned device number, “Study” is the study name, “password” is the password on that sample record, “PID” is the survent process ID for that session, “last” is the last time the session contacted the server, and “qffname” is the questionnaire file name. If there are no webSurvent sessions, it will say so.
End_Shift
Reset interviewer stats to 0 for DAI stats. This marks the end of shift for DAI STATS screens “SHIFT TOTALS” and resets them to 0.
Force_Into_Break
Forces interviewers into “break” mode after # of seconds. This causes the interviewer to be forced into “break” mode if they have not started a new interview before # seconds. If the number is positive, a message will be sent to the supervisor; if the number is negative, no message will be sent. Adding “,LOG” after the number of seconds will cause it to be logged in the Server log (LL) file.
This command is used so that reports reflect the proper time and the interviewers don’t appear as active on the supervisor’s interviewer activity screens.
Syntax:
FORCE_INTO_BREAK <seconds>
Example:
FORCE_INTO_BREAK 10
FORCE_INTO_BREAK 10,LOG
Force_Into_Interview
Forces interviewers into new interview after # seconds. This causes interviewers at the “Return or Q to Quit” prompt into the first screen of the interview after # seconds.
If an interviewer is started by a supervisor after FORCE_INTO_INTERVIEW=60 is specified, they will be placed on the first question of the interview after 60 seconds if they have not pressed the Enter key to start before then.
Syntax:
FORCE_INTO_INTERVIEW=-## LOG
The default is 0, which means the interviewer may stay at the Return to quit prompt for as long as the maximum value of 180. If you add “,LOG” after the number of seconds, it will be logged in the Server log (LL) file. This command would most likely be place in the SUPRINIT file so it will be set every time a supervisor logs on.
The two most useful aspects of this feature are:
- Interviewers cannot stay at the Return to Quit prompt for excessive amounts of time. If you have a dialer, the interviewer will made available for calls as soon as this goes into affect.
- It facilitates time logging, in that you can set a timer in the interview to record the amount of time before a phone number is actually called or an interview starts.
As for the supervisor option, a ”-” before the number means to not tell the supervisor every time this happens.
You can also say “FORCE_INTO_INTERVIEW=-5:LOG and it will log the information to the server log file when it forces interviewers into interviews. This applies to “FORCE_OUT_OF_SESSION=#”and “FORCE_INTO_BREAK” also.
Force_Out_Of_Session
Forces interviewers out of session after # seconds. This causes the interviewer to be forced out of their interviewing session if they have not started a new interview before # seconds. If the number is positive, a message will be sent to the supervisor; if the number is negative, no message will be sent. Adding “,LOG” after the number of seconds will cause it to be logged in the Server log (LL) file.
Syntax:
FORCE_OUT_OF_SESSION=##
For webCATI, this option will force someone out of an interview if on a question for more than a # of minutes. This is useful if you want the questionnaire to end if the interviewer goes away for a long period of time. This value must be less than the “suspend_timeout” time specified in order for it to work.
This command is used to log inactive interviewers off so that reports reflect the proper time and the interviewers don’t appear on the supervisor’s interviewer activity screens.
Gather
Connect unsupervised interviewers to this supervisor. This is useful to attach unattached interviewers to this supervisor. One example is if the supervisor program has crashed for some reason and you need to reattach the interviewers that were running under the supervisor so you can start and stop them, see them in the info screens, etc.
Syntax:
GATHER <#ldev or Interviewer Ids>
Lunch
Put interviewers in “lunch” mode after the current interview is completed. If the interviewer is at the in-between interview prompt, they will go to Lunch mode immediately. This will put the message “Interviewer at Lunch” on the interviewer screen, “Out to Lunch” on the Supervisor DAI screen, and sends a log record to record the time interviewers went to lunch. Times can be displayed using the log reports.
Syntax:
LUNCH <ids|#ldevs|ALL/EVERYONE study>
If you specify “LUNCH EVERYONE <STUDY CODE>” then everyone running in the specified study code under the Survox® study server will be notified to go to lunch. If you say “LUNCH ALL <STUDY CODE>” all interviewers started by you will be notified, but not other supervisors’ interviewers.
Practice_Mode
Disallows users from aborting, or using “goto” if they are in practice mode. This keyword allows -GOTO, -ABORT and -LLRECS to control what happens when practice mode interviewers are being used. It also controls whether or not to make log records for the practice mode interviews.
Tell
This allows the supervisor to send messages to station(s). The message will appear at the bottom of the interviewer’s screen when the next Enter or ESC is pressed, or at the next screen update if the interviewer is between surveys. The message can be up to 77 characters. It will disappear from the screen when a subsequent Enter or Esc is pressed at the interviewer’s machine.
Syntax:
TELL <#station or interviewer id or ALL/EVERYONE/studyname> <message>
Example:
TELL #15 NEW YORK quota has been changed to 200.
This would cause the following to appear on station 15’s screen:
From Supervisor: NEW YORK quota has been changed to 200.
ALL is all interviewers on a particular study under this supervisor. You must specify a study name when using ALL. EVERYONE indicates all interviewers under all supervisors. You must specify a study name when using EVERYONE.
Example:
TELL EVERYONE BANK Shift is over. Go home!
To display a message at the end of the current interview, not during the interview, put an “E ” before the message.
Example:
TELL EVERYONE BANK E Good job!