Adding Data Sources (360)

About Adding Data Sources

Data sources are filters in the subject report that allow you to break out the data into different groups. They can be found at the top of the page when you navigate to the Edit Subject Report section of the Reports tab.

Since different groups of evaluators may have different views of the subject, it can be useful to organize the results in ways that make those distinctions apparent. For example, you might want to have separate tables displaying the subject’s feedback from their manager, and another graph that combines all colleagues’ assessments of the subject in one place. This is done by creating and filtering data sources. Once you’ve created your data sources, you add them to your visualizations so they know what data to display.

Reading Data Sources

To expand a data source, click the plus sign ( + ) next to the name of the data source. To collapse a data source, click the minus sign (– ).

In the example above, Assessment Rater Categories is the name of a data source group under which 5 more data sources are nested. A group is not a data source itself, but a way for you to organize your data sources for easier understanding.

You can find out which 360 project a data source gets it data from by clicking the wrench icon, hovering over Choose Survey, and seeing which survey is checked off at the top.

When you expand the data source called Others, you see that a filter has been applied. The Evaluation Scope is for Subject’s Evaluations, meaning only assessments of John Doe can be used, AND the Relationship is filtered to be everyone who is not John Doe.

That means the data source Others contains all evaluations of John Doe, excluding his self-evaluation.

When you look to the far right of the Others data source, you see the number 5. This means there are 5 participants who meet the data source’s qualifications. As such, a data source that contains only the subject’s own self-assessment (Self) should only ever be 1.

Creating a Data Source

1. Navigate to the Edit Subject Report section of the Reports tab.
   
2. Click the wrench on any data source.
3. Select Add a New Data Source.
   Qtip: Not seeing the data source you just created? New data sources pop up at the bottom of your list of data sources, so keep scrolling.
4. Click Choose a Data Source Type.
   
5. Select Assessments.
6. Choose the 360 project you want to act as the main source. The 360 project you’re inside will show up at the top of the list under Recent Projects.
7. If you want your data source to pool all the assessments’ data (including data not pertaining to the chosen subject), you can stop here. However, if you want to narrow down the data source, you can click Add Filter Criteria.
   

Filters and Conditions

360 reports have a variety of filters built in so that you can easily target different sets of responses. You can filter by personal attributes  like metadata, relationships, scores, and evaluator type.

Filter Criteria

• Filter by Evaluation Scope: Evaluation Scope limits what evaluations the data source includes.
  • Subject’s Evaluations: Almost all data sources for a subject report are generally set to this Evaluation Scope, because this means the data displayed on the report is only for the selected subject.
  • Other Evaluations (Excluding Subject’s): This Evaluation Scope limits the data source to assessments of everyone but the subject. This filter can be useful if you want the subjects to see how they compared to the rest of the participants.
• Filter by Relationship: Filtering by relationship allows you to filter evaluations coming from a specific relationship to the subject.
  Qtip: This setting should almost always be paired with an Evaluation Scope set to Subject’s Evaluations. For example, in the screenshot below, we are only showing the managers of John Doe.
  
• Filter by Person Metadata: Filtering by metadata allows you to very narrowly define data sources by sorting by data you have defined for each subject. Metadata is any information you want to associate with an individual, such as division, location, employee ID. Select either the Subject or Evaluator’s metadata to filter by, the name of the metadata field you want to filter by, and whether the value is the same as the subject’s or a specific value.
  
• Filter by Top Percent: Filter by top percent to display responses of participants who performed particularly well in various scoring categories.
• Filter by Unsolicited Evaluations: Use this filter to sort unsolicited or solicited evaluators. Typically this tool is used to sort out feedback that is either extremely negative or positive, as unsolicited feedback tends to be lean one way or another. See Participant Options for more information on how to turn unsolicited evaluators on and off.
• Filter by Question Data: This criteria allows you to filter responses based on how participants answered a question. For example, if your company has multiple offices, and the survey asked participants to specify which one they worked at, you could make a separate data source for each office.
• Filter by Date: Filter by when a participant started or finished their survey.
• Filter by Scoring: Filter by the scores the participants received in a certain category.
• Filter by Embedded Data: Use this filter to narrow down a data source by Embedded Data.
  Example: You want one participant’s data to display on everyone’s reports. Use Embedded Data field “Email” and set it equal to the participant’s email address (not their login). See below.
  

Conditions

When building a filter, you also build the conditions under which it’s true. Combine your conditions using AND or OR to indicate how conditions are connected.

AND statements are always read first.

However, there may be times when you need to build a more complex set of conditions. Logic Sets allow you to define multiple groupings of logic statements.

To add a new Logic Set, hold Shift and click the plus sign ( + ) to the right of the condition. Now you can choose whether the statement is an AND or an OR statement. You can also click the AND and select Move to a new Logic Set.

Adding a Data Source to a Visualization

The reason you build data sources is so your graphs and tables know what data to pull in.

When you add a graph or table to a blank page, you will be asked what graph/table type you want to use. Then you will be asked to add a data source to your visualization.

For an existing graph or table, right click on the visualization, or click on the Data Source button in the toolbar.

Once your data source is set, click Select Item to determine the question, Embedded Data, or scoring category to bring into the visualization. Finally, select the choice or choices you wish to display.

You can add additional data sources to your visualization. For example, the graph below had the Self, Others, Peers, Managers, and Colleagues data sources loaded into it at the same time. This is helpful for comparing data.

Additional Data Source Settings

When you click the wrench icon on a data source, you get the following additional settings.

Edit Time Series

Time Series allow you to break out data sources by dates. For example, the graph above displays the daily mean Leadership score for two different days.

1. Date Source: Base your time series off of when participants completed the survey.
2. Time Zone: If you leave this blank, dates will be calculated based off the timezone in your account settings. You can specify a timezone if it should be different.
3. Sample Date Range: Choose the timeframe of the time series.
4. Sample Interval: Decide what unit of time to break out your data within the defined date range. For example, if you choose a date range of one week and an interval of one day, that’s seven intervals, because there are seven days in a week.
5. Reversed: Select this option if you want the data to appear in reverse chronological order on your graphs and tables.
6. Use Custom Descriptions: When selected, you can named each time interval. When deselected, the intervals are named by date and/or time.

Navigate back to Edit Time Series and select Remove to remove it.

Edit Drill Down

Drill downs allow you to break out your data by categorical information, such as office location or responses to a multiple choice question.

You can drill down using survey questions or Embedded Data.

Variable Weights

First, choose a Weight Type.

• Weight: Let’s say you have a group of really important participants whose ratings you want to count for more. You want every important participant’s response to count as 2 responses. In this case, you would choose Weight and set that important group to 200%.
• Target Percent: Target Percent works more similarly to weighting on the rest of the Qualtrics platform, where you enter the desired percentage into the field. For example, if half your company is made up of employees from your Seattle office, but only 30% of responses are from the Seattle office, using the data you collected won’t reflect the targeted demographic. Percentages must not exceed 100.
• Target Count: This works exactly the same as the Weight version, except instead of percentages, you use exact counts.

Now, you can begin building conditions. Build based off of responses to questions or Embedded Data.

• And if: Join two or more conditions together as an “and” statement. For example, 14% of the responses have to be from Engineers in the Seattle office, so you combine the Embedded Data for Office AND the Embedded Data for Job Title.
  
• Or if: Join two or more conditions together as an “or” statement. For example, 33% of respondents should be either Executives or have worked with the company for more than 5 years.
  
• Weight: Select this to isolate a condition as its own weight.
  
  

To separate conditions or build more complex logic sets, you can also click Add a Variable Weight Logic Set. This will create separate sets of conditions joined by an “and” statement.

Edit Custom Stop Words

Text Analysis tables measure the usage of each word in a Text Entry question. But when you ask an open-ended question, there are bound to be filler words sprinkled throughout the responses. Words like “a,” “the,” and “really” don’t communicate much helpful information, and in fact waste space that could be devoted to more meaningful terms.

Type stop words into the field and separate each by a comma. Click Save when you’re done.

Choose Survey

Choose the 360 project that serves as the source of the data source. This is usually the project you are inside of, but it can be different if you desire. For example, if you want to compare two year’s worth of data, you can change one of your data sources to include the 2017 project’s data and another to display the 2018 project’s data.

Choose Source

Instead of using survey results, you can specify Predefined Data using JSON, or link to a Web Service.

Set Data Source Group

Data source groups allow you to organize your data sources. This can be useful if you’re setting up multiple data sources for each 360 project you include. The groups allow you to nest data sources so you can keep track of related data sources.

Click  New Group, type a group name, then press Enter on your keyboard to create the group.

Click a group name to assign that data source to that group.

Select None to remove a data source from a group.

Collapsed

Click this option to expand or collapse a data source. There will be a check mark next to the word Collapsed if the data source is collapsed.

Rename Data Source

Click this option to rename your data source. This name is what will appear when the data source is added to graphs and tables.

Remove Data Source

Delete the data source permanently. You will not be able to retrieve the data source if you do this!

A popup window will ask if you want to delete the visualizations you added this data source to. If you would like to, select Delete the items and pages that are no longer in use and then click Remove Data Source.

Duplicate Data Source

Create a copy of the data source. This is extremely useful if you are building similar but complicated data sources.

Add a New Data Source

Create a new data source. This option can also be found when you click the wrench next to a data source group.

Expand Group

This option only appears when you click the wrench next to a data source group. Click this option to expand the data source group and all data sources underneath it.

Predefined Data

Predefined Data allows you to upload Benchmark data using JSON.

Implementing predefined data

1. Click the tool icon. 
   
2. Click Choose Source.
3. Click Predefined Data.
4. Modify the code to contain your benchmark data. 
   
5. Click Save.

Questions and Values

The part of the code pictured above is a question in your survey.

1. Get the question number from the survey editor. Look at the upper-left of the question.
2. The values on the left are not the recode values, but the internal ID, in order, of each choice. For example, your first choice is always 0.
3. The values on the right are the predefined data you are setting. Enter a number that corresponds to how many times an answer was given. For example, if your benchmark is an old data set where 10 people selected the first answer, 0 should have a 10 next to it.
4. If you are providing predefined data for a Matrix Table, this number is the corresponding row number.

Scoring IDs

Pictured above is a scoring category ID. For help understanding which scoring ID corresponds to which category, check out the Finding Qualtrics IDs support page. Generally, these categories are listed in order that your categories are listed on the scoring page.

Excluded Question Types

Certain questions, such as Text Entry and Descriptive Text, predefined data cannot be set. The Edit Predefined Data window will always notify you that predefined data can’t be set, by adding a “Predefined Data can’t be set for _” message on the question.

Additional Notes

You do not need to include items you don’t want to create predefined for. This includes entire questions or fields within the scoring category. For example, you want to include a Variance for a Scoring Category, but not a Percentile, just exclude the percentile line.

FAQs