Managing Variables

Moving Variables

You can move variables within the Template:

1. In the upper panel, select the variable(s) you want to move.
2. Click Move Up to move the selected variable(s) one position up, or click Move Down to move the selected variable(s) one position down.

The selected variables will be moved within the list of variables.

You can also move a variable to a specific place in the template:

3. In the upper panel, select the variable(s) you want to move - .



Figure 1 - Selecting the variables before moving

4. Click Move To... .

The Move Variables dialog opens - .



Figure 2 - Specifying the new position

5. Specify the desired position in the Move To... field as a positive integer and click Move , or click To start or To end as appropriate.

The selected variable is moved within the list of variables to the specified location. In the event several variables are selected to be moved, the top-most variable selected is moved to the specified position whilst the others are placed consecutively below the first - .



Figure 3 - The variables list after moving the variables

6. Click Save.

Note: As the ID property indicates the position of a variable within the template and the variable list, moving variables also changes the ID of the variables being moved. However the range values of the variables do not change (go to Variable Properties for more information). To change the range values of variables with respect to their ID and position within the template, use the Reallocate feature.

Duplicating Variables

This Duplicate functionality can be used to manually add new variables to a template by duplicating existing variables and amending the variable id to match the new variable to be added. Note that the Duplicate functionality was introduced prior to the ‘Update From Project’ functionality (go to Updating the Template from Project for more information), which now makes this Duplicate functionality obsolete as it is easier for the user to use Update From Project when adding new variables to a template rather than manually duplicating existing variables.

1. In the upper panel of the Template Editor, select from the list the variables you wish to duplicate.
2. Click Duplicate.

New copies of the duplicated variables are added to the template's list of variables - .

3. Click Save.

All values of the duplicate variables except the IDs and names are identical to those of the variables from which the duplicate variables are derived. The name of the duplicate variable consists of the name of the variable from which it is derived, and suffix '_Clone_x' where 'x' is the serial number of the duplicated variable. Duplicated variables are automatically assigned IDs.

Note: The ID property indicates the position of the variable within the Triple-S Template and the variable list. Although the ID is assigned automatically, the range values of the duplicated variables are the same as the range values of the variables from which the duplicate variables are derived. This will cause range overlap problems. To change the range values of variables in respect to their ID and location within the Template, use the Reallocate feature.

Figure 4 - Example of duplicated variables after reallocation

Deleting Variables

You can remove a variable from the template by moving it from the Selected Variables column (right side) to the Available Variables column (left side). Note that if you wish to delete a variable entirely from the template, this can only be done from the Available Variables column.

1. If the variable you wish to delete is currently in the Selected Variables (right) column, select the variable and click the < button to move it to the Available Variables (left) column.
2. In the Available Variables column, select the variable(s) you want to delete.
3. Click Delete.

A confirmation dialog opens.

4. Click OK to confirm deletion of the variable(s) or click Cancel to cancel the operation.
5. Click Save.

Assigning New Range Values to a Variable

To assign new Range values (Start, Finish and Length - go to Variable Properties for more information) to a variable:

1. In the Template Editor's upper panel, click on the appropriate cell of the variable whose range value(s) you want to change.
2. In the input field of the cell, type the new value.
3. Click Save.

Reallocating Variables

The ranges occupied by different variables should not intersect each other (go to Variable Properties for more information). When you change a variable's range value such that its range overlaps the range of another variable, the variables' Errors cells display a brief error description and a recommended solution, and the entire row of variables is highlighted in red.

To automatically fix problems of this kind, the variable range value Fixing is used. This is performed when you click Reallocate, located towards the left end of the toolbar.

The Reallocate function changes the variables' range values such that range overlaps and insufficient range lengths are eliminated, and it also places variables in ascending order with respect to their range values.

The Fixing rule used to change the range values of a variable is defined by the value selected in the Fix by cell of the variable list (go to Variable Properties for more information).

Changing a Multi Variable

Multi variables can be changed in several ways; you can set the Spread, set the Bitstring, and Split them. To change a multi variable:

1. Click the Change Multi button in the Selected Variables area.

The Change Multi overlay appears - .



Figure 5 - The Change Multi overlay

2. Select the change you wish to perform.

Note that a multi variable cannot be split if it has the Use Spread property checked (go to Variable Properties for more information).

3. Click Change selected to change just the selected multi variable; click Change all to change all multi variables.

• Set Spread - select if you wish to be able to set a multi variable to the Spread format. In the Spread format the data is recorded as a series of sub-fields, each containing one category value of the multi variable. The data sub-field length is the minimum number of characters required to represent the largest category value in the Values block. Thus variables with category values up to 9 have a data sub-field one character long; variables with category values up to 99 have a data sub-field length of 2, etc. With this storage type it is possible to reduce the field size for multi variables, so it is recommended particularly for variables with long lists of category values (go to Spread for more information).
• Set Bitstring - select if you wish to be able to set a multi variable to the Bitstring format. In the Bitstring format the data is recorded with one character per category of the corresponding variable. A character "1" is used to signify that a category has been selected; a character "0" signifies that a category is not selected. The category value refers to the relative position of the 0/1 code in the data field. Therefore a category value of 9 will always refer to the code in the 9th location of the data field, even if some of the lower category values have not been defined. The data field length is defined by the highest category value. This means that with nine category values, nine fields in the data will be used. Using this storage type, Multi variables with long category lists will require a large data field length (go to Bitstring for more information).
• Split Multi - logical variables are generated from each category of the selected multi variable. For example, a multi question q5 with 3 categories (1, 2, 99) will result in 3 logical variables (q5_1, q5_2, q5_99). These generated logical variables can be positioned in the template by moving them or by allocating specific columns .