DESCRIPCIÓN GENERAL DE LA BARCAZA 1 Memoria Descriptiva de la Barcaza

Some usersfind the concept of checkingfiles in and out confusing, and often worry that they will lose their work either because someone else overwrites afile with a different version, or because they start working on the wrong version of afile without realizing it. The rules for checkingfiles in and out can vary between and within companies, depending on the number of people involved in a project’s development, so it is hard to givefixed rules about when to checkfiles in and out. This topic gives some recommendations on good practise regarding checkingfiles in and out, and provides an example that may help to clarify the situation further.

If you are worried about losing work, remember that all the time you have a project locked, very few of the projectfiles will be available to any user who does not have administrative privileges. However, do not fall into the trap of keeping a project locked indefinitely as this can be annoying and counterproductive too.

Overview

When you work on a project, you always work onfiles in your personal User folder. Activities such as Build, that create questionnaires, always look forfiles in your User folderfirst, and will open thosefiles if they exist. If an activity cannotfind thefiles it needs in your User folder, it looks for thosefiles in the Shared folder. If the activityfinds thefiles it wants in the Shared folder, it copies them into your User folder and opens them. If thefiles cannot be found in your User folder or in the Shared folder, the activity creates a newfile in your User folder and opens thatfile.

Certain options within activities createfiles in the Shared folder as well as in your User folder. For example, if you activate a questionnaire from within Build, the project’s.mddis checked in to the Shared area as part of the activation process. However, as long as you have the project locked, no one else can access thefiles in the Shared folder, so you can continue working on the project, knowing that nobody else has access to thefiles.

You can checkfiles in to and out of the Shared folder whenever you wish, simply by running Files. If you are the only person working on a project, it is not important when you checkfiles in because you will always have thefiles you need in your User folder. This is not the case when you are working on a project with other people. In that situation, it is important that you checkfiles in and out regularly and at the appropriate points in the project’s development cycle, as this ensures that each user has access to the latest versions of the project’sfiles.

Recommendations

The following recommendations should ensure that everyone working on a project has access to the latest versions of the projectfiles.

„ When you start work on an existing project, always run Files and look to see whether there are any projectfiles in the Shared folder. If so, check thesefiles out. This places copies of thosefiles in your User folder.

„ When you start work on a new project, check yourfiles in regularly. For example, if you are designing a new questionnaire using Build, you might want to check yourfiles in when you havefinished thefirst draft of the questionnaire.

„ If you havefinished working on the project for the time being and have checked all yourfiles in, unlock the project so that other users know that they can use thefiles.

„ It is possible to unlock a project without checking infiles, but this is bad practise as this is how newerfiles can be overwritten with out of date ones. If you unlock a project that already hasfiles in the Shared folder, and you are interrupted before you have time to check in your latestfiles, someone else may check out the oldfiles from the Shared folder. If you then check in yourfiles, they will be overwritten when the other person checks in their changes, and your changes will be lost. Get into the habit of checking infiles and then unlocking the project. If in doubt, do not unlock the project.

„ As soon as you run an activity on a project, the project is locked and other users will not be able to access thefiles. If you are ready to work on a project but cannot run an activity straight away, lock the project to prevent other users using thefiles.

Example

Here is an example that illustrates how an questionnaire designer, a translator, and a scriptwriter can all work on a project together.

„ The questionnaire designer creates the project and runs Build to build the basic questionnaire. It takes the designer two days to complete thefirst draft of the questionnaire. The project is automatically locked by questionnaire designer, so the translator and scriptwriter cannot access any of thefiles that Build creates. (In any case, until the questionnaire designer checks the files in manually or tests or activates the questionnaire, thefiles exist only in the User folder.)

„ The questionnaire designer tests the questionnaire, which automatically copiesfiles from the User folder into the Shared folder. However, because the project is still locked, no one else can access thesefiles.

„ The questionnaire designer continues the cycle of testing and modifying the questionnaire. Because no one else has yet worked on the project, and because Build always uses thefiles in the User folder if they exist, there is no need for the questionnaire designer to check in the files during this process.

„ At the end of the second day, the questionnaire designer hasfinished all she can do on the questionnaire and is ready to pass it to the scriptwriter for thefinal changes to be made prior to translation. She therefore uses Files to check all thefiles in her User folder into the Shared folder, and then unlocks the project. At this stage, thefiles in the Shared folder become available to the scriptwriter and the translator.

„ On the third day, the scriptwriter checks the projectfiles out from the Shared folder into her User folder. Because she will not be able to work on thefiles straight away she locks the project to ensure that no one else can check out the Sharedfiles and start working on them.

„ Later that day, the scriptwriter makes some additions to the questionnaire and runs somefinal tests. She does not check thefiles in after every change because she has the project locked and knows that no one else can access the Sharedfiles. When the scriptwriter is satisfied that the questionnaire isfinished, she checks all the projectfiles that are in her User folder into the Shared folder and unlocks the project. This makes thefiles in the Shared folder available to other users.

„ The translator checks out the.mddfile and locks the project, even though she cannot use IBM® SPSS® Translation Utility through IBM® SPSS® Data Collection Interviewer Server Administration. She then downloads thefile onto her computer and translates the texts. When she hasfinished, she uses Files to upload the translatedfile into her User folder and then checks it in to the Shared folder. Finally, she unlocks the project.

„ The scriptwriter checks all the projectfiles out into her User folder and runs somefinal tests to ensure that the script appears correctly in the various translations. She works on the project as soon as she has checked out thefiles, so she lets Interviewer Server Administration lock the project for her automatically.

„ The scriptwriter activates the project in Active mode, and the project becomes available for live interviewing. If the scriptwriter made any changes to the questionnaire, she checks the files back in before unlocking the project.

Some users (usually managers) have permission to unlock other people’s projects. If you have this permission, be very careful when you use it and what you do with the projectfiles after you have unlocked the project. For information about unlocking other people’sfiles, and an example that illustrates the possible pitfalls of careless unlocking, seeUnlocking Other Peoples’ Projects.