Value formats

Specify value labels and sort order

Updated at June 17th, 2022

Survey engines usually represent data internally in a cryptic format for computers, and have additional "meta data" that describes how to present the data for people.

For instance, a survey may have a question q1 which is presented to English-speaking respondents as "Generally, how would you say things are in your life?". 

Similarly the response values are represented in data as integers (e.g. 1, 2, ...) but displayed to the user as "Very happy", "Pretty happy", etc.

Format toolbar button

You can toggle the format button in the toolbar to see the underlying values in every question.

Format dialog

To see and refine the mapping for specific questions, press the element icon (blue circle) and choose "Format...". This will bring up the following dialog:

  • Value corresponds to the raw  value in the data file
  • Format is the string for display
  • Mean is an alternative value to be used for calculating summary statistics
    • See practical use cases in this tutorial
  • Sort as is an alternative value to be used for sorting
  • Sort last indicates the value should be sorted at the end, regardless
  • Hide indicates the value should not be shown in the distribution
  • Remove deletes the row from this dialog

Was this article helpful?