Unlike more basic types of data collection, hierarchical data collection requires you to gather data at at least two different levels - for example, if you were collecting information about both a pond and the animals within it. (For an example of this type of data structure, check out the article on Hierarchical Projects) Fortunately, the procedure for collecting hierarchical data with Dharma isn’t too different from other types. In this article, we’ll look at the project we set up in the earlier Hierarchical Data Collection article to get a better idea of how data can be collected for projects like these.
Beginning at the Project Home, which is displayed on the mobile platform immediately after logging in, let's click on Household Survey to begin data collection!
Within the project, we will be brought to the household level view. (In this project, we’ve identified “Household” as the top level of our data hierarchy.) Select New Household Survey to begin a new survey.
We'll then be brought to the categories view of the new household survey. To open the category and start the form, we can click on Household Information.
Answer the question and press Continue.
After completing all the forms, we can press Done.
Doing this creates a top-level record - that is, data about one thing (the household) that we can associate with other lower-level records (the individuals who live in that household). When we click “Done,” we’ll see a screen with the main record at the top and the option to add second-level records - in this case, for each individual who lives in the house - at the bottom. We’ll also see the main record at the top, with a pencil icon - tapping on that allows you to edit the top-level record. (Of course, if you’ve selected “Complete,” the form will be locked. So if you think you might need to edit the top-level form in the future, select “Done.”)
To add a new lower-level record, we’ll tap on New Individuals.
When you do that, you’ll see another question screen, just like the last one. For this one, we’ll select the first category, Individual Demographic Info.
When we’re done filling in the questions, we’ll press Continue.
Then we’ll click Done at the bottom right corner to finish the form.
We've now completed one individual form within the first household form we completed! To repeat the process for more individuals that live within the same household, we’ll select New Individuals.
Now we have filled out two individuals within one household form. We can continue if there are more individuals, or move onto filling out a different household form.
Remember that at any time, you can go back and look up previously entered forms.
First start at the projects menu, and click into your hierarchical Household Survey project.
After you've clicked into a hierarchical form, we'll see the first level form view. In this case, it was households. In this window you can either select New Household Survey to record a new household or go within an already enrolled household to take individual forms.
If you click into a first-level record (here, a Household), you'll see the second level forms (here, Individuals) that have already been entered and are nested within that record. On this page, we can press New Individual to record more individuals or click on already collected individual form to edit.
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