Easy Continuous Tracking
Tracking jobs are more complex than typical ad hoc research jobs in several ways:
- as more data is collected, the number of coded categories increases
- periodically, variables are retired, inserted, renewed or replaced
- field suppliers also change and new systems and methods need to be handled
- the processing and reporting chain requires regular maintenance in response these changes
This degree of change introduces complexity which drives up errors and costs to the point that most agencies avoid doing CT projects.
Ruby has been designed from the ground up to tackle all of the issues that previously made CT jobs unattractive and unprofitable. Now you can easily, reliably and profitably provide your clients with the tracking studies they need, with features like:
Processing
- Process incrementally, partial updates
- Recognizes out-of-field periods
- Auto-update reports for new data
- Wide range of imports - import different formats to the same job
- Aliasing of variable names for consistency
- Seamlessly accommodate adding/removing/reordering codes, adding/removing/reordering variables, relabeling codes/variables, recalculating derived variables, auto-ordering by dependencies, self-maintaining constructions and auditing of new codes, variables.
- Data and variable volumes are infinitely scaleable (within machine and OS limits) – easily handles millions of cases with processing speeds of hundreds of thousands of cases per second
- Update weekly to catch errors immediately, allow instant access to the entire data chain so that the inevitable errors can be quickly diagnosed so you can roll back, re-import and reprocess
- Is fully calendar-aware, handling missing dates, holidays, etc
- Allows showing or hiding of out-of-field periods
- Different smoothing algorithms to cover irregular or seasonal gaps
- Supports analysis by any period cycle - week, bi-weekly, month, quarter, year, 5 month cycles, irregular, etc
- Supports integrated and transparent access to both survey and external data
- Handles external data differently (e.g. flag to exclude from smoothing commands)
- Shows external data on reports during survey out-of-field
- Inserts normative reference constants to any table or chart
- Call out annotation system with general document management for access to multi-media, presentations, background information, etc
- Basic time series and statistics functionality
- Be fully interactive throughout and in all respects
- Retain instant access to all back data for historical analysis
- Supports any mix of Boolean, arithmetical or matrix operations across interrelated variables and reports, with seamless reprocessing for different filter or weighting conditions
- Scalable GUI to limit visibility of complex functions
- Any arrangement of codes, statistics and expressions on top/side from any number of variables
- Independently filter, weight, percentage, base, scale, smooth, or otherwise manipulate any row or column or plotted series
- Wide variety of chart types
- On-screen interactive editing, zoom, etc
- Smooth, shift, suppress, scale at will
- Complete cosmetic control
- Dynamic text for titles, filter, weight, roll etc
- Automate using batch-processing facilities