Help

1. Introduction to the CTD Editor
2. Introduction to This Interactive WWW Interface
3. The Navigation Frame (On the Left)
   1. Home
   2. Help
   3. Available Data Sets
   4. Data Dictionary
   5. The Data Tools
   6. My Data Views
4. The Record Editor/Viewer
5. The Table Browser
6. Frequency Reports
7. Crosstab Reports
8. Statistics
9. Regression
10. Summary Reports
11. Working With Data Views
    1. Managing Your Views
    2. Creating a New View
    3. Updating a View
    4. Deleting a View
    5. Using Data Tools With a View

I. Introduction to TRIM3 CTD Editor

This tool allows you to browse and edit CTD tables containing both the TRIM3 data dictionary and program rules.

II. Introduction to This Interactive WWW Interface

This interface was built using a set of reusable software objects developed at the Urban Institute to provide a standard interface for such tasks as survey data entry, data review and editing, and data analysis and reporting.

The interface uses only open-source software, with MySQL as the database, IIS as the Web server, and an interface written in PHP.

III. The Navigation Frame

The frame at the left is called the navigation frame. It is always visible when you are working with this application. You can select a data tool from the combo box at the top and then select a data set below.

III.a. Home

Clicking on Home takes you back to the introductory page, the first page that you saw when you entered the application.

III.b. Help

Clicking on Help displays the main help page, the document you are currently reading.

III.c. Available Data Sets

Below the TRIM3 Navigator link is a link called Data Definition. Click on this link to display a list of tables used to define the TRIM3 data dictionary. Below this are links to all of the simulated programs. Click on a program name to get a list of program rule tables for it. VariableList is under its own category, since it is used by multiple simulations. To work with a data set, select a data tool from the combo box, and then click on the data set's name.

III.d. Data Dictionary

Click on Data Dictionary to display a page of detailed information about the variables on any data set. You will then see a combo box listing available data sets. Select the one you want and click Go to see the data dictionary page for that data set.

III.e. The Data Tools

• The Record Editor allows you search for and edit single records.
• The Table Browser allows you view multiple records in table format.
• Frequencies generates frequency reports on any variable.
• Crosstabs generates crosstabulations on any pair of variables.
• Statistics shows various statistics for any variable, such as average, mean, median, percentiles, and standard deviation.
• Regression builds regression model for variables in the specified data set.
• Summary Reports summarizes any variable (count, average, etc.) by up to two other variables.

III.f. My Data Views

If you are a registered user, you can combine variables from multiple datasets into a single view. For more information see the section on Working with User-Defined Views

IV. The Record Editor/Viewer

To search for a record, enter your search criteria in the box at the top of the page (See details below) and click Find. A list of the organizations that match your criteria is displayed in a box below. To view one of these records, select it and click Go.

For your search criteria, you can define any combination of the following.

• HOUSEHOLDID: If you want data for a specific household, type in its ID.
• PERSONID: If you want data for a specific person, select the ID here.
• Filter: If you want to search by the values of variables other than those described above, you can define a custom filter. For example, to search for organizations whose value for TOTREV is greater than zero,
1. Select TOTREV from the first combo box to the right of the filter.
2. Select > from the second.
3. Type in 0 below.
4. Click on And.

Your search condition will be added to the filter box. You can add multiple search conditions. The And link will join them with logical ands, and the Or link with logical ors. Advanced users familiar with SQL syntax can manually edit the text in the filter box.

V. The Table Browser

While the Record Editor lets you search for and display the full information for individual records, the Table Browser lets you view multiple records at once in a more compact view.

Since these data sets have so many records, you must first specify search criteria. If you have not previously specified these, you will see a form like that in the Record Editor search interface. Enter the desired criteria and click Find.

At the top of the page you will see your current data filter, which you can customize. For example, to select only organizations whose value for TOTREV is greater than zero,

• Select TOTREV from the first combo box to the right of the filter.
• Select > from the second.
• Type in 0 below.
• Click on And.

Your search condition will be added to the filter box. You can add multiple search conditions. The And link will join them with logical ands, and the Or link with logical ors. Advanced users familiar with SQL syntax can manually edit the text in the filter box. Click Go to apply the filter and change the records which you see.

Below the filter box is a table of records matching the filter criteria. Only 25 records at a time are displayed. To see the next batch of records, click Next records. To go to the last records, click Last Records. First records and Previous records have similar functions.

To sort the records by a particular variable, click on either AZ or ZA beside that variable. AZ sorts the values in ascending order, ZA in descending order.

VI. Frequency Reports

• Row: Select the variable you want to use in the frequency. Click on Details to see the data dictionary entry for the currently selected variable.
• Row recoding: For some variables, such as dollar amounts, you want to group their values into ranges or to translate them in some other way. If you want to do this, select a recoding option from this combo box.
• Weight: If you want the frequencies based on weighted counts, select the weight variable in this combo box. If the data set is known to be a weighted sample, this field will be set to that field by default.
• Calculate: Select count or percentage.
• Filter: You can choose the records you want to summarize by defining a filter. For example, to select only organizations whose value for TOTREV is greater than zero,
1. Select TOTREV from the first combo box to the right of the filter.
2. Select > from the second.
3. Type in 0 below.
4. Click on And.

Your search condition will be added to the filter box. You can add multiple search conditions. The And link will join them with logical ands, and the Or link with logical ors. Advanced users familiar with SQL syntax can manually edit the text in the filter box.

When you have defined the options you want, click on Go to generate the report.

VII. Crosstab Reports

• Row: Select the variable whose values will define the row of the crosstab. Click on Details to see the data dictionary entry for the currently selected variable.
• Row recoding: For some variables, such as dollar amounts, you want to group their values into ranges or to translate them in some other way. If you want to do this, select a recoding option from this combo box.
• Column: Select the variable whose values will define the column of the crosstab. Click on Details to see the data dictionary entry for the currently selected variable.
• Column recoding: The same as row recoding, but applies to Column.
• Weight: If you want the frequencies based on weighted counts, select the weight variable in this combo box. If the data set is known to be a weighted sample, this field will be set to that field by default.
• Calculate: Select the type of calculation you want.
  • Count
  • Row %: The totals for each row add up to 100%.
  • Column %: The totals for each column add up to 100%.
  • Total %: The totals for all cells add up to 100%.
• Filter: You can choose the records you want to summarize by defining a filter. For example, to select only organizations whose value for TOTREV is greater than zero,
  1. Select TOTREV from the first combo box to the right of the filter.
  2. Select > from the second.
  3. Type in 0 below.
  4. Click on And.
  Your search condition will be added to the filter box. You can add multiple search conditions. The And link will join them with logical ands, and the Or link with logical ors. Advanced users familiar with SQL syntax can manually edit the text in the filter box.

When you have defined the options you want, click on Go to generate the report.

VIII. Statistics

• Row: Select the variable for which you want statistics. Click on Details to see the data dictionary entry for the currently selected variable.
• Filter: You can choose the records you want to summarize by defining a filter. For example, to select only organizations whose value for TOTREV is greater than zero,
  1. Select TOTREV from the first combo box to the right of the filter.
  2. Select > from the second.
  3. Type in 0 below.
  4. Click on And.
  Your search condition will be added to the filter box. You can add multiple search conditions. The And link will join them with logical ands, and the Or link with logical ors. Advanced users familiar with SQL syntax can manually edit the text in the filter box.

When you have defined the options you want, click on Go to generate the report.

IX. Regression

• Regression: Check this radio button to build a regression model.
• Predictor: Select a variable to use in building the regression model. Click on Details to see the data dictionary entry for the currently selected variable.
• To be predicted: Select a variable to predict based on the values of the previous variable. Click on Details to see the data dictionary entry for the currently selected variable.
• Model: Check the regression models you want built for you. If you check "exponential," only those observations in which the "to be predicted" variable are greater than or equal to zero will be included.
• ANOVA: Check this radio button to get a one-way analysis of variance.
• Group variable: This variable will be used to divide the population into groups, one group for each value. Only variables with defined values may be used. If there are none for the data set you selected, a message explaining that will be displayed. Click on Details to see the data dictionary entry for the currently selected variable.
• Mean variable: ANOVA will test whether the means of this variable differ significantly between the groups defined by the Group variable above. Click on Details to see the data dictionary entry for the currently selected variable.
• Filter: You can choose the records you want to summarize by defining a filter. For example, to select only organizations whose value for TOTREV is greater than zero,
  1. Select TOTREV from the first combo box to the right of the filter.
  2. Select > from the second.
  3. Type in 0 below.
  4. Click on And.
  Your search condition will be added to the filter box. You can add multiple search conditions. The And link will join them with logical ands, and the Or link with logical ors. Advanced users familiar with SQL syntax can manually edit the text in the filter box.

When you have defined the options you want, click on Go to generate the regression model.

X. Summary Reports

• First Summary
• Calculate: Choose the type of summary calculation you want.
• Of: Select a variable to summarize. Click on Details to see the data dictionary entry for the currently selected variable. If you selected "Count of observations" as your calculation, no variable selection is necessary, and this combo box will be disabled.
• Or calculated expression: You can build your own calculated variable based on the variables in the drop-down list above. You can use all operators and functions in ANSI SQL as well as MySQL functions. The table below gives some useful examples.

  Operator/Function	Description	Example
  + - / *	Basic arithmetic operations	REVENUES - EXPENSES
  SIGN(variable)	1 if positive, -1 if negative, and 0 if zero.	SIGN(REVENUES)
  ABS(variable)	Absolute value	ABS(REVENUES)
  IF(expression,truevalue,falsevalue)	If the expression is true, use the second argument. Otherwise, use the third	IF(REVENUES - EXPENSES > 10000, 1, 0)

• Second-Fourth Summary You can summarize multiple variables or summarize the same variable in different ways, e.g., minimum, maximum, and average.
• By the variables
• Row: Select the variable whose values will define the row of the report. Click on Details to see the data dictionary entry for the currently selected variable. To summarize all data in the data set, select "(All observations)."
• Row recoding: For some variables, such as dollar amounts, you want to group their values into ranges or to translate them in some other way. If you want to do this, select a recoding option from this combo box.
• Column: If you want to summarize by the values of a second variable, choose it here. Click on Details to see the data dictionary entry for the currently selected variable.
• Column recoding: The same as row recoding, but applies to Column.
• Options
• Percentages: Check the box if you want sums and counts shown as a percent of the total.
• Weight: If you want the frequencies based on weighted counts, select the weight variable in this combo box. If the data set is known to be a weighted sample, this field will be set to that field by default.
• Decimals: The number of decimal places to show.
• Filter: You can choose the records you want to summarize by defining a filter. For example, to select only organizations whose value for TOTREV is greater than zero,
  1. Select TOTREV from the first combo box to the right of the filter.
  2. Select > from the second.
  3. Type in 0 below.
  4. Click on And.
  Your search condition will be added to the filter box. You can add multiple search conditions. The And link will join them with logical ands, and the Or link with logical ors. Advanced users familiar with SQL syntax can manually edit the text in the filter box.

When you have defined the options you want, click on Go to generate the report.

XI. Working With User-Defined Views

This feature is available only to registered users.

XI.a. Managing Your Views

To manage your views, click on My Data Views in the navigation frame. To begin with, you will not have any views defined, and will see the single button Create new view.

When you have defined some views, a summary of the variables in each will be displayed, along with links to the data dictionary information for each. Below the summary of each view are two buttons Update and Delete which allow you to change or remove that view.

XI.b. Creating a New View

To create a new view, click on Create a new view. This will bring up a blank view editing form. To define a view,

• Enter a name for the view in the Name field.
• To the right, select the Category of the first data set whose variables you want to use in the view.
• Select the Form or data set name.
• Select one or more Variables.
• Click on the Add button to add the selected variables to your view.
• You will be asked to give each variable a name. Different data sets may have variables with the same name. If, for example, you want to add the variable TOTREV from the core data sets from 1999 and 2000, you will want to name the variables something like TOTREV99 and TOTREV00.
• Repeat with any other data sets you want.
• Click on Save to create your view. You will see that your view has been added to the navigation frame under My Data Views and that a summary of its variables is displayed to the right.

If you make a mistake, you can remove variables from the view by selecting them and clicking Delete. The variables will be displayed in the order in which they appear in this list. To insert a new variable at a certain point in the list, highlight the variable just below where you want it to go and click on Insert. If you decide that you do not want to create a view, click Cancel.

XI.c. Updating a View

To change the variables in a view, click on My Data Views. Go to the summary of the view you want to change and click Update. You will then see the view editing form. See Create new view above for details on how to work with this form.

XI.d. Deleting View

To change the variables in a view, click on My Data Views. Go to the summary of the view you want to change and click Delete.

XI.e. Using Data Tools With a View

You can work with the data in your view as you would with any other data set. Select a data tool and then click on the view name under My Data Views in the navigation frame. The only difference is that views are read-only. You will not be able to change data in the Record Editor.