One of my “universes” is a school profile as the Tier 1, with several different pre-tests, post-tests, presentation evals, etc. as Tier 2s, for different in-school programs we deliver. Though the questions are different, each of those Tier 2s has the same group of general and demographic questions: date, grade, race, gender, etc. But a Data Standard can’t have duplicate field names, even on different forms. So, short of giving each field a specific name (eg, Program 1 Date, Program 1 Race...), I guess my only option is creating a separate Data Standard for each program (School Profile + Program 1 Tier 2, then School Profile + Program 2 Tier 2, and so on), right?
I may have answered my own question just by typing through this, but wanted to see what other people were doing.
Best answer by Molly Kraus
Hi @Brad Hutchison - adding a little more info for you regarding duplicated field names. There are two paths for managing this for reporting:
Building Data Standards in Apricot: If you do include more than one form in a Data Standard and forms have fields with identical names, the good news is that Apricot will automatically prompt you to provide a unique name for any fields that aren't unique when you're building it so that you can identify data uniquely in your Impact Hub dataset. No need to do anything special upfront or adjust the forms themselves — just follow the Data Standard prompts as you set it up.
Using Datasets together in Impact Hub:
If you just need to present the data together in the same report, you can add multiple datasets to a single report and display the visuals side by side. If you take this path, no need to rename as the datasets will work independently of each other.
If you need to data from multiple datasets to work together within a single visual or calculation, create a custom dataset and join them from the dataset editor. When building the joined dataset, you can rename any duplicate field names to keep things distinct and readable.
Hey @Brad Hutchison ! Great question - our team would love to jump in on this with some recommendations.
When choosing which fields to include in a Data Standard, you can use the Pencil icon in that field's row to change the name of it as it will appear in the Data Standard/Data Set in Impact Hub. You've caught on to the expected use - for example, let's say you have two forms in a data standard with Date as the field name, you might want to use the pencil to change one to Form 1 Date and one to Form 2 Date.
However, with Tier 2 forms, it's really worth considering which forms you want to put in the same Data Standard, especially because Reports in Impact Hub can pull from multiple Data Sets as needed. Typically, you only include forms in a Data Standard if they have some relationship to each other. Otherwise, you end up with the "cartesianing" problem where we have to make 1 row per possible combination of records in a folder - that's not useful! So, in this specific case, you might want to make a few data standards; 1 for each Tier 2, or, 1 for each set of related Tier 2s at least. That should reduce the number of situations where fields happened to be named the same and cut down the amount of manual field label editing using that pencil icon.
Last but not least, you can always "join" data sets using Custom Data Sets in Impact Hub proper if you need to compare data across data sets. This can be an advanced technique, so feel free to consult an ASC or report specialist if you have time and think you need this approach.
This is incredibly helpful! I think you’re right that I need to rethink my approach to Data Standards. My instinct was kind of the old “each Tier 1 and its associated Tier 2s is a universe and a data set,” but if multiple data sets can be pulled into a report as needed, perhaps having several smaller data sets makes more sense.
Hi @Brad Hutchison - adding a little more info for you regarding duplicated field names. There are two paths for managing this for reporting:
Building Data Standards in Apricot: If you do include more than one form in a Data Standard and forms have fields with identical names, the good news is that Apricot will automatically prompt you to provide a unique name for any fields that aren't unique when you're building it so that you can identify data uniquely in your Impact Hub dataset. No need to do anything special upfront or adjust the forms themselves — just follow the Data Standard prompts as you set it up.
Using Datasets together in Impact Hub:
If you just need to present the data together in the same report, you can add multiple datasets to a single report and display the visuals side by side. If you take this path, no need to rename as the datasets will work independently of each other.
If you need to data from multiple datasets to work together within a single visual or calculation, create a custom dataset and join them from the dataset editor. When building the joined dataset, you can rename any duplicate field names to keep things distinct and readable.
