Customer Tips From... Dr. Nelle Moffett (California State University - Channel Islands)

The next installment in our customer tips series comes from Dr. Nelle Moffett, Director of Institutional Research at Cal State - Channel Islands. Nelle is an avid Veera user and loves building analytic processes. Here are her tips:

• Use a Rename node before an output to select only the fields that you want and re-sort them in the desired sequence.
• Use the Cleanse node liberally before any Transform node to remove or replace missing data. This will eliminate unexpected results when the Transform node encounters missing data. 
• To create your own variable labels, create a look-up table in Excel with the original values and the new value labels. Then merge this file with the original file using the field labeled "original" and keep the new field with the desired value labels. 
• Example of value file:

• To calculate the percent of a certain characteristic in the dataset, first use a Transform node to set a flag for that characteristic where 1= has the characteristic and 0= does not have the characteristic. Then use an Aggregate node and select the mean for a flag.
   
• To update a job to the current form of a dataset, first make the connection to the updated dataset. Then double-click on the data node in the job. At the bottom of the window where it says "connection" click on the name of the data file and select the new version. make sure all of the data fields are checked (that should be) and save the changes. If you give the data node a generic (rather than dated) name, then it will still be appropriate as the data continues to be updated to the current date. 

...Have tips of your own? Email them to caitlin.garrett@rapidinsightinc.com!