Survey IT Migration

Information on migrating occupancy surveys from Survey IT to RIBOS

Background

There are significant differences between the operation of a survey using Survey IT and RIBOS but the underlying structure remains the same. The biggest difference are: -

• While Survey IT uses an Access 97 database located on your PC or network, all the data for RIBOS is stored on our database server.
• The Survey IT program had to be installed on each PC using the software, whereas RIBOS is a centrally located, web-based application that runs in a web browser.
• RIBOS can hold more than one year of data so there's no need for separate databases for each year.

Migration

To migrate to RIBOS we need to: -

1. Create a new website and database

The website will be something like www.ribos.co.uk/mysurvey for the respondents, and www.ribos.co.uk/mysurvey/admin for the administration website. The new database will be tailored to your region, and the website branded with your logos.

This process takes approximately half a day.

2. Copy data from Survey IT

The data can be converted directly from Survey IT (from version 2.10) but direct access to our database server is required, so all data conversion will be carried out by ReZolve, working on a copy of you database. You can continue to use your copy in the meantime bearing in mind the points in 'Planning' below.

This takes appriximately one day.

Planning

Because you will be working on a number of different months at the same time, the first step is to choose a month to begin working with RIBOS. This should be a month for which you have not yet entered any data forms into Survey IT. After the database conversion you will be ready to start entering data into this month immediately.

For previous months, we will convert the data that has already been entered, and you can then also enter data for these months into RIBOS. You may want to duplicate data entry for previous months into Survey IT too if you want to run any comparative analysis in the two systems.

There is no reason why you have to migrate serviced, self-catering and touring surveys at the same time. In fact, it will be easier to manage if these are done a month or so apart.

The next time availble for migration will be the week beginning 24th August 2009.

What We Need

We need the following to complete your migration to RIBOS: -

• Agree a timescale for the migration with us. It will typically take 2 days to get the system ready from the time we receive the data.
• A copy of each survey database. These are typically quite large so are probably best copied onto a DVD and posted to us.
• A logo in JPG format that we integrate into the banner images for your survey.
• A list of Analysis Categories showing any that are no longer required.

If you need any more information, please let us know.