25  Updating STAR App Content

The app is made up of dynamic and static content, and these are updated via different processes.

25.1 Static content

  • Static content can’t be updated without an app update. Static content is generally more structural components and the design of the app such as the homepage, menus, and how the app looks.

25.2 Dynamic content

  • Dynamic content can be updated without an app update. Most dynamic content can be edited within the app by people with admin accounts (and for some features, all users). The following content is dynamic: discussion group posts, recovery resource articles, and surveys.

    • The survey content is dynamic. You can update the surveys at any time and the changes will get downloaded to the app the next time the participant opens the app (if it is completely closed aka swiped away) or if they have had the app open for 6+ hours.

    • Notification text is dynamic but requires a CHESS developer to update the text. 

25.2.1 Updating the Recovery Resources

The survey admin account has rights to add, remove, or edit articles. In order to change the structure (e.g. changing the names of sections or adding / removing sections), STAR dev team will need to make that change and release a new version of STAR.

25.2.2 STAR Survey Builder: Instructions & Features

Logging In

  1. To access the development server, go to: https://test.chess.wisc.edu/star

  2. Click “Already a participant? Tap here to login” then use your existing account name and password

  3. Once you login, click on the Site Settings link on the homepage or in the menu (the little icon in the upper right hand corner). Then go to Site Settings > Surveys > Survey Editor.

Important Notes

  • If your browser refreshes while you are editing, you will end up on a blank page that refreshes endlessly. You will have to visit the main page, log in again, and navigate back to the survey you were editing.

  • It is recommended that you save often using the “Save” button at the bottom of the page. Unlike Qualtrics this does NOT save as you go.

  • In addition to saving often, it is helpful to occasionally exit the editor and re-enter. Questions may occasionally disappear and doing this often allows you to catch which questions go missing.

    • Note. disappearing questions are likely caused by a guid conflict which can occur when saving happens to quickly (creates duplicate guids). These types of silent server errors can be seen as a red message in Chrome’s Devtools. To open Devtools in a chrome browser hit Ctrl Shift J (on Windows) or Ctrl Option J (on Mac). This should open a sidebar with a tab called console. If a red message appears during survey editing take a screen shot of the error.

  • Note. that if you have multiple nodes (which is required for branching), you must specify the destination node for all nodes (the default is End of Survey so your survey will end after the first node if you don’t specify this).

  • Note. that if you import a survey from a previous survey export, you MUST reassign all of the conditional displays because ALL of the item identifiers change when you reimport.

25.2.2.1 Rich Text Editing

25.2.2.2 Dynamic Survey Construction

  • Dynamic surveys are created with three scripts written by Susan (make_monthly_people; make_monthly_places; upload_monthly_dynamic_only). These scripts are located in the staff_scripts folder of the analysis_risk2 github repository. This script pulls surveys from STAR, inputs the right information, and publishes a survey for each person. When a participant is assigned a study_id, <study_id> will be used to look for the most recently published survey whose survey identifier starts with “monthly-<study_id>”.  Surveys need to have their survey_status set to “published” with a publish_date set in unix time, seconds since the epoch.

  • The scripts that create data used in dynamic surveys are in the “staff_scripts” folder of the “analysis_risk2” GitHub repository

25.2.2.3 Surveys and Survey Editor Terminology

  • “Node”: Contains a set of Pages and Questions. Similar to a Block in Qualtrics. This is the first item you must add.

  • “Page”: Contains a set of Questions. When a user navigates through the survey, they will jump from Page to Page. You must add a Node before you can add a Page and you must add a Page before you can add a Question.

  • “Loop & Merge Question”: A question that lets you specify a Node to loop through for each option selected by the user.

  • “Looping Node”: Node being looped through from a Loop & Merge Question.

25.2.2.4 Question Types

Radio

  • Select only one option

  • Answer options can have subquestions (i.e., if “Other” is selected, a textbox appears that is labeled “Please specify”)

  • Most items will be radio format (including likert scale questions).

Checkbox

  • Select all that apply

  • Answer options can have subquestions (i.e., if “Other” is selected, a textbox appears that is labeled “Please specify”)

Loop and Merge Checkbox

  • Things that the editor may let you do but can cause problems when taking the survey:

    • No questions should come after a Loop & Merge question on the same page.

    • Don’t use a Loop and Merge question within a Looping Node.

    • Questions within Looping Nodes should not jump to other nodes.

  • Recommended Best Practice for adding a Loop & Merge question as of April 2020.

    • Create a Loop & Merge question as the last question on the last page of a Node 1

    • Create a Loop Node 1 and add your pages/questions

    • Create a new Node 2 after Loop Node

    • Set both Loop Node 1 and Node 1 to go to Node 2.

  • Making replacements within content:

    • “${<question identifier>:answer}” will be replaced by the answer selected by the user from the Loop & Merge question

    • If more than one checkbox answer is selected all questions in looping node will be displayed for answer 1, then all questions will be displayed for answer 2, etc.

    • When using replacement questions in looping node, start any new questions (without replacement) in a new node (outside looping node). This prevents survey respondent from having to answer the question multiple times (i.e., when multiple answers are being looped into the replacement question).

  • Data will appear as:

  • Example

    • Loop & Merge Checkbox Question (ID: foo)

      • Content: Select all that apply

      • Possible Answers: Foo1 (ID: foo1), Foo2 (ID: foo2), Foo3 (ID: foo3), Foo4 (ID: foo4)

      • Answers selected by user: Foo1, Foo2, Foo3

    • Within Looping Node

    • Text Question (ID: bar)

      • Content: “Tell us more about ${foo:answer}”

      • For Foo1, content will be “Tell us more about Foo1”

      • For Foo1, content will be “Tell us more about Foo1”

      • For Foo1, content will be “Tell us more about Foo1”

    • Checkbox (ID: baz)

      • Content: “Select all that apply for ${foo:answer}

      • Possible answers:

        • Baz1 (ID: baz1), Baz2 (ID: baz2), Baz3 (ID: baz3)

      • For Foo1, “Select all that apply for Foo1”

        • User selects “Baz1”

      • For Foo2, “Select all that apply for Foo2”

        • User selects “Baz1, Baz3”

      • For Foo3, “Select all that apply for Foo3”

        • User selects nothing

  • Data will appear as

    • Row 1

      • question_guid: foo

      • content: foo1, foo3

    • Row 2

      • question_guid: bar

      • content: { “foo1”: “Bar1”, “foo2”: “Bar2”, “foo3”: “Bar3” }

    • Row 3

      • question_guid: baz

      • content: { “foo1”: “baz1,”, “foo2”: “baz1,baz3,”, “foo3”: “” }

        •   NOTE: Checkbox selections always have trailing commas

Conditionally Displayed Loop and Merge Checkbox

  • Allows you to set conditions for displaying questions in a looping node based on answers to a Loop and Merge checkbox question

  • All of the rules and best practices from Loop and Merge Checkboxes described above apply here

  • For each question within the looping Node, set the condition for displaying question on the line that reads “Conditions for Displaying Questions (Optional)”

  • Examples can be found in Monthly Survey (monthly_final) on the STAR site

    • demographics_change (Node 1, pg. 5, Q1)

    • whoassist _month_1 (Node 3, pg. 2, Q2)

Likert Scale

  • Likerts can be created with 2 to 15 options

  • You can include a “Not applicable” option

    • This option can be given a custom label

  • You can specify Start and End anchor labels, but also as many intermediate anchor labels as desired.

    • Additional Labels are spread between the start and end labels evenly.

    • Additional Labels can be blank.

  • Response items are unreadable as Likert. Radio format preferred.

Content

  • Text information only

Simple Date Picker; Multi-Date Picker; Simple Date Time Picker; Generic Date Time Picker

  • Both multi-date and single date pickers are available, with and without time pickers

  • A check box allows you to specify if future dates should be permitted. By default they are disabled.

Text Input

  • Small text box

Text Input (Only Allow Numeric Input)

  • Numeric only text box

Text Area

  • Larger text area to allow multiple entry lines

Select a US state

  • As indicated

Picture Options - Experimental

  • Unknown - not used

Upload a picture

  • Not used

Select Age

  • Drop down menu of integers beginning at 1 with increment of 1.

  • Not currently used.

  • For age questions use Selectbox and define age bins.

    • Ex. “Under 10”, “10-13”, “14-17”, etc.

Selectbox

  • Drop-down menu of predefined categories.

  • Add response for each category that will be included in drop down.

    • Ex. “Less than weekly”, “1-2 times per week”, “3-4 times per week”, “5+ times per week”