How Can I Optimize My Forms For Analytics?

Essentials and Pro Users: For more information about Analytics, click here!

Below you will find suggestions from our Technical Specialist Team to help you optimize your forms to pair well with SiteDocs Analytics.

Ensure questions are descriptive of their data and make sense on their own.

Remember, you will often be viewing data points as standalone charts or graphs, so make sure your questions can give you information about the data you are looking at, especially if you have several questions collecting similar data in the same form.

Without Specification:

Without the context of the Form Builder, it's impossible to tell which Date question is the one you're looking for. With some slight changes to the question text, it's easier to work with:

Collect standardized answers whenever possible.

Using the Select One, Select Multiple, and Select Worker Form Items will give you the cleanest version of your data. This also allows for helpful grouping of responses and avoids situations where Workers may type answers slightly differently, therefore skewing your results.

For example, here are two different pie charts showing the most common hazards from a Hazard Assessment:

Short Answer:

Notice how many of these options are the same thing, but formatted differently (spelling, capitalization, abbreviations, etc.)

Select Multiple List:

Using a predetermined list also means your workers will spend less time worrying about spelling, grammar, formatting, etc., which means (typically) more time spent working and higher participation in your safety program!

Note: If possible, De-select the "Include Other" selector in the List Manager, as the Other section can lead to the same issue as a Short or Long Answer question.

If you need to do any math with number answers, use Number Only Items.

Analytics can use Number Only items to do Math, like totaling up Kilometers driven from a Vehicle Inspection or totaling Hours Worked from a Time Sheet. With Short or Long Answer questions, Analytics does not recognize numbers, as text is an option in those item types.

When using Pass/Fail or Yes/No Questions, standardize the intended outcome.

These types of questions can be used in 2 different ways, with Pass and Yes being Positive or Negative. We recommend posing the questions in your form in the same way. For Example:

In this example, Yes has Positive and Negative connotations in the same form. This can cause issues when trying to pull Yes/No percentages in an Analytics Dashboard. Instead, phrase the questions so the connotations are the same:

If you need to report on a Repeatable Section, make sure all the data you want to report on is inside the Section.

If you are reporting on questions within a repeatable section, you can only use data within that one section. You can also use General Data (Date signed, Worker who signed, Label, etc), but no other questions in the Form that are outside of that repeatable section. If you try to do this, you will only see a limited amount of data, and not all of the instances that the section has been repeated.

If you have any questions about any of these items, feel free to book a training call with a Technical Specialist by clicking here.