Understanding the Level link

If you want to compare two questions which belong to different loops, you will need to create a Level Link. If this has not been done before the data collection, you need to recreate the level link by following the steps below.

Scenario: imagine we have two loops, Loop_B1 & Loop_B2. We want to create a summary table Loop_B1 by Loop_B2. The requirement is that we show the respondent level so that the counts add up to the total. However, in the resulting table below, we see this is not the case. Respondents are multi-counting.

Normally we would change the level to go from response level to respondent level. However, in this case it has no effect:


The issue is that there are two loops in play – the level needs to be set on both Loop_B1 & Loop_B2. This can be done because when we review the code-frames for both loops, we can see that they relate to the same items.

How do we go about doing this?

• If your original QES file is 1.qes, take a back-up copy and call it 2.qes.
• We will be doing importing via AskiaTools (so it’s recommend deleting all the lines of routing from each QES file)*
• Open 1.qes and find Loop_B2 - delete the loop iterations and level link (all responses) to Loop_B1.
• Save and close
• Open 1.qes up in Askia Tools
• Edit > Delete all interviews. Then Edit > Verify data structure and then Edit > Compact and repair database.
• Now for the merging: Merge > Interviews - Your source Askia file should be the original copy of the QES file with data in it (2.qes).
• Settings can be as below. Click OK and wait for the import to complete.

This should give the results as follows:

Askia Tools, by default, verifies data in the QES file against the current routings when merging or importing. This can be avoided by deleting the routings from a QES file before merging or importing.