Re: [phpesp-general] Deleting responses

[Jim B. <jp...@si...>]

* Robin Gower <rg...@st...> [2005-07-13 06:18]:
> 
> We have some duplication in responses.  The guy entering the data has mistakenly pressed return mid-way through a survey (rather than tab) and has mistakenly submitted partly-completed responses.  On multiple occassions!
> 
> To my knowledge phpESP doesn't have the facility to delete responses.  I could simply export the data, de-duplicate the responses, and then analyse (i.e. in Excel).  I'd rather use phpESP analysis tools however.  Thus I need accurate data in MySQL.
> 
> My guess would be to use phpMyAdmin to delete the relevant records from the 'response' table.  What would be the repercussions of this?  Would the data in other 'response_...' tables become corrupted?  Will all the cross-tabbing still work?
> 
> Has anyone else experienced this problem - are some safeguards (submit: are you sure y/n?) or additional functions (overwrite responses) required?
> 
> cheers,
> 
> -- 
> Robin Gower


Well, my solution is crude.  I used mysql directly.  It's cumbersome,
but it works for me.  YMMV.

You'll have to locate the entry in the response table and note the 'id' field value.
This is a join key with the other response_* tables (response_bool, response_date, etc.)
The field name in the other tables is 'response_id'.

Example:

DELETE FROM response WHERE id = 123;

DELETE FROM  response_bool     where response_id = 123;
DELETE FROM  response_date     where response_id = 123;
DELETE FROM  response_multiple where response_id = 123;
DELETE FROM  response_other    where response_id = 123;
DELETE FROM  response_rank     where response_id = 123;
DELETE FROM  response_single   where response_id = 123;
DELETE FROM  response_text     where response_id = 123;


It can be difficult to find a specific responder when you have a lot of respnoses.
You can sometimes find a specific responder by searching for a known bit of text:

SELECT response_id, response FROM response_text WHERE response LIKE '%foobar%';



IMPORTANT NOTE:  The 'View Results' selection on the management interface displayes
individual survey responses with a number in the selection tab.  This number is 
a display item only and is NOT the same as the response.id field!  Do not use
the number displayed in the tab as the response_id value in the examples above!

Cross tabbing and cross analysis still work.

Best Regards,
Jim B.


PS- I don't use realms or private 'respondents'.  I don't have any knowlege if 
the above works with those cases or not.