Making the Most of the Harvest
May is cherry-picking season, and my family loves visiting the cherry farms in Brentwood, California, where we get our fill of “tasting” plump, fresh cherries as we gather bags and bags to take home to eat fresh or make into other goodies like smoothies and cobbler. Interestingly, there’s a really narrow window of time when cherries can be harvested! Fortunately, farmers in Brentwood have figured out ways to extend this period by spacing out planting across sections and by growing different cherry varieties that bloom at different times. They make strategic adjustments so that instead of just having a week or two to harvest everything, we can enjoy several weeks of juicy cherries!
We hope that projects can soon feel the same way about our new (again) survey vendor, Harvest Your Data. While Harvest Your Data and its accompanying apps iSURVEY/droidSURVEY have a narrower list of features, the program has proven to be reliable ever since we started using it in 2013 for the Healthy Stores for a Health Community Campaign (HSHC). Now that TCEC and local programs have had more time to get used to it, we’ve gathered some helpful tips so that you can also make the most of the Harvest Your Data tools:
First of all, claim your Local Program Affiliate Account. This resource describes the steps to get yours. Your local program affiliate account links you to our main account, which grants access to about a thousand vouchers rather than paying for the surveys yourself. Any project funded by CTPP may request a local program affiliate account and use vouchers issued by the TCEC team.
The #1 way to use Harvest Your Data is to collect data on mobile devices, even when an Internet connection is unavailable. The apps, iSURVEY/droidSURVEY, allow you to collect and store the data on a mobile device and upload it to your password-protected account when you have Internet. This is how we’ve used it for HSHC and currently for the End Commercial Tobacco Campaign (ECTC). To be honest, it has worked wonderfully! We haven’t had any issues with the app, and ECTC data collection has been going smoothly.
Harvest Your Data can also be used to send a survey link, which is called “Web Forms.” The most common way local programs have used web forms is for their annual coalition surveys. For your convenience, youth coalition and adult coalition satisfaction surveys can be copied into your local program affiliate account. You can make any changes you want, then be sure to test it. There’s an extra step to set up the Web Forms Links, where you have the option to create unique links to limit a respondent from answering multiple times or a generic link that can be used without limitations. Then you can share this link or create a QR code for smartphone users to scan and then respond to the survey.
The published version of your survey may look different than when you were testing it. Users shared that they noticed a little cloud upload button that only appears in the published version. This might encourage people to upload on the spot versus waiting to upload in a secure location with stable Wi-Fi. There is a way to enable/disable this in the system settings, but it might also just be good to remind people to wait to upload results, just in case the Internet is choppy. The Admin screen is automatically visible during testing mode. Then, once the survey is published, you may only see a Start button. To get back to the Admin screen, just hold the Start button until the screen changes. Again, this can be changed in settings, but if your data collectors are already stuck on the Start screen, instructing them to hold the Start button will take them back to the Admin screen.
Use the “Scoring” feature if you prefer your data to be available as numeric codes. For multiple-choice questions, you can check the “Include Scoring” box in the options menu. This will enable you to enter a numeric score or code for each answer option. For example, if you want 1 to mean Yes and 2 to mean No, then you enter the number next to that answer option. See below:
Try out the different options when downloading data. We’ve found that we prefer to uncheck the box “Include Question Response Date” and check the box “Single Select in one column.” Your team may prefer different formats, so we recommend testing different combinations by checking or unchecking boxes in the download options menu. See below:
It has taken a bit of time to get reacquainted with the features of Harvest Your Data. We love hearing from you all about the tips and tricks you’ve found while using it for your local data collection efforts. Keep sending us your lessons learned so we can pass them along to others! Now, who wants to come cherry picking with us? The season is almost over!