queXS 1.7.0 Released

Submitted by adamzammit on Fri, 2013-03-08 16:07

queXS 1.7.0 has been released today on Sourceforge

Interviewers can now email an invitation to respondents to complete the questionnaire online. queXS will still track the case, and by default will allow an interviewer to call the respondent after 1 week if they haven't self completed. This major change required some structural changes to the database for security reasons and therefore requires a database update.

Further new features include the ability to restrict appointments to the interviewer making them (or the administrator can set an appointment for a particular interviewer). Also, operator and sample details can be edited and questionnaires can be deleted to keep the administration pages clean. In the code itself, the PHP short tags have been replaced with full tags so should improve compatability on more systems and shared hosting.

Also a note for developers, the code repository is now being stored on launchpad using the bzr revision control system.

Read on for more details including how to upgrade from queXS 1.6.0 or 1.6.1

Upgrading from queXS 1.6.0 or queXS 1.6.1

  1. Browse to the queXS administration page
  2. Click on "Start and monitor system wide case sorting"
  3. Confirm that the sorting process is stopped
  4. Click on "Start and monitor VoIP"
  5. Confirm that the VoIP process is stopped
  6. IMPORTANT: Backup your database and files
  7. Run the following SQL on your queXS database:

    ALTER TABLE `case` ADD `token` VARCHAR( 36 ) NOT NULL ;
    UPDATE `case` SET token = case_id;
    ALTER TABLE `case` ADD UNIQUE (`token`);
    INSERT INTO `outcome` (`outcome_id`, `aapor_id`, `description`, `default_delay_minutes`, `outcome_type_id`, `tryanother`, `contacted`, `tryagain`, `eligible`, `require_note`, `calc`) VALUES
    (40, '1.1', 'Self completed online', 0, 4, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 'I'),
    (41, '2.36', 'Self completion email invitation sent', 10080, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 'O');
    INSERT INTO `sample_var_type` (`type`, `description`, `table`) VALUES
    (8, 'Email address', '');
    ALTER TABLE `questionnaire` ADD `self_complete` TINYINT( 1 ) NOT NULL DEFAULT '0' AFTER `info`,
    ADD `lime_mode` VARCHAR( 64 ) NULL COMMENT 'Limesurvey mode for respondent self completion' AFTER `self_complete` ,
    ADD `lime_template` VARCHAR( 128 ) NULL COMMENT 'Limesurvey template for respondent self completion' AFTER `lime_mode` ,
    ADD `lime_endurl` VARCHAR( 256 ) NULL COMMENT 'Forwarding end URL for respondent self completion' AFTER `lime_template` ;
    ALTER TABLE `sample_import` ADD `enabled` TINYINT( 1 ) NOT NULL DEFAULT '1';
    ALTER TABLE `contact_phone` CHANGE `phone` `phone` CHAR( 30 ) NOT NULL;
  8. Rename the queXS 1.6.x directory
  9. Extract quexs-1.7.0 to a new directory on your web server
  10. Rename the new directory to the same as the existing installation was originally
  11. Copy the config.inc.local.php file from the queXS 1.6.x installation to this directory
  12. If you used .htaccess files, copy these to their respective directories also, for example: .htaccess admin/.htaccess client/.htaccess include/limesurvey/admin/.htaccess
  13. Also note that for queXS 1.7.0 if you use .htaccess files and want to use the new respondent self completion feature, you will need to inspect the .htaccess.example file in the include/limesurvey directory. If you are happy with it, copy it to .htaccess . This will allow any user to access the include/limesurvey directory. Make sure there is security in the include/limesurvey/admin directory