- If you are a data manager (i.e., you can submit and download your team's data) then when you log in you'll be taken to the data entry screen for the oldest reporting period that has not yet been submitted. That means that if you have previously submitted data for July, but no data exist for June, then the data entry screen presented to you will be June's. You can, however, change the reporting period by clicking the select box in the left sidebar.
- Some data portals are designed for projects that span multiple states. If that's the case for you, then you may see a "State" select box in the left sidebar.
- If you are responsible for managing data for more than one team, then you can select between them in the "Data Team" select box in the left sidebar.
- On a particular data entry screen, you can view the full list of available data entry periods by clicking the blue button that shows the name of your team and the word "Dashboard" (note that this is the same as clicking the green "Dashboard" link in the top menu&mdashsee the "Dashboard" help article for more detail).
- Individual measures are grouped into measure sets. You can quickly move to another measure set by clicking its name in the left sidebar. Oftentimes, projects choose to organize them as "process" or "outcome" measures, among others.
- As you work your way through a particular data entry form, it may be useful to save your progress—particularly if you need to enter data for a large number of measures. To do so, click any blue "Save" button that you see on the screen.
- The CoLab data portal features 4 types of measures: count, ratio, categorical, and text (i.e., qualitative). Count measures will include a Count field.
- Ratio measures include both Numerator and Denominator fields, and will automatically calculate a percentage based on the values you enter.
- In some cases, measures may be stratified by race or ethnicity, or disaggregated by some other variable such as geography or age. If so, you'll see a row for each series (e.g., "Black or African American", "American Indian or Alaska Native") with their own numerators and denominators for data entry.
- Depending on your data portal's set up, measure definitions or additional detail regarding the data collection approach or otherwise may be available by clicking the little "i" icon next to the name/title of the measure.
- As a quality assurance mechanism, most CoLab data portals require that if no data are being submitted for a particular measure (or series) that the No data checkbox be explicitly checked to indicate that the lack of data was not accidental.
- If you have any additional information or context to provide for a particular measure (or series) then you can add that in the Annotation field.