Data Requirements

This section provides detailed information on data requirements for the PPA Wizard. For a quick reference, see the PPA Data Cheat Sheet.

Format

The PPA Wizard accepts .csv or .dta files as inputs:

 

• • DTA (STATA file): The .dta extension represents a STATA file. It was essential for the PPA Wizard to handle large files (larger than can be saved as .csv), and the STATA file format was chosen for this purpose. You do not need to know STATA or have STATA on your machine to work with .dta files in the PPA Wizard.
  • CSV (with UTF8 encoding): Any .csv files used in the wizard must have UTF8 encoding. You can easily save .csv files with UTF8 encoding by opening the file in Excel. Simply select “save as” and then “.csv with UTF8 encoding.”

Data must be in raw, tabular format:

• • Each row represents one person (usually a survey respondent) or one health facility
  • Each column represents a variable associated with the person or health facility

 

Data Source Columns

Your data sources must contain specific variables for you to successfully create a PPA in the wizard. These variables will be represented in your data sources as columns. The PPA Data Cheat Sheet summarizes the required columns. It does not matter what the column titles in your data sources are, e.g. it is okay (and, realistically, expected) that column titles in your data sources will be different from “Facility Type” or “Health Sector.” The presence of this data is the only requirement.

 

Number of Data Sources

At minimum, you will need two data sources: one capturing people and where they sought care for illness and a second capturing health facilities and the services they offer. Only one care seeking data source may be used in a given PPA. However, it is common for multiple data sources to be used for health facilities. Often one data source will be used for the Health Facility Master List and other data sources will be used for TB Services Coverage.

 

Data Cleaning Tips

While not a hard technical requirement of the PPA Wizard, starting with clean datasets will make your work more efficient and your experience more enjoyable! It is particularly beneficial to have clean datasets when working as a team, as it will lead to improved communication between team members. Messy datasets not only cost you extra time when working with them in the wizard; they may cause unnecessary confusion as you try to communicate your decisions on PPA inputs to other members of your team. Specific data cleaning examples area addressed in the FAQs section.

Getting Setup in the Wizard

Creating and Working in a Team Space

The PPA Wizard supports a collaborative approach to creating PPAs, and users are encouraged to take full advantage of this. Members of a Team Space use common data sources, share PPAs, and operate within a shared version control environment. The owner of a Team Space may invite others to join as administrators—with full rights to edit, add, and delete PPAs—or on a read-only basis.

You must belong to a Team Space to use the PPA Wizard. The My Team Spaces page shows all Team Spaces to which you belong. On this page you may:

• • Create a new Team Space
  • Access Team Spaces to which you already belong
  • Access the Demo Team in read-only mode

If you want to work in the wizard independently, you may create a Team Space of one member and simply not invite others to join.

Managing Users and Data

User Profile
Once you register with an email address and password, you are a PPA Wizard user! The email address and password combination constitute your User Profile. Logging in with these credentials gives you access to all Team Spaces to which you belong. You may change the email address or password associated with your User Profile at any time. To do so, go to “User Profile” via the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the upper right corner of the wizard.

User Privilege Levels
As an individual user you may have different privilege levels for different Team Spaces. This is reflected in the chart on your My Team Spaces page.

 

• • Owner: If you create a new Team Space you will become its owner. The owner is the only user that can delete a Team Space. They may not leave a Team Space (unless they delete it). Otherwise, owners have the same privileges as administrators
  • Administrator: As an administrator of a Team Space you can create, edit, and delete PPAs; upload and delete data sources; View all contents of all data sources, and manage users
  • Read-only Members: As a read-only member of a Team Space you can view all PPAs within the Team Space, view all PPA inputs; view or download the results; and view filenames in Team Data Sources. You will not be able to view the contents of the data sources aside from summaries of the PPA variables selected by your team members

Managing Users
As an administrator of a Team Space you have the right to manage other uses on your team. To do so, go to My Team Spaces and click the “manage users” icon for the Team Space you wish to manage.

You may invite other users to join your Team Space using their email address. Your invitees may have a user profile in the PPA Wizard already, though they need not in order to be invited. If they don’t have a user profile, they will be prompted to create one. Invitees will be notified by email when they are added to a Team Space. They may access the Team Space by clicking the link in the email, or by logging in to the wizard directly, using the email address that was invited.

Administrators may also reset the privileges of other team members. When you invite another user to your Team Space, they will be read-only by default. To allow them full administrative privileges, simply turn on “administrator” for them via the “manage users” page. You may expel users from your Team Space as well (apart from the Team Space owner). Note that another user whom you designate as an administrator may also change your privileges—they could set you to read-only or could expel you from the Team Space.

 

Team PPAs Page

This page shows all PPAs within a Team Space. On the Team PPAs page you may:

 

• • Create a new PPA
  • Access existing PPAs to view or edit inputs, and view or download results
  • Delete a PPA
  • Duplicate a PPA

To create a new PPA, give it a name and assign it a level of geographic aggregation. “National,” the default level of geographic aggregation, will result in one PPA Visual for the whole country (or single geographic area for which data are provided). Any other level of geographic aggregation will result in a subnational PPA, with one visual per geography. For example, select “Regional” if you want a separate PPA for each region of the country. For the Regional PPA to be successful, all data sources must contain a field (column) indicating the region where the health facility or person seeking care is located.

Specify a custom level of geographic aggregation if desired, and if it is supported by your data. The possibilities are endless and could include options such as “Major City,” “Subdistrict,” or “Zone A/ Not Zone A.” After creating a PPA and specifying a level of geographic aggregation, you may continue into the wizard to begin working on their PPA, starting with Step 1.1.

The Demo Team

All users are automatically added to the Demo Team as read-only members. The Demo Team was created as a reference for those using the PPA Wizard. The Demo Team represents an imaginary country (Country X) and its Team Space includes example PPAs based on fictional data. The examples shown in the video tutorials feature the PPAs created within this Demo Team. The raw data sources for The Demo Team are available on the data resources page.