Q: Is there a cost involved in using PARTNER?

A: PARTNER is a free, open source tool (with support from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) so no, there is no cost involved to register as a manager and use PARTNER. Free technical support is available to managers who have questions.  Some organizations pay an additional consultation fee for more complex support in planning and analysis above and beyond the basic support provided. Please check with the PARTNER team for more information on additional technical assistance.

Q: Can I use PARTNER if we are just forming as a collaborative?

A: Yes, this is a great time to use PARTNER to help with strategizing.

Q: Does the PARTNER tool work with Mac’s?

A: No. There are a few things that a Mac can interface with PARTNER on but unfortunately Macs won’t work with several of the PARTNER features.

Q: What is the estimated number of hours that will be required by my team to use PARTNER?

A: Different agencies have a wide variety of experiences in terms of how much time it takes.  We have some PARTNER users who have a very good understanding of who are in their network and what they want to evaluate, others have a lot of thinking and planning to do before they can get started on the tool.  These aspects could have a big impact on how much time would be involved.  The actual PARTNER Tool survey data collection and data upload process are designed to be quick and simple for the user. Once the preparation (e.g. identifying respondents and customizing questions) is complete, the next few steps should take less than an hour to complete.  The planning and preparation are the most time consuming pieces.

Q: Who should I include in the respondent “data entry” form?

A: You can include the members of your collaborative, potential members, or anyone that you are interesting in including in your network visualizations and analysis. You don’t have to send the survey to everyone (if you chose not to send it to some of the people on the list be sure to assign your email address to their ID).

Q: Can I upload more respondents after I’ve loaded my initial list?

A: You can add a respondent to the Excel sheet that you used initially and then reload the sheet.  You will get a message that it did not reload the ones already loaded, but did load the new ones.

Q: Why can’t I load up my respondent data entry worksheet?

A: You must save the respondent data entry worksheet first as a text file before you can upload it into PARTNER. Before saving it, you will need to delete the top row. After you save it as an excel file use the “Save As” feature choosing to save it in “Other Formats” then in the drop down menu of file types choose “Text (Tab Delimited)”. Once you’ve saved it as a text file you should be able to upload it.

Q: Can I add/delete new organizations after I send the survey to the network members?

A: No, because you cannot change the list of organizations once you have disseminated the survey. Doing so will cause errors in the analysis program.

Q: Do I have to send all my emails from the PARTNER Tool?

A: No. You can send emails notifying your respondents from your own email by doing a mail merge. Microsoft word along with Outlook and other programs have mail merge features. Using this function, you can send everyone an email (and just insert the fields you want to include, like userID and password) in the mail merge template.  This would then be in your sent email box. Feel free to ask for help to do this from the PARTNER team.

Q: How many reminder emails should I send?

A: The Dillman method suggests that you can send email reminders up to six times. We recommend that if you know your respondents to use your best judgment. A phone call reminder can also be an effective way to notify some respondents. The best way to encourage people to respond is to emphasized how important their input is to the final evaluation of the network or collaborative. Sometimes offering an incentive will help encourage participation. For example, we will often develop a one page summary of the data we collect to let users know how their answers were analyzed and used in practice.

Q: Are respondents able to take a break from the survey and sign-in again to pick up where they left off? Or, if there are multiple agencies in the collaborative that a respondent answers about, could the person break it up and answer in more than one session?

A: Yes, respondents can stop at any point and go back in to finish later.  They just need to log in again with their credentials and it should have saved any of their responses to the point that they quit.  This is true for all the questions.

Q: How do I get another collaborative assigned to my manager account?

A: Send a request for a new collaborative to Partnertool@ucdenver.edu indicating how many collaboratives you need created. You will receive an email confirming the creation of the collaboratives.

Q: What type of response rate do I need for an accurate reflection of my network?

A: The higher the response rate the better. It is important to have as many respondents as possible, particularly in evaluating a network. However, at times it is just not possible to get a 100% response rate so there are a few things you can keep in mind. If we consider each person as providing accurate information, then you might assume that even those that did not respond would have reported similar relationships, so there is a chance that you get a pretty complete picture even without everyone’s responses. Also, keep in mind that whatever feedback you get is more than they had before. Ultimately, this can be a problem with all survey research and a particular problem with social network surveys and therefore response rate should be reported (perhaps as a strength or a limitation) when reporting the results. We recommend reporting initial findings back to your network at various intervals as a method to encourage them to participate.

Q: I can’t get the analysis tool to work, is there something wrong with the version I have?

A: Try enabling the macros in the analysis tool excel file. There should be an “Options” button that automatically appears, click the button and choose “Enable Macros”.

Q: Can I upload the completed surveys in any order?

A: Yes, you can upload the data files in any order at any time. If you save a new file, it will contain updated data. If you want to save the old data, just make sure that you name the file differently from the old file.

Q: Now I have data, what do I do next?

A: PARTNER data are meant to be used as a Quality Improvement process, focused on strategic planning (to steer decision-making). To do this you will need to identify your goals (plan), implement your collaborative activities (do), gather PARTNER data (study), and develop action steps to get you from where you “are” to where your goals indicate you “should be” (act). For further resources, see PARTNER recorded Web Demo 9, this article on Data Driven Management Strategies (Varda, 2011), or the Technical Manual.

Q: Can I use the survey and PARTNER Tool more than once?

A: Yes, you can use the PARTNER tool and survey as many times as you desire. Simply request that a new collaborative(s) be created for you at Partnertool@ucdenver.edu, and then manage that collaborative from your same manager account. The best approach to analyzing your subsequent collaboratives in the PARTNER tool is to always start with an empty tool– that is, one without data in it. An empty file is always available on the www.partnertool.net website. To download a new empty Analysis Tool, click here and click on “PARTNER EMPTY FILE”.