Questions and Question Groups

Question Groups provide a means for collecting information about a user or a group that can then be used, for example, when assessing loan applications, poverty levels, and for measuring impact and creating exit and collateral surveys.  MFIs create a common set of  questions. Users can then choose from these questions when defining new question groups. Question Groups can be attached to entities or workflows.  The same question group can be attached multiple times to the same entity to track historical changes over time.  Question Groups replace both Additional Field and Survey functionality in Mifos 1.6.x and lower.

Questions

Question Group questions are defined from the Define questions link on the Admin tab, or during creation of a Question Group. They are defined at the Head Office level.

For each question, the user specifies the question title, the question, the question type and the possible answers, as described in the following table.

The user enters the possible answer choices one at a time. After each entry, he clicks Add, and the answer is added to the choice list. Once the answer choices are defined, he clicks Add Question, and the question is displayed as a preview. When the user has finished adding questions, he clicks Submit. The questions are added to the question bank and are available for use in question groups. The user is returned to the Admin tab.

Add question

Questions can be added from either Add Question in Admin, or during creation of a Question Group.

• More than one question can be added at a time.
• While adding a new question, a user can enter a question title and can set the corresponding answer type.
• Answer types can be free text, date, number, single select, multi select, smart select.  See below for more details on each.
• Preview of added questions is visible on the same page upon clicking “Add Question”.
• The preview of the question contains the following: question title, answer type, choices and the remove link.
• Answer choices can be added for single select / multi select / smart select answer types
• Each answer choice added can be removed
• On submitting the question, the user is taken to the Mifos Admin page.
• Adding a question without specifying the question title gives an error message in red on the top of the page asking the user to specify the question title.
• The user is prompted with a validation message if any of the following mandatory fields are not filled before submission: Title, Applies To.
• In the case of single select / multi select / smart select, if the user tries to add a question without entering more than one choice of answer, the user is prompted by a validation message.

Answer type: Free text

Any type of text can be entered as part of response for this type of question including special characters.

Answer type: Number

• Maximum and minimum values of the number can be entered
• A default value cannot be set.

Answer type: Multi Select / Single Select

This answer type should be used for questions where you want the user to choose one choice or multiple choices for answers.

• Any number of answer choices can be added.
• The answer choices added do not have to be unique
• Each choice can be removed by using the associated remove link before adding the question
• Tagging is not available for this answer type.  See Smart Select Answer type for this.
• Once a question has been added to the preview, clicking the remove button for this question will remove the question along with all its answer choices.

Answer type: Multiple Smart Select / Single Smart Select

This answer type can be used for questions where you might have categories, and you may want the user to have see answer choices and their tags when entering in answers.  For example, you may want to ask a client what their business activity is, and have categories of business activity.  Answer choices could be entered as Cow Purchase, Pig Purchase, etc.  A tag can be added to these answer choices as "Animal Husbandry".  Then, when the Loan Officer is entering the answer for this client's business activity, they can enter Animal Husbandry to see the detailed choices.

• For Multi Smart Select option there is no limit to the number of answer choices that can be selected.
• For Single Smart Select option only one choice from the list of added answers can be selected.
• Maximum 5 tags can be added per answer choice to give responder an idea of what all the answer choice incorporates
• Tags can be of max 50 characters
• A tag can be removed by clicking the cross beside it
• There is a remove link for each answer choice. Clicking on this removes the choice along with its tags.
• Both answer choices and the associated tags get stored as responses.
• Tags cannot contain special characters (Including white space), only alphanumeric characters allowed
• Tags are not arranged in alphabetical order
• User cannot view the tags associated with an answer choice on the Add Question screen, once a question has been added to preview.

View Question

• List of all questions can be seen
• The question title, answer type, the answer choices and the associated tags for each answer choice (if applicable) can be viewed.
• Questions can be edited by clicking the Edit link.
• No other information except the question title can be seen on the View Questions screen.
• Once a question has been created, it can never be deleted. It can only be set as inactive.

Edit Question

• Only one question can be edited at a time.
• Only the Title and status can be edited.
• The status of the question could be set to active or inactive by clicking on the corresponding radio buttons.
• A note is displayed on the Edit Question page at all points of time which says : Significant modification of questions could affect reporting
• By default, the status of the question is set to active
• Answer type of the question is not editable
• While editing a question for single select/ multi select / smart select / smart select
  • Additional answer choices can be added
  • Only newly added answer choices can be removed
  • Existing answer choices are visible but cannot be edited or removed
• For smart select, tags can be added to existing as well as new choices.  Tags can be removed for existing answer choices as well
• Both minimum and maximum values are editable for questions with numeric answer types.
• On submitting the changes, user returns to the view question details page and the changes are reflected on that page.
• The user is prompted with a validation message if mandatory fields are not filled before submitting.
• On cancelling the changes, user returns to the view question details page and none of the changes made are saved

Question Groups

A new question group is defined by clicking the Define new question group link on the Admin tab. The user names the question group, specifies where the question group applies to, and adds questions to the question group.

The fields are defined in the following attributes table.

Questions can be added to the QG from the Question Bank or creating new questions on the fly.  The user can select multiple questions from the Question Bank to be added to the survey.  The question name and the question itself are then displayed in the bottom portion of the screen.  The user can also add a new question while creating the QG.  The new question will be automatically added to the Question Bank.  If a question has already been selected for the Question Group, it cannot be added again.  The user can mark each question as mandatory.  By default, each question added is mandatory. He can click Remove to remove the question from the survey.  Questions can be reordered by clicking the arrows in the Order column.  Whole sections can also be reordered by clicking the arrows.

Add question Group

• Question Group Title, Applies to and Select Questions are mandatory fields.
• The admin can choose to make the response editable by checking in the ‘Is response editable’ option.  If this is checked, and the response to the question group is edited, the old answer choices are overwritten in the UI.  Historical data entered is still saved, but it is expected that reports may take the latest answers entered.
• A question group can be created for any of the following workflows
  • Create Client; View Client; Close Client; Create Group; View Group; Create Office; Create Personnel; Create Center; View Center; Create Savings; View Savings; Create Loan; View Loan; Disburse Loan; Approve Loan
  • For the "Create" workflows, the Question Group is displayed during creation of that entity.  For the "View" workflows, the QG can be attached to that entity.
  • If "Create Loan" workflow is selected, you can choose to have the QG automatically apply to all Loan Products. If this is not checked, then the user must go edit each loan product individually for the QG to apply to that loan product.
• Question Group can be attached to more than one workflow by clicking on desired workflows with Shift button pressed.
• There can be more than one section within a group.
• More than one question can be selected from the list of questions at one time.
• User can add any number of questions to the sections.
• The questions added to the section can be marked mandatory.
• If the user removes a particular section, all the questions within that section will also be removed.
• Removing all the questions within a section removes the section itself.
• The question list can be from the content typed in the text box corresponding to ‘Select Questions’, or new questions can be created on the fly.  See Add Question for more details.
• Simply adding the questions without mentioning the section title puts the questions within the default section Misc.
• If a question has already been added to some section, that question is no more a part of the list of questions in the drop-down available.
• A section should have at least one question within it.
• Question group title and the section title can both contain special characters (including spaces).
• When the user selects a question to be added to a particular section containing at least one question , but do not click ‘Add Questions’ and instead clicks submit, the user is taken to the admin page and the question does not get added.
• Two sections cannot have the same questions within them.

View Question Group

• View Question Groups lists all question groups created with the workflow it is applied to.  Because a Question Group can be applied to multiple workflows, a QG may be listed multiple times.
• A new question group can also be defined from the view question group page.
• On the particular question group page, I can view the following information :
  • The workflows it belongs to
  • Is the response editable
  • Questions within the question group, if the question is mandatory, and the status of the question (active or inactive).
  • Status of the question : whether the question is active or inactive
• Once a question group has been created, it cannot be deleted. It can only be set as inactive or it may be hidden if all the questions within that question group are inactive
• On the particular question group page, for questions within that question group, tags cannot be seen if the chosen answer type for the questions is smart select.

Edit Question Group

• Question group title can be edited
• Additional sections can be added to the question group
• Both new and existing questions can be added
• Only one question can be edited at a time.
• The status of the question group could be set to active or inactive by clicking on the corresponding radio buttons.
• By default, the status of question group is set to active
• On submitting the changes, the user is navigated to the view question group details page and the changes made to the question group are reflected on that page.
• On cancelling the changes, user returns to the view question group details page and none of the changes made are saved
• The ‘is response editable’ field can be checked or unchecked depending on whether the user wants the question group responses to be editable or not.
• Each question within a question group can be set mandatory or otherwise. By default, the mandatory option is unchecked.
• If a user leaves the section heading field blank and adds questions, these questions will be added to Misc section
• The list of existing questions limits itself to the text typed in the attached textbox.
• The section heading textbox populates itself with the last typed section heading. By default, the section heading is set to Misc.
• The workflows the QG applies to can be edited as well. If a QG is removed from a workflow, the answers saved remain the DB, but the QG no longer appears as available in the workflow.
• Section headings cannot be edited
• Within a question group, a question cannot be a part of more than one section.

Manage role based permissions for Question Group

When Question Group is created also additional permission is added. There is possibility to manage this permission in Admin tab, in Roles and permissions section. Thanks to this functionality there is a possibility to grant access for editing Question Group only to certain users.

Basic flow

1. User clicks on Admin tab.
2. User clicks on Roles and permissions under Manage organization section.
3. User chooses a role to edit.
4. Under Configuration Management section there is a new permission for every Question Group with checkbox that allows to enable/disable possibility to edit it.

Associating question groups to "Create" workflows

• A question group is created for this flow by selecting the ‘applies to’ field as ‘create' xxx depending on which entity.
• When question group is created belonging to ‘create ’ flow, the sections and questions within it can be viewed on the second page of the workflow questions during that entity's creation. The user is expected to respond to the questions on this page. The user will not be allowed to proceed to the next page if the questions have been marked mandatory in the question group definition.
• The question group name is not visible on the capture response page. The section headings and the associated questions are only visible.
• The sections and questions belonging to that question group are also visible on the ‘Review and submit’ page during client creation. The responses to the questions are also visible here.
• ‘Edit additional information’ button on the ‘Review and submit’ page lets the user edit the response to the questions belonging to the question group.
• The questions and the associated responses can be viewed by clicking on ‘View Additional Information’ link on client details page.
• The responses can be edited if ‘is response editable’ field has been set to yes in the question group definition. The responses edited and saved are versioned.
• For "Create Loan" workflow in particular, the loan product have this QG applied for it to be available.

Associating question groups to "View" workflows

• A question group is created for this flow by selecting the ‘applies to’ field as "view" xxx depending on which entity.
• Users can be made to respond to these question groups by clicking on ‘attach a survey’ on the right hand corner of entity details page.
• A question group can be selected for responding from ‘select survey’ which contains the list of all question groups associated with this workflow.
• After selecting a question group and clicking ‘continue’, the user is navigated to the capture response page for the selected question group.
• The question groups responded to and the date of response can be seen under the ‘Surveys’ label on the entity details page.
• The responses can be edited if ‘is response editable’ field has been set to yes in the question group definition. The responses edited and saved are versioned.
• Clicking on the edit link on the ‘view and edit questionnaire’ page lets the user edit the responses to the questions within the question group.
• The edited version is appended to the list of responded surveys along with the date of modification.
• The previous (non-edited) version of the responded question group also remains as part of the list.

Associating question group to Approve loan workflow

• A question group is created for this flow by selecting the ‘applies to’ field as ‘Approve Loan’
• When question group is created belonging to ‘approve loan’ flow, the sections and questions within it can be viewed on the capture response page for loan approval. The user is expected to respond to the questions on this page. The user will not be allowed to proceed to the next page if the questions have been marked mandatory in the question group definition.
• The question group name is not visible on the capture response page for loan approval. The section headings and the associated questions are only visible.
• The responses are not editable (even if the ‘is response editable’ field is checked in the question group definition)

Associating question groups to "Close" workflow

• A question group is created for this flow by selecting the ‘applies to’ field as ‘close' xxx depending on which entity.
• When question group is created belonging to ‘close ’ flow, the sections and questions within it can be viewed on the second page of the workflow questions during that entity's close. The user is expected to respond to the questions on this page. The user will not be allowed to proceed to the next page if the questions have been marked mandatory in the question group definition.
• The question group name is not visible on the capture response page. The section headings and the associated questions are only visible.
• The sections and questions belonging to that question group are also visible on the ‘Review’ page while closing loans/savings. The responses to the questions are also visible there.
• ‘Edit additional information’ button on the ‘Review’ page lets the user edit the response to the questions belonging to the question group.

Viewing responses to Disburse Loan, Create Loan workflows

• Currently, QG's can be applied to these workflows, but the responses cannot be viewed in the UI.  They are saved and available in the DB.  Issue MIFOS-4241.

Activate question groups

Mifos 2.0 allows MFIs the feasibility of creating question groups using XMLs. As soon as the XMLs are saved in the folder in the format. The $MIFOS_CONF/uploads/questionGroups and $MIFOS_CONF points to the users’ Mifos configuration directory. The files are named as "PPISurvey<QuestionGroup_NAME>.xml" where [QuestionGroup_NAME] should be replaced with the question group name that the user wishes to activate.  See Past Releases - PPI Surveys on location of these XMLs.

Data Migration

As a result of this feature being implemented in Mifos 2.0, existing additional fields and surveys are automatically migrated during the upgrade to 2.0.  Please see Important Information regarding this before you upgrade.

Linking question groups

It is possible to connect separate questions, so the question may be dependent on different one. If questions are linked, some of them may not be displayed if there is no such need.

To link questions, there is a need to specify:

PPI

Introduction

The Progress out of Poverty Index Survey is a country-specific survey that is used to determine the likelihood of a client belonging to a specific poverty level. An MFI uses this information on a portfolio level to calculate overall poverty rates. At the client level, the information is used to determine which products to offer a client or to track loan repayments/retention/recruitment rates of clients falling into each of the poverty buckets.  See Progress Out of Poverty website for more information.

The surveys for each country include 10 questions. For each question, points are associated with each possible answer. The total number of points for a completed survey is called the poverty index score. For each country, a poverty likelihood chart is defined that maps the poverty index score to a percentage indicating percentage likelihoods of poverty for the client.

PPI in Mifos

PPI's are available in the Question Group format in Mifos.  See Past Releases - PPI Surveys for information on location of these files and how to copy the relevant PPI QG for their MFI into the appropriate folder.  In Mifos, under Activate Question Groups, the Administrator can choose to activate the PPI Survey for their country.

Once activated, the PPI QG is automatically created in Mifos, set as active, and applied to the Create Client workflow.  The Mifos Administrator can navigate to View Question Groups to view the PPI QG and edit the workflows it applies to.  Questions can be reordered but should NOT be edited.  If they are edited, the PPI Scoring Tool will not work.

PPI's can be entered like other QG's.  Mifos BI 1.0 includes a PPI Scoring and Likelihood Tool that scores the PPI's entered into Mifos, and provides a PPI Data Export that lists clients and their PPI data.

See PPI Functional Spec for more information on PPI in Mifos.