An UNICOM Intelligence project consists of the project's interview script, sample management script, associated case data, sample data, and DPM properties. Other interviewing systems might refer to a “project” as a “study” or a “campaign”.

The survey author creates the interview script with the UNICOM Intelligence Author or UNICOM Intelligence Professional applications. Both applications are used to build multi-mode interviewing scripts, and as such, provide all of the features that are required for building web, telephone, and personal interview scripts. Some features might not be relevant for each mode, and your mobile solution is not required to support all features.

Your mobile product might currently include features that are not supported by UNICOM Intelligence. The unsupported features can be set up in UNICOM Intelligence by MDM custom properties. Custom properties can be scripted in the Professional interface. You can also extend Author with your own wizard gallery items that provide a user interface to add the required custom properties.

After the interview script is completed and locally tested, the author activate or launches the project. Various properties can be set when the project is activated or launched. The properties can control the project, including whether personal (mobile) interviewing is supported or not, and whether sample and quota are used.

After the project is launched, the user can use the Interviewer Server Administration Interviewing Options activity to modify properties that control personal interviewing. However, this activity is not as heavily used for personal interviewing as it is for telephone interviewing because there are not as many properties to configure.

After the project is setup, as required, the project manager or supervisor makes the project available to interviewers through the User Administration activity. The field manager can assign projects to users directly or assign projects to roles, including the predefined FieldInterviewer role. The manager must also set the project status to Live through the Edit Project activity. The project is now ready to be synchronized to interviewer devices for interviewing.

Sample management, also known as “participants” or “participant management”, is setup during activation. Simple sample management, that supports the assignment of participant and sample records to interviewers, is available if the project is activated with a participant record file (and the correct properties). A sample management script implements the rules for retrieving and returning records. The interview script can be updated to also read and write sample fields.

Quota control requires creation of a quota matrix, interview scripting, and setup during activation.

The interview script can be separated into questions and routing. This information is made available in the example disconnected application as Question XML and Routing XML. The project properties are stored in the project or sample management specific areas of the distributed property management (DPM) system. The properties are made available in the example as, ProjectInfo XML SampleData XML, and Quota XML.