You can now use the DataFormat custom property in your card, column, and punch definitions. By setting the DataFormat to "numeric," you can export categorical variables as numerics. For more information, see Card, column, and punch definitions.

Hierarchical view of the data. The new Table Services DSC is used to provide a hierarchical (HDATA) view of the data for the Quantum DSC and other CDSCs that support only a flat (VDATA) view. As a result, data accessed using the Quantum DSC will be treated as hierarchical in UNICOM Intelligence Reporter. For more information, see Table Services DSC.

Update capability. Quantum DSC can now update numeric variables in an existing Quantum-format ASCII file. You can use this capability to add weights to a Quantum file. The UNICOM Intelligence Developer Documentation Library is supplied with a sample Data Management Script file called QuantumWeighting.dms that demonstrates how to do this. For more information, see Sample DMS files.

Read capability. Quantum DSC can now read response (case) data from any Quantum-format ASCII file. You can use the read capability to analyze your Quantum data in UNICOM Intelligence Reporter or to transfer your Quantum data to any other data format supported by the UNICOM Intelligence Data Model. You must first create a questionnaire definition (.mdd) file that contains card, column, and punch information that accurately describes the format and contents of your Quantum file. For more information, see Reading from a Quantum file.

MDSC capability. Quantum DSC has been extended to include MDSC capability. This means that it is now able to write out a Quantum specification based on the card, column, and punch definitions in the .mdd file. You can use this functionality to write out a Quantum specification in a script, such as a DMS file. For more information, see The Quantum specification.

Performance improvements. UNICOM Intelligence Data Model 2.8 includes internal changes to the CDSC to improve performance when transferring data.

Working with hierarchical data. In UNICOM Intelligence Data Model 2.8, Quantum DSC is not designed for use in data sets that cannot be represented in a flattened form. For example, it is not designed for use with Quanvert levels projects or other metadata that contains unbounded loops (Array objects of type mlLevel).

Improved date handling. Quantum DSC previously exported date variables as the numeric values in which the data is stored internally. Unfortunately these numeric values are not easily readable. Quantum DSC now formats all date and time values as a numeric value with the following format YYYYMMDDhhmmss, where YYYY is the year, MM is the month, DD is the day, hh is the hour, and so on. This is an internationally recognized date format and has the advantage that it is readable and easy to sort.

Improved serial number handling. Quantum DSC now uses the SerialFullName custom property to get the name of the variable to be used as the serial number. This is particularly useful when you are using Quantum DSC to export non-UNICOM Intelligence data to Quantum, because it means you can use any suitable variable as the serial number regardless of its name. (You can specify the variable to be used in Metadata Model to Quantum.) Previously, the serial number variable had to be called Respondent.Serial.

Improved handling of card, column, and punch definitions. Improvements mean that it is now easier to manage the definitions in projects in which questions and categories are added and deleted between versions. For more information, see Card, column, and punch definitions.