Custom connection properties. The QDI/DRS DSC now supports a number of unique custom connection properties. For more information, see Custom connection properties used by QDI/DRS DSC.

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

Improved handling of invalid characters. QDI/DRS DSC now ignores certain characters if they appear in response texts. The characters that are ignored are exclamation mark (!), asterisk (*), equals sign (=), tab, and square brackets ([ and ]).

Dates and times. QDI/DRS DSC now reads dates and times correctly.

Better names for loop iterators. The names assigned to loop iterators now match those generated by other DSCs, for example, loop[{Brand_1}].loop.

Category names. QDI/DRS DSC now creates category names directly from the response texts, in the same way as other DSCs. Earlier versions created category names of the form rnumber. This change makes it much easier to specify filters on categorical data exported by QDI/DRS DSC.

.dru files. QDI/DRS DSC no longer reports errors when reading .dru files.

Card and column information. QDI/DRS MDSC now adds card and column information as custom properties.

Better handling of records containing dirty data. When reading .qdi or .drs files that contain dirty data, using select * from vdata now returns all records but leaves blanks for data that is incorrect. Previously, no records were returned.

Dealing with missing files. QDI/DRS DSC now issues an error message and exits if it is not given a valid MDM document or if the file location connection property is empty.

Improved category names. QDI/DRS DSC now bases the category names on the unique ID, if there is one, and otherwise on the response text. This means it is easier to link the categories to the responses in the original data than in previous versions (where categories were given arbitrary names of the form r1, r2, r3, and so on.).

Problems resolved. A number of problems have been resolved. These include some problems related to reading Other Specify and open-ended data.

DBASE questions. This question type is typically used in Quancept CATI interviews for very large product lists, such as models of cars or printers. The list of categories is stored in a database and the .drs file stores the response that was chosen as a numeric value that identifies the category in the database list. In UNICOM Intelligence Data Model 2.4, these responses were stored in a text variable. However, in UNICOM Intelligence Data Model 2.5 and later, they are stored in a numeric variable, which makes it easier to analyze the results.

Improved nested loop handling. In UNICOM Intelligence Data Model 2.4, QDI/DRS DSC could not read .qdi files that contained nested loops (loops within loops). In UNICOM Intelligence Data Model 2.5 and later, QDI/DRS DSC can handle .qdi files that contain loops with one level of nesting.

Names of Quancept loop variables. In UNICOM Intelligence Data Model 2.4, the names of variables that are part of a Quancept loop construction were prefixed with the text "Array_". In UNICOM Intelligence Data Model 2.5 and later the names of the variables are no longer prefixed in this way.

Improved handling of Other Specify responses. In UNICOM Intelligence Data Model 2.4, QDI/DRS DSC stored only the text responses to an Other Specify category and any coded responses were ignored. In UNICOM Intelligence Data Model 2.5 and later, QDI/DRS DSC handles the coded responses to an Other Specify category correctly.

Double quotation marks in category names. In UNICOM Intelligence Data Model 2.4, QDI/DRS DSC ignored any responses that start or end with a double quotation mark ("). For example, QDI/DRS DSC would ignore a response with the text "With difficulty". This problem was resolved in Data Model 2.5.

Improved handling of unasked questions. In UNICOM Intelligence Data Model 2.4, QDI/DRS DSC incorrectly returned an empty categorical value ({}) for responses to categorical questions that respondents had never been asked (for example, because they had been routed around them). In UNICOM Intelligence Data Model 2.5 and later, QDI/DRS DSC returns a NULL value for unasked categorical questions.

Improved error handling. In UNICOM Intelligence Data Model 2.4, when an unexpected problem was detected in a case data record, QDI/DRS DSC sometimes rejected all of the subsequent records in the file. Improved error handling means that this should no longer happen. The error messages have also been improved.