Interviews & Focus Groups
Running conversations and recording what you were told.

Interviews
Overview — Two Halves of an Interview
An interview in NSCAT has two parts, and they are separate pages:
·        Composer — the question set. What you will ask.
·        Response — the record. What you were told.
GOOD TO KNOW  Interview questions are open questions. They collect written notes, not a scored answer from a fixed list — though you do apply a rating yourself when recording the response.
 
HEADS UP  Everything on this page needs Interviews access. Read access lets you open both pages read-only; write access is required to build a question set or record a response.
 
GOOD TO KNOW  Both pages autosave. A status chip beside the title shows Saved, Saving…, Offline, or Save failed — see Autosave & Drafts.
Creating an Interview
Choose Interviews → New Interview on the activity's menu. Then open its Composer.
Naming the interview
Interview Title names this interview. It is shown in the activity's menu, in the Interview Report, and in the Report Builder's Interview Name column.
Suggested format
Team [Letter] [Initials1] [Initials2]
  [DAY] [Date] [Time]
Examples
Team A MK NHR SUN 21 2:30 PM · 
Team B AM RS MON 22 9:00 AM · 
Team C JD PK TUE 23 2:00 PM
Maximum length
60 characters
Recommended
Under 30 characters — the hint warns above this but still lets you save
Duplicate names
You are warned — "Duplicate name detected — consider using a unique name" — but not blocked
An information button beside the field opens Interview Naming Examples with the format, the examples, and the tips.
PRO TIP  Follow the suggested format even though nothing forces you to. Including the interviewer initials and the date is what lets you find one conversation among twenty two months later, and what makes the Interview Report's interview names readable rather than a list of "Interview 4".
 
HEADS UP  The duplicate warning is advisory. Two interviews with the same name will save, and you will not be able to tell them apart anywhere in the reports. Heed the warning.
Building the question set
Control
What it does
Question selection
Adds questions from the shared pool. Only published questions appear.
Question Help Text
Optional prompt for the interviewer. The question text itself is read-only — it belongs to the pool.
Move Question Upward / Downward
Reorders the question set. Questions can also be dragged.
Save Interview
Commits the question set.
Clear Interview Question Data
Empties the question set.
 
HEADS UP  Clear Interview Question Data removes every question from the set. It is not an undo — you will be rebuilding from the pool.
The question count
The composer header shows a live count of what is in the interview:
·        Total Questions — a coloured chip
·        Demographic — how many of them are demographic questions
·        Interview — how many are interview questions
The total chip is colour-coded against a recommended range:
Total questions
Chip
Reads as
15 – 25
Green
A well-sized interview
10 – 14, or 26 – 30
Yellow
Workable, but off the recommended range
Under 10, or over 30
Red
Too short to be useful, or too long to complete
 
PRO TIP  Build to green. An interview of fifteen to twenty-five questions runs to about an hour with room for the conversation to breathe. Thirty-five questions means either a rushed interview or one that overruns, and both produce thinner notes than a shorter set would have.
 
GOOD TO KNOW  The count is guidance, not a rule. Nothing stops you saving a set of forty — the chip simply turns red. A deliberately short follow-up interview showing red is fine.
Three useful shortcuts
Control
What it does
Select and add multiple questions at once
Adds a batch of questions in one action instead of one at a time.
Export interview questions to Word document for offline use
Downloads the question set as a Word document.
Duplicate the current interview's questions into a new interview
Copies this question set into a new interview.
 
PRO TIP  Build your standard question set once, then duplicate it for every subsequent interview in the assessment. Asking the same questions across interviews is what lets the Interview Report aggregate them — a different set each time gives you a pile of unrelated conversations.
 
PRO TIP  The Word export is what you take into the room. A printed question set with space to write is far less intrusive than a laptop between you and the person you are interviewing, and you transcribe into NSCAT afterwards.
Duplicating into a new interview
The duplicate dialog lets you choose which questions to carry over — All and None buttons, plus per-question checkboxes — and asks for the New Interview Name. NSCAT proposes a name based on the current one with a timestamp and - Copy appended, and warns if the name you settle on already exists.
GOOD TO KNOW  Duplicating copies the questions, not the responses. You get a fresh interview ready to be conducted.
 
PRO TIP  Rename the copy properly rather than accepting the suggested "… - Copy". The suggestion exists so the save is not blocked, not because it is a good name. Apply your team's naming convention there and then, while you know which conversation it is for.
 
PRO TIP  Use the per-question checkboxes rather than always taking everything. A supervisor interview and an operator interview usually share most of a question set but not all of it — copying and then trimming is faster than building the second set from the pool.
Recording the Response
Each interview holds one response.
Menu item
When to use it
Submit Response
Recording for the first time. Only appears before a response exists.
Response
Opening the existing response to read or edit it.
 
GOOD TO KNOW  Submit Response disappears once a response exists. If you cannot find it, the response has already been started.
Who and when
Field
What to enter
Please Select Interviewer Names
Who conducted the interview. Multiple names allowed.
Enter Team Number
The assessment team's number.
Enter Group ID
An identifier for the group being interviewed.
Survey Date
When the interview took place.
Who you spoke to
Four demographic fields describe the interviewee, without naming them: Select Department, Select Level, Select Site, and Select Employment Type.
HEADS UP  These four are what let the Interview Report break findings down by department, level, and site, and what makes the Comparison Report meaningful. Skipping them leaves the interview contributing to totals but to no breakdown at all.
 
PRO TIP  Fill in the demographics first, before transcribing notes. They take ten seconds at the start and are the thing most likely to be forgotten once you are absorbed in writing up the conversation.
 
GOOD TO KNOW  Interviews are attributed by demographic group, not by name. The interviewee's identity is not recorded — which is what lets people speak freely.
Answering the Questions
For each question you record:
Element
What it captures
Response text
What you were told. Notes, or quoted wording where it matters.
Rating
Your judgement of the answer, on the activity's rating scale.
Themes related to this answer
The themes this answer speaks to.
 
GOOD TO KNOW  The rating options follow the activity's rating scale — three options on a 3-point activity, seven on a 7-point one. Unlike survey comment coding, this is not fixed at Negative / Neutral / Positive.
 
PRO TIP  Write enough that the note stands alone. "Concerns about handovers" means nothing in three months; "Said the night-shift handover is rushed because the outgoing crew leaves before the brief finishes" is evidence you can put in a recommendation — and it is what a keyword search will find when you go looking for that evidence later.
 
PRO TIP  Quote memorable wording directly. A respondent's own phrase carries more weight in a report than your paraphrase of it.
Where each question sits in the framework
Each question now displays its Trait and Attribute above the answer fields, read-only.
PRO TIP  Read the Trait and Attribute before you rate. They tell you what the question is for — a question about procedure adherence classified under a questioning-attitude Attribute is asking about something narrower than its wording suggests, and rating it against the wording alone puts a misleading number into that Attribute's score.
 
GOOD TO KNOW  These are set in the question pool by an administrator and cannot be changed here. If a question's classification is clearly wrong, tell your administrator — it needs a corrected copy published, because a published question cannot be edited.
 
PRO TIP  The displayed Attribute is also the quickest check on whether an answer belongs in Additional Traits. If what you were told is really about a different Attribute than the one shown, that is exactly the case Additional Traits exists for.
Navigating a long interview
Questions are paged, with a Jump to control for moving directly to a question.
PRO TIP  Use Jump to when a conversation ranges out of order — as real interviews do. Rather than forcing the discussion back to your sequence, jump to whichever question they have started answering and record it there.
Additional Traits
Beyond the theme tagging on each answer, you can record that an answer speaks to another part of the ISF — a trait the question was not primarily about.
For each additional trait you set:
Field
What it captures
ISF Framework
Which framework.
Trait
The trait, filtered to the chosen framework.
Attribute
The attribute, filtered to the chosen trait.
Rating
Your rating against that trait, on the activity's rating scale.
Themes for this trait (optional)
Themes specific to this trait.
Note — why does this trait apply? (optional)
Your reasoning.
 
PRO TIP  This is what stops good evidence being wasted. Interviewees routinely answer a question about one thing and reveal something about another — recording it as an additional trait means it counts where it belongs instead of being lost because the question was filed elsewhere.
 
PRO TIP  Always fill in the Note. It is optional, but "why does this trait apply?" is exactly the question someone will ask when they see an unexpected finding.
 
GOOD TO KNOW  The three ISF pickers cascade — Framework, then Trait, then Attribute.
 
HEADS UP  NSCAT warns you if you add the same Trait twice on one answer. Two ratings against the same Trait on the same answer would double-count in the Interview Report — use one entry and say what you mean in the Note.
 
GOOD TO KNOW  Additional Traits feed the Interview Report and appear as an option in the PDF export of this response.
Saving
Update Interview Response commits the response. The page also autosaves about two seconds after you stop typing.
GOOD TO KNOW  Watch the status chip. Saved means everything including your Additional Traits is on the server.
 
HEADS UP  An Offline or Save failed chip means your recent typing is not saved. Do not close the tab — see Autosave & Drafts.
 
PRO TIP  Write the interview up the same day. Notes taken on paper make sense for about twenty-four hours; after that you are guessing at your own shorthand.
Exporting a response to PDF
An Export PDF button on the response page produces a formatted PDF of the interview record. A dialog offers:
Option
Effect
Include themes
Theme tags on each answer.
Include ratings
The rating on each answer.
Include demographics
The interviewee's department, level, site, and employment type.
Include additional traits
The Additional Traits recorded on answers.
Colour output
Colour rather than plain.
Detail
Full or Summary.
Watermark
None, Draft, or Confidential.
Password (optional)
Password-protects the PDF.
 
PRO TIP  Use Draft while the write-up is still being reviewed and Confidential for anything leaving the assessment team. A PDF with no watermark circulating during an assessment is very hard to retract once someone treats it as final.
 
HEADS UP  Interview records can contain identifying detail — a role, a location, a quoted remark. Set a password on anything you send outside the team, and consider turning Include demographics off where the demographic combination would identify the person.
 
GOOD TO KNOW  Summary detail is the right choice for a report pack appendix; Full is what you want when someone is challenging a specific finding.
Common Problems
What you see
What it means
No Interviews group on the activity
You have no interview read access.
New Interview missing
Read access without write.
Submit Response missing
A response already exists. Use Response.
A question is not in the pool
Unpublished, deprecated, or another utility's. Ask an administrator.
Composer opens but nothing can be edited
Read access without write, or the activity is locked.
The question count chip is red
Under 10 or over 30 questions. Guidance, not a block.
Interview title warns about length or duplication
Advisory. It will still save — but heed the duplicate warning.
The Trait shown above a question looks wrong
Its pool classification is wrong. Tell an administrator.
Trait or Attribute picker empty
The level above has not been selected — they cascade.
Warned about a duplicate additional trait
You have added the same Trait twice on one answer. Use one entry.
The theme you want is missing
It does not exist yet. Ask an administrator.
Interview absent from report breakdowns
Its demographic fields were left blank.
Interviews will not aggregate in the report
They use different question sets. Duplicate one set instead of building each separately.
Autosave chip shows Save failed
Read access without write, or the activity was locked. See Autosave & Drafts.
Notes lost after a break
Check for a draft banner when you return before retyping.
Export PDF fails
Retry. If it recurs, reduce the detail level and try again.

Focus Groups
Overview — Group Conversations
A focus group records a group discussion rather than a one-to-one conversation. It works almost exactly like an interview: a Composer for the question set, and a Response for what the group said.
An activity can hold many focus groups, each with its own question set and one response.
GOOD TO KNOW  If you already know how interviews work, focus groups will be familiar — the structure is deliberately the same. This page covers the differences and the things specific to running a group.
 
HEADS UP  Focus groups need Focus Groups access, which is set separately from Interviews access. Having interview access does not give you focus group access, and the group will simply not appear on the activity's menu.
 
 
How Focus Groups Differ From Interviews
Three differences worth knowing before you start:
Feature
Interviews
Focus Groups
Add several questions at once
Yes
No — add them individually
Export questions to Word
Yes
No
Duplicate the question set
Yes
No
Additional Traits on an answer
Yes
No
Jump to question navigation
Yes
No
 
HEADS UP  Focus groups have no Additional Traits section. If a group's answer speaks to a part of the ISF the question was not about, there is nowhere to record that here. Capture it as an Observation instead, or it will be lost.
 
PRO TIP  Because there is no duplicate function, build your focus group question set once and keep the wording somewhere you can refer to — the exported Word document from an equivalent interview works well as a reference while you add the questions here.
 
 
Creating a Focus Group
Choose Focus Groups → New Focus Group on the activity's menu, then open its Composer.
The focus group composer.
Control
What it does
Focus Group Title
Names this focus group. Shown in the menu and in reports.
Question selection
Adds questions from the shared pool. Published questions only.
Question Help Text
Optional prompt for the facilitator.
Move Question Upward / Downward
Reorders the set.
Save Focus Group
Commits the question set.
Clear Focus Group Question Data
Empties the question set.
 
PRO TIP  Title focus groups by the group, not the number — "Maintenance Technicians — Unit 2" rather than "Focus Group 3". You will be looking for it in a list months later.
 
PRO TIP  Keep focus group question sets shorter than interview sets. A group discussion on one question takes far longer than a single person answering it, and a set built for a one-to-one will overrun badly.
 
HEADS UP  Clear Focus Group Question Data removes every question. With no duplicate function to fall back on, rebuilding is entirely manual — be certain first.
 
 
Recording the Response
Each focus group holds one response.
Menu item
When to use it
Submit Response
Recording for the first time. Only appears before a response exists.
Response
Opening the existing response to read or edit.
 
Session details
Field
What to enter
Please Select Interviewer Names
Who facilitated. Multiple names allowed.
Enter Team Number
The assessment team's number.
Enter Group ID
An identifier for the group.
Date
When the session took place.
 
PRO TIP  Focus groups usually need two people — one facilitating, one recording. Name both under Interviewer Names. Trying to run the discussion and take usable notes simultaneously produces thin notes and a poor discussion.
 
Who was in the room
Four fields describe the group: Select Department, Select Level, Select Site, and Select Employment Type.
HEADS UP  These four drive the report breakdowns. A focus group with them left blank contributes to totals but appears in no departmental, level, or site analysis.
 
GOOD TO KNOW  The fields describe the group as a whole. For a genuinely mixed group, pick the value that best characterises it — and if a group spans several departments in a way that matters, consider running separate sessions instead.
 
PRO TIP  Homogeneous groups produce better data. People speak more freely among peers, and a group that shares a department and level gives you a demographic attribution that actually means something.
 
 
Answering the Questions
For each question you record:
Element
What it captures
Response text
What the group said.
Rating
Your judgement, on the activity's rating scale.
Themes related to this answer
The themes the discussion touched.
 
GOOD TO KNOW  Rating options follow the activity's rating scale — three on a 3-point activity, seven on a 7-point one.
 
PRO TIP  Record disagreement rather than flattening it into a consensus. "Most said handovers work; two operators strongly disagreed and described being left without a brief" is far more useful than a middling rating and a bland note. Where a group splits, that split is the finding.
 
PRO TIP  Note how strongly a view was held and how widely it was shared. A group of eight where one person speaks is not the same evidence as a group where all eight agree, and the rating alone cannot show the difference.
 
HEADS UP  Rate the substance of the discussion, not the loudest voice in it. Groups have dynamics that individual interviews do not, and a single forceful participant can skew a note that then reads as the group's view.
 
 
Saving
Update Focus Group Response commits the response.
PRO TIP  Write up focus groups the same day, and ideally straight after. Group discussions produce more material than one-to-ones and it fades faster — who said what, and how the room reacted, are gone by tomorrow.
 
 
Common Problems
What you see
What it means
No Focus Groups group on the activity
You have no focus group read access — it is separate from interview access.
New Focus Group missing
Read access without write.
Submit Response missing
A response already exists. Use Response.
No Additional Traits section
Correct — focus groups do not have one. Record it as an observation.
No way to duplicate a question set
Correct — that is interviews only. Add questions individually.
No Jump to control
Correct — interviews only. Page through instead.
A question is not in the pool
Unpublished, deprecated, or another utility's.
Focus group absent from report breakdowns
Its demographic fields were left blank.
Everything read-only
Read access without write, or the activity is locked.