Interviews

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.