NOTE: Only Users with Administrator or Reviewer roles can edit a repository item.
To edit an item in the repository:
- Locate the item in the right pane of either the Browse Categories or Search Results tab of the Repository Explorer.
- Double click on the item in the right pane of the Repository Explorer. This causes an editable version of the item to appear.
- Edit the item as needed. (Descriptions on how to use the various types of editors are available in the section “Using the Survey Designer.”)
- Click OK.
- A dialog asks “Would you like to approve these changes for immediate use?” Answering “yes” will save the changes and make the item immediately available to all designers. Answering “no” will save the changes and leave the item unavailable to designers until the changes have been approved.
A Note on Versions
Once the item has been edited, its version number increases by one. Any surveys that include this item will continue to include the item without the changes just made.
This is by design, for the following reasons:
Assume that a question in the repository asks “What is your age?” The question has three response options:
1) Under 30, 2) 31-60 and 3) Over 60. The version number of the question is V1.
Three surveys include this question, and two of them are running.
A user goes into the repository and edits the question so that the options are now: 1) Under 18, 2) 18-35, 3) 36-50,
4) 51-64, 5) 65 or older.
When the user saves these changes, the version changes to V2.
The three existing surveys that include this question will continue to include version V1 of the question because changing this question in a published survey would likely result in unreliable data.
Participants who saw version V1 of the question would have been indicating an age “Over 60” when they checked option number 3, while those who saw version V2 of the question would have been indicating an age between 36 and 50 when checking option number 3.
In such a case, there would be no way of knowing what a participant intended when he or she chose option 3 in response to the question.
This is why changing an item in the repository does not automatically change the item in surveys that have included the item prior to the change.
If you want your survey to include the updated version, you must open the survey and manually update the repository item using the Get Latest Repository Version menu option.