How to fill in and submit the statistical eForm

Search eForm

After successfully logging in and entering the Electronic Data Collection (eCollection) application, the Statistical Forms tab displays the Statistical Form Search window with the items Year of the statistical survey, Name of the statistical questionnaire, and Name of the reporting unit.

You can search for the eForm by filling in the individual items from the drop-down menu:

State of the survey

Before the survey is available to the reporting units in the system, it is in the state Initialised. This state does not allow the data to be filled in the eForm.

Only when the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic changes the state of the survey to In Progress, the eForm becomes available for filling in the data.

You will be informed of the availability of electronic data collection (status of survay is in progress) by sending a Notification of Invitation to fulfil the reporting obligation to your e-mail address. If you do not have a completed e-mail address in our system, the Notice will be delivered to your electronic inbox.

eForm components

The screen components when working with eForm are Information, Questionnaire, Error Messages, Comments and Tasks.

Information tab

You will be presented with the cover page of the statistical questionnaire, addressing the respondent with basic information about the statistical survey and the deadline when you are obliged to submit the completed statistical questionnaire. When you press the Continue to Questionnaire button, you will be taken to the statistical survey eForm. You can also navigate to the form via the Questionnaire tab at the top of the screen. To return to the search and view all survey eforms, click on List of the Questionnaire. In this case, you are leaving the original eForm, save any data you have already filled in.

Questionnaire tab

Displays the main content of the questionnaire, which consists of modules, sections, and eForm function menus. The home section of the questionnaire contains modules with contact information:

Contact Information in the eForm

Contact information on the Department of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic

In the introductory part of the eForm, under the respondent's address, the information which relevant regional department processes your report is given.

Contact information of the processor questionnaire for methodological assistance

At the beginning of the data section of the eForm, in module 100387, the name, telephone number and e-mail of the staff member who will provide you with methodological assistance and answer your questions are given.

Contact information for the person completing the eForm

Module 100307 is intended for filling in the contact information of the person who completes the eForm on behalf of the reporting unit with the obligation to submit the statistical return. These data should be completed in the first period of inclusion in the statistical survey. For any change in the contact informations, they need to be updated in the following periods.

Print

The drop-down menu allows you to Print Questionnaire, Print Questionnaire without Explanatory Notes, Print Questionnaire Errors, Print Attachments (metadata for administrative systems) and Print Comments.

Check

The predefined checks of the filled data are started, any errors detected will be displayed by the system in an error message.

Save as work in progress

The system performs predefined checks on the format of the completed survey variables and saves the questionnaire as a work in progress.

Send to

To send the questionnaire, press the Send button.  All the predefined controls over the report are run before the questionnaire is submitted. The system will display an error message if it identifies an error.

After the questionnaire is submitted to the system, a window will appear on the screen indicating that the submission was successful. At the same time, you will receive an automatic notification message, Confirmation of Delivery, preferably to the email address you entered in Edit your Profile.

Content (of the questionnaire)

Use the quick navigation Content to click on the module code to go directly to the desired module in the questionnaire. Throughout your work in questionnaire, you can use this functionality to navigate to individual modules or sections of the questionnaire.

Typing in the eForm

Enter key / Tab key / Right arrow / Left arrow

You move to the next or previous survey variable (data field).

F2

If the cursor is on a text variable (not a numeric or code variable), pressing F2 will open the extended text entry dialog.

List of modules in the questionnaire

Click on the appropriate module number in the Table of Content to be set to the beginning of the module in the questionnaire. You can also use the Page Up and Page Down buttons to move between modules.

Icon "i"- methodological help

Clicking on the "i" (lower case i) icon in the modules of the questionnaire will display the methodological help.

Survey variables – code lists

Some survey variables have a drop-down menu (arrow) to which the code list is linked. The list is expanded by clicking the Enter key. Move the arrow keys to select a value from it. When working in the eForm, you can turn off the hint function to search for items by text. Pressing the Escape (Esc) key will deselect the current selection and will move to the next variable.

Error message and red box

A box with red borders is displayed if an incorrect type of value is entered (e.g. if the data is to be numeric, letters cannot be entered; some data cannot have a negative value; entering a dot instead of a decimal point; the number of digits in the numeric data and the number of decimal digits must not be greater than the defined range, etc.).

Asterisk *

The entry is mandatory. Red indicates that the mandatory data is not filled in.

Date

When you type or correct the value of a survey variable that is of type date, you select the date from the available calendar.

Key functionalities of the eForm

There are functionality buttons at the bottom and top of the eForm:

Error list

Green indicates an informative error

This is a preventive check for completed or incomplete data. If the data you have filled in is correct, consider this message to be informative, e.g. number format not followed, number of spaces exceeded, mandatory item not filled in. You can also submit the eForm with informative errors.

Orange indicates a serious error

This is an error such as an unfilled item or module, e.g. an invalid entry in a dial-bound discovery variable, an incorrect checksum. You will be able to submit the questionnaire even with these errors, but you will be contacted by the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic and asked to correct them.

A red mark indicates a blocking error that prevents the questionnaire from being submitted

This is an error such as incorrect data format, e.g. a text string instead of a number. Once the errors have been corrected, click the Submit button. If the system continues to display errors, click Cancel. Remove the errors again and resubmit the completed questionnaire.

Confirmation of successful submission of the questionnaire

Comments tab

Comment is a tool for your mutual communication with the questionnaire processor. You can upload a file (max. 5 MB) with the submission of a new comment. You can print comments from the Questionnaire tab in the Print drop-down menu if you choose Print Comments.

Tasks tab

Displays the status of the tasks you have created, e.g. in relation to the Import data from XML file.