In fact, a recall of the sort using a question that has no open-ended part is formatted as a dropdown list on the basis of the response categories. Before you ask, yes, the answer categories displayed respect the display conditions and process the recalls in the response texts.

Can’t stop progress.

• # cwextr zip password = some_password
• # cwcompile zip password = some_password
• # cwarchive zip password = some_password

All three take a password (without spaces) after the equal sign. The password is used by the zip utility when the compression of the information is performed.

# Auto calcul xxx = (xxx can be any string uniquely identifying this instance of AUTOCALCUL)

#>      active = (yes or no, whether the instruction is currently active; the default is yes),

#>     selection = [ (MySQL expression identifying which cases to calculate in the data base; must be within square brackets) ],

#>     calcul = (name of the CALCUL-type question in the questionnaire which is run),

#>      reportto = (e-mail address to send reports to; supersedes the administrator_email installation instruction),

#>     store = (name of the CallWeb open-end part where the timestamp of the calculation will be stored),

#>     repeat = (hourly|daily|weekly|monthly, pattern of repetition for running the calculation)

#>      when = (hhmm, the time at which the calculation will be run and repeated *in the case of hourly the time at which the calculation first runs*)

I am currently Styling my labels and would prefer if the text was not within a label* (see correction in comments).  The other elements which also use SPECIAL_COLUMN# are not in labels.

Additionally,  if Block 1 Row 0 has no text in % text and Block 2 does have text in % text,  block two does not appear since the table is taking instruction from the first question.  This is something I would prefer worked more intuitively by producing block 1 as empty and block 2 with it’s text.

As well it would be nice to have an additional corner=() instruction so that when using a 3+ block table text could be filled in the new box created above the original corner text.

Finally the % text portion of the table is styled as SPECIAL_COLUMN1 I would prefer if these headers each had an independent style control such as

SPECIAL_TH0 = Controls the box above the corner text

SPECIAL_TH1 = Controls the box row 0 block 1

et cetera.

We have also added a new function that could prove particularly useful in such display conditions: the n_calls function which returns the number of calls in the case call history (for all calls or for a subset of them).

This opens a world of new possibilities.

Yet, we were not satisfied. The cwemail.cgi module interface required that the Web page stays open as long as e-mails were being sent. The Autoemail instruction was tethered to the cwemail.cgi module and, thus, not optimal in its use of server resources.

Therefore, we have endeavoured to redesign the e-mail management system. While the cwemail.cgi “Classic” mode is still available, it offers a new mode: the Turbo mode. In this mode, cwemail.cgi does not send the e-mails; it merely creates one e-mail request for each message and then it lets the CallWeb daemon mode do the mailing.

Similarly, Autoemail does not perform the actual mailing anymore: it extracts the relevant cases from the data base, formats the messages and hands them to the daemon to handle.

Both cwemail.cgi and Autoemail now send a report (by e-mail!) to the administrator of the CallWeb instance or to the address mentioned in the REPORTTO parameter of the Autoemail instruction to confirm the results of the campaign.

Since the CallWeb daemon is already running on the server to handle requests for questionnaire pages and bounce-backs from previous e-mail campaigns, the handling of e-mail distribution is vastly faster than before. We estimate that the speed advantage is tenfold. In fact, we felt compelled to include some limits in the daemon as to the number of messages it would send every second so as not to appear too eager to the Internet world. Concurrently, because the daemon is so lean, CallWeb is able to generate this e-mail productivity improvement while using less server resources.

Another advantage of this redesigned system is that the mechanism to limit the number of messages sent to any one domain (to reduce the risks of server blacklisting) is now handled server-wide rather than for only one batch of messages. Previously, two message campaigns could be run concurrently and each limit messages sent to any given domain to, say, 5 seconds; however, because the campaigns were run independently, the server would actually send mail more quickly to each domain than expected by each campaign. The new system ensures that the delay between two messages to the same domain is enforced server-wide.

This is a really exciting improvement in this important area of Web survey management. I hope that all CallWeb users benefit from it.

Up to now, cwautomail.pl could only run a single instance at a time on a given server. That meant that autoemail tasks had to be queued and that a large autoemail task would significantly delay other ones.

Now, cwautoemail.pl is launched within each CallWeb instance such that one instance will not delay another. This means that a small change needs to be made in calling the script (typically in a cron job): the instance client name (the “client” line in the instance usager.conf file) must be added as an argument to calling the script as in:

perl cwautoemail.pl CLIENT &

If you want to remain at the cutting edge of functionalities, please update your CallWeb instances. Otherwise, wait a week or two before updating, just in case we make some small correction along the way of this major deployment.

Before implementing the update, it is important to read the page of the documentation dedicated to this new system, i.e.:

http://callweb.ca/doc/PERMISSIONS

and to plan the timing and strategy of the update.

The CallWeb team is available to discuss this update if need be. The new access management system is a major improvement of CallWeb’s security characteristics.