). MDSS is NOT a marketing research company and will NEVER disclose or use your data for any purposes other than providing conversion services for you.First, we will ask you to provide a recent backup of your files so that we can write the conversion programs. After the protocol is developed and we have successfully completed a "dry run" conversion, we will have you send us (via overnight carrier or electronically) the most up to date files for the actual conversion.
If you are not using your existing database regularly, we will use the most current version of your files to program, test, and complete the conversion.
What it costs
The price of data conversion is primarily determined by the number of respondent records to be converted. As a general rule of thumb, data conversion costs average 10˘ per respondent record (<25,000 records); 8˘ per respondent record (25-75,000 records); and 6˘ (>75,000 records). This estimate includes converting participation or experience data for your respondents as well as client information.
A cost estimate for data conversion will be included in a Purchase Agreement for the software. You will be responsible for paying 50% of this estimate, along with the cost of the software, at the time of the order. After the conversion is complete, we will bill you again for the final cost of conversion, less your initial down payment.
The cost of data conversion will also be affected, to a lesser extent, by factors other than file size. These include the number of custom multi-select fields created and the number of categories in each field. We charge by the hour for special programming that may be needed on a case by case basis.
The final conversion cost will not vary by more than 15% (plus or minus) from the estimate we provide.
At your request, we will provide you with a worksheet detailing your final data conversion bill.
What you can do to prepare
Our experience with data conversion is diverse. Each company's data is unique in some way and requires a slightly different approach. However, we have found there are four major issues which must be addressed in most conversions. Customers who are able to respond to these issues--either through data clean up prior to conversion, or through discussions with us during the conversion process--get better quality data and are able to transition to the new system more quickly.
Issue #1: Converting text entries to coded entries.
When you enter information in text form, typographical mistakes occur. In addition, each data entry person tends to use his or her shorthand or abbreviations. Consider these entries for the same bank:
First Union Bank
1st Union Bank
First Union
First Union Bnk
Fust Union Bank
It is not cost-effective to write a data conversion procedure that will find and correct all the variations in spelling for this entry. If you are able to clean up most of the typos and abbreviations prior to sending us your data, a higher percentage of your data will be converted correctly.
Issue #2: Converting text entries to logical categories.
Your text fields will also require categorization. In some cases, this is easily done. For example, the logical categories for "marital status" are "single" "married" "widowed" and "separated/divorced". In other cases, we will ask for your assistance in identifying a list of categories. For example, the field "occupation" should be broken down into categories that are consistent with the way you collect and use this information. We will ask for your assistance in developing a list of categories.
Issues #3: Data conversion from various files.
If you have a number of files (e.g. males, females, kids, participation, professionals, etc.) we will need to develop decision rules to consolidate and link this information to conform with the database structure used by Research Tracker®. We will ask for your assistance in this process and discuss your options.
Issue #4: Eliminating duplicate records.
Our normal conversion procedures will eliminate some, but not all duplicate records in your files. This is because duplicate records are seldom identical . MDSS now offers a professional
