Data and Reporting

Learning Statement: In this article you’ll learn how OMBEA Response stores data and how you can save it as well as use it to generate a variety of reports.
Audience: This article is aimed at all OMBEA users.

Background

When using OMBEA Response in PowerPoint, although it appears that you are working with a normal PowerPoint file, you are actually working with a .ORS file. This contains both your PowerPoint slides and your voting data, including participant lists. We use the word Session to describe a voting activity. A Session File is your .ORS file that results from the voting activity.

Saving your Sessions

  1. As you are working, save your file simply by clicking on the PowerPoint Save or Save As buttons as appropriate. OMBEA will automatically ensure that you are actually saving a complete session file.

If you wish to share your presentation with colleagues who do not use OMBEA, export it as a PDF file or save a copy as a normal PowerPoint file so that they can open it. If they make changes and send it back to you, make sure you open it within OMBEA and re-save it as an ORS file. You can check this by clicking Save As and ensuring that OMBEA Response Session File is selected in the File Type option in the PowerPoint Save As dialogue.

Loading your Sessions

  1. If PowerPoint is closed: Double-click on your saved session file from wherever it is on your computer. PowerPoint will launch with OMBEA Response embedded, and your file will open at the same time.
  2. If OMBEA is already running: Use PowerPoint’s Open dialogue to browse to your file and open it up as you would with any other file on your computer.
  3. If PowerPoint is running without OMBEA: Exit PowerPoint and then use option 1 above.

If you plan to reuse your presentation one or more times, then give your file a new name to indicate that it contains real voting data. Furthermore you may wish to indicate a date upon which the votes were collected. For example, if your presentation was called ‘Employee Survey’, then rename it to ‘Employee Survey with Voting Results December’. This way you can reuse the survey many times without overwriting any one set of results.

Producing a Report

Background

When you save your session after having collected votes from an audience, OMBEA saves the voting data alongside your presentation or question lists. Behind the scenes the voting data is broken down by individual and by question. If you used any enhanced features such as participant lists, demographic grouping, or competition settings, then these will also be available for reporting purposes.

  1. Open the session within which you saved the voting data.

  2. On the OMBEA Response Ribbon click Generate Reports.

  3. In the Reports Window, select a report style you wish to produce. If you click on the arrow next to each report name you will see a description of the report.

  4. By default OMBEA will produce your report in Microsoft Excel. If you wish to produce an Adobe PDF file instead, change this within the dropdown box beneath the list of reports.

  5. Click Generate.

  6. Give your report a name so that OMBEA can save it for you.

  7. OMBEA will save the report and offer to open it for you. Click Yes if you wish to open the report immediately.

The reports you generate can be saved and distributed to colleagues ‘as is’. They are no longer linked to your OMBEA system and so you can apply calculations and formatting changes to them without affecting your original voting data.

Clearing your data so you can reuse your slides

  1. On the OMBEA Response ribbon, click Clear Results.
  2. You have three choices in the dropdown menu, as explained below.
    1. Session History: This will clear all voting data from the current OMBEA Response presentation. This option is the most commonly used.
    2. All Interactive Slides: This will reset all the charts in your OMBEA Response presentation. The voting data already collected is still there so, for example, if you run a report you will see the questions reported on more than once. This option is useful if you wish to ask your audience the same questions again, and see the two instances of the questions reported on separately.
    3. Selected Interactive Slide: This will reset the current chart only in your OMBEA Response presentation. The voting data already collected is still there so, for example, if you run a report you will see the questions reported on more than once. This option is useful if you wish to ask your audience the same question again, and see the two instances of the question reported on separately.
  3. OMBEA will ask if you wish to save the current session. Pick an appropriate option.