Enquiries, Sources and Data Definitions: Handy Examples
Requesting information about a patient’s temperature:
| Name | BodyTemperature |
| Caption | What is the patient's temperature (in degrees Fahrenheit)? |
| Data Type | Real Note: Temperature is a continuous physical quantity |
| Range | - |
| Default Value | - |
| Selection Mode | Single-value |
| Status | Mandatory |
Requesting information about a patient’s smoking habits:
| Name | SmokingHabit |
| Caption | Does the patient smoke? |
| Data Type | Boolean Note: a choice of Yes or No |
| Range | - |
| Default Value | - |
| Selection Mode | Single-value |
| Status | Mandatory |
Requesting information about the patient’s marital status:
| Name | MaritalStatus |
| Caption | What is the patient’s marital status? |
| Data Type | Text |
| Range | Single, Married, Divorced, Separated, Widowed |
| Default Value | - |
| Selection Mode | Single-value Note: The patient can only belong to one category |
| Status | Mandatory |
Requesting information about the patient’s symptoms:
| Name | Symptoms |
| Caption | What are the patient’s symptoms? |
| Data Type | Text |
| Range | Headache, Nausea, Vomiting, Sensitivity to light, Other |
| Default Value | - |
| Selection Mode | Multi-value Note: The patient may have more than one of the above symptoms |
| Status | Mandatory |
Requesting interdependent information
If the end-user selects Other for the above source (Symptoms), what are the other symptoms?
| Name | SymptomsOther |
| Caption | Specify other symptoms |
| Data Type | Text |
| Range | - |
| Default Value | - |
| Selection Mode | Multi-value Note: The patient may have more than one of the above symptoms |
| Status | Optional Note: The enquiry can complete without this data (e.g., if the patient doesn’t have other symptoms) |
Note: alternatively, the two sources could belong to two different enquiries; the enquiry holding the SymptomsOther source would run after the enquiry holding the Symptoms source; and it would only run if Other was selected for the Symptoms source. In this case, the status of the SymptomsOther source would probably be mandatory.
Using sources for internal data collection
Contrary to the examples above, the following source does not request data from the end-user, but from the process itself. As the status of the source is set to optional and it has a default value (0), it isn’t displayed to the end-user.
| Name | BMI |
| Caption | |
| Data Type | Real |
| Range | - |
| Default Value | 0 |
| Selection Mode | Single-value |
| Status | Optional |
Note: This source can serve as an internal variable: it can be used in expressions and assertions, e.g., BMI = Weight/Height where Weight and Height are collected by other sources from the end-user.