When an agent connects to CCA (either manually – by clicking connect on the main screen – or automatically, if automatically login is selected in the security tab of the settings dialog), four elements will be transferred, in the following sequence:
The device uploads all interview files (i.e. respondent data) to CCA. The server then imports them into the questionnaire (.qes) file.
The device downloads the latest version of the questionnaire.
CCA sends the current quotas set, along with any other files that have been selected by the administrator. Each quota and questionnaire file has a version number: the latter is based on the data within the file, so that if the contents of the file have changed, the application will detect it and automatically download the latest version from CCA.
CCA sends any messages from the administrator to the device.
When the device receives the latest version of the questionnaire and the quotas, it places the downloaded questionnaire in a download folder. Before a new interview is run, the device checks the download folder and, if necessary, updates the questionnaire file and quota information, as well as the interviewing software itself.
If any messages are sent from the administrator, an icon is displayed to the agent. When the agent clicks this icon, the message is shown. The agent may respond to the message by typing in the box at the bottom of the message window and clicking send.