When analyzing your missions, you may choose to tag your entries. Tags are labels for identifying themes and/or keywords that are relevant to your project. These tags are shared across your team but are not viewable by scouts. Tags can be created and managed in both a launched and closed mission.

There are some key features of tagging in the dscout platform that this article will dive into:

• Creating and editing tags in the Tag Management page
• Applying a tag outside of the Tag Management page
• Using filters on Tag Management charts
• Reviewing responses and using filters on tagged response details page
• Exporting tag data
• Importing tags and tag groups
• Further information

Creating and editing tags in the Tag Management page

In Diary, Express, and screeners, you can navigate to the tag management page by hitting on “Entries” in the mission header and selecting the “Tags” option.  In Live, head to the sessions tab and click “TAGS.”

For all dscout products, you can jump right in and create a tag in the existing “Ungrouped” tag group by hitting “+ New Tag.” As you create new tags, they will appear in its group chart with a “0” count, which indicates that the tag has not been applied to any response content yet. 

To edit or move a tag, hover over the tag you want to adjust and click the pencil icon that appears. From there, you can change the tag’s title, move it to another tag group, or delete the tag altogether. 

If you already have a sense for the tag groups you want to make, that works great too. You can click the “+ New Tag Group” button at the top of the page, just above the ungrouped tags. Once you have clicked this button, your “Untitled Group” will appear. Click on the more details icon on the right side and you'll be able to edit the name and tag group color, as well as provide an optional description of the group.

Note: there is a limit of 1000 tags per mission, and 100 tags per tag group.

Applying a Tag Outside of the Tag Management Page

You can apply tags directly in a scout’s entry, via the open ended responses tab, or in the transcript of a session if you are using Live. 

To apply a tag to an open ended or video response in an entry, you can either hit “Tag Response” below the question you want to tag, or you can highlight a section of the response and click “Apply Tags (#).” Either of these actions will cause a pop-up with a list of your existing tags to appear. If you have already created the tag that you want to use for this question, simply find your desired tag and click on it. If this is a new tag, type in its title and hit enter, which will allow you to indicate which group the tag belongs to. 

The open ended response tab is a great way to hone in on one question and apply tags across a number of scouts. In the tab, you can choose the question you want to analyze and see all the responses to it below. To apply a tag, follow the same instructions described above. 

To apply a tag in Live, navigate to a scout’s session, and then highlight the portion of the transcript you wish to tag, and follow the same steps described above for Diary, Express and screeners.  

Using filters on Tag Management Charts

Once you have started tagging responses, you’ll be able to see a chart that displays the total number of responses by tag within each group. If you would prefer to see counts for the number of entries or scouts represented, you can use the options to the right of the “Show Count By” header at the top of the page. 

In Diary, Express, and screeners, you are also able to apply filters when looking at the tag management charts to focus on certain groupings of scouts. You are able to filter on a number of different factors, including demographics, scout groups, responses to closed ended questions, and even other tags.

Reviewing Responses and Using Filters on Tagged Response Details Page

When looking at the tag management charts, you’ll notice that hovering over a tag with a count greater than 0 will show a tooltip that says “View Responses”. Click on the row of the tag to view all of the responses with that specific tag. In Diary, Express, and screeners, the grouping of responses will depend on which “Show Counts By” setting (response, entry, or scout) you are currently on. In Live, you will see the highlighted part of the transcript that you tagged. 

In Diary, Express, and screeners, you are also able to apply filters based on attributes, such as scout group, demographic information, answers to closed ended questions, or other tags to hone in on the specific scouts whose entries include your chosen tag.

Exporting Tag Data

To export tagging data in Diary, Express, and screeners, click the export button (square with an arrow pointing into it) in the top right corner of the Applications view. Click on “Tags” to view the export options. You can choose to export tag counts, the tagged responses, or a list of your tag groups and tags, all of which download as a csv. As with all exports on dscout, any filters that you have applied will affect what is downloaded in your export. In Live, you can find these options by hitting “Export Tags” above the tag groups. 

Importing Tags and Tag Groups

To import your tag list, navigate to the tag management page and click on “Import Tags” in the top right corner of the screen. From there, you can either import tags from another mission/screener in the project, or you can import from a CSV file. This CSV file should have two columns, one titled “Tag Name” with a list of tags in each row below, and the other titled “Group Name” with the corresponding tag group for each tag. Please see below for what this CSV file should look like. 

If you want to import tags from another mission in a different dscout project, you can easily do so by exporting the “Tag Groups and Tags” from the other mission. This export will be in the correct CSV format to upload into your new mission. 

If you click on our example template and it downloads in Numbers, you will want to import the file into Google Sheets or Excel. In Google Sheets, you can click “file,” then “import,” attach the CSV file, hit “import data” and then click on “open now” to see the correctly formatted sheet. In Excel, you can navigate to the Data tab, click on “Get External Data” in the top left corner, and select “From Text.” From there, select the our example template CSV file, hit “Get Data,” and make sure to set “comma” as the delimiter. As long as your file follows the same format as the image included above, you should be all set to import your tag list!

Further information

Now that you know the ins and outs of creating tags, managing tags, and the tag management tab, you may be wondering how to best utilize these features. To learn more about how we code and tag qualitative responses to gain a greater understanding of our data, check out this article from our very own People Nerds blog post. 

If you have further questions about tagging feel free to reach out to someone from the dscout team.