How to Access Questionnaire Data Directly via API (Instead of Exporting Manually)?

API
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1

Hello,
I am currently using an API user to connect to the Survey Solutions Headquarters, where I start the data export job in the background. After the export completes, I extract the tab files from the ZIP archive and convert them into CSV format for data import into my system.

I would like to know if there is a way to integrate directly through the API to access questionnaire data without the need for manual export.

My system is built using the Python (Django) framework, and I’d like to automate data synchronization from Survey Solutions.

Is there an existing API endpoint or recommended approach to achieve this?

Thank you.

2

You will find links to existing REST and GraphQL API endpoints in this section of the documentation: Survey Solutions API

3

I managed to go through the documentation before and successfully listed the questionnaire, viewed interview metadata, and identified questions using GraphQL. I also initiated the export job and downloaded the zip file though export API. What I meant was whether there’s a way to view questionnaire data, like interviews, without downloading a zip file. In my case, I use Survey Solutions for household data collection, and after collecting the data iwant to I import it into my system direct without downloading zip file.

4

Hi Jeffharan,

to my best knowledge I dont think you can do that.

you can generate, download, extract the zip file and load the dataset directly from python.
I use this code to extract the zip file after downloading

def extract_and_read_sav(zip_file_path, sav_file_name, value_labels=True):
with zipfile.ZipFile(zip_file_path, ‘r’) as zip_file:
with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as temp_dir:
zip_file.extract(sav_file_name, temp_dir)
extracted_path = os.path.join(temp_dir, sav_file_name)
df, meta = pyreadstat.read_sav(extracted_path, apply_value_formats=value_labels)
return df

5

Thank you @yubraj I’m using the same approach, I was exploring if there’s an easier way to do that.

6

Assuming that by “questionnaire data” you really mean “interviews” then please note that supervisors routinely review incoming interviews without downloading any zip-files, and this is probably a case for giving that person a supervisor (or even an observer) account.

7

Thanks for clarifying! In my case, I have an API user primarily for importing data into my system, as I mentioned earlier, I was looking for a way to import data directly from Survey Solution without needing to export it first.

8

I think these are two sides of the same process. When you are transferring the data from one system to another we refer to it as export at the source and import at the destination:

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