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The Integrated Microcomputer Processing System (IMPS) is a software package for entry, editing, tabulation, management, and dissemination of census and survey data. This release continues progress toward a complete Windows version of IMPS. It is a combination of IMPS 3.1 for DOS and several Windows modules. IMPS 4.1 lets you create and maintain data dictionaries, perform cross-tabulations with or without geographic areas, sort data files, view table and text files, and display geographic area tabulations as thematic maps.
During installation, both the Windows and DOS parts of IMPS are installed on your computer.
A minimum configuration:
A recommended configuration:
The setup takes you through a series of dialog boxes that prompt you for setup information. Accept default values if you have any doubts.
To start IMPS:
The following toolbar will appear on your screen.
Press any of the buttons on this bar to start an IMPS 4.1 module. The modules from left to right are:
You will want to start your use of IMPS 4.1 by creating or viewing a Data Dictionary.
Press the Data Dictionary button 
on the tool bar. A dialog box will open, asking you for a Data
Dictionary file name.
You can do the following:
Select the Data Dictionary Popstan.ddw in the IMPS41\Projects\Examples folder and press the Open button to inspect and edit it.
or
Press the Cancel button to create a new Data Dictionary.
or
Move to another folder to find an existing IMPS 3.1 or IMPS 4.0 Data Dictionary. IMPS 3.1 Data Dictionaries have the extension .dd, while IMPS 4.0 Data Dictionaries have the extension .ddw.
Try selecting Popstan.ddw and pressing the Open button.
IMPS is questionnaire-oriented, that is, it processes data files by questionnaire. The Data Dictionary module is used to create and maintain a description of the organization of a questionnaire in the data file. The other modules of IMPS use this Data Dictionary description to access data files.
A questionnaire can contain a single record, multiple records of the same kind, or multiple records of different kinds. If any questionnaire contains multiple records, then the questionnaire must have one or more Questionnaire ID items. These items, usually geographic codes and household or establishment codes, uniquely define all the records that belong to any given questionnaire.
In the Popstan Data Dictionary (Popstan.ddw) shown above, there are two kinds of records (record types), Person and Household. Because more than one kind of record exists, questionnaire ids are defined: Province, District, Enumeration Area, Building Number, and Housing Unit Number.
The Questionnaire Window shown above contains general information:
Each different kind of data record has attributes:
| Record Label | Identifier used by the Windows modules to refer to the record |
| Name | Identifier used by the DOS (IMPS 3.1) modules to refer to the record |
| Type Value | The value the record type for this kind of record |
| Required | Whether this record must be present or not in each questionnaire |
| Hierarchy | Hierarchy level of this record |
| Max | Maximum number of records of this type which may be present in a questionnaire |
Each of these attributes can be changed by clicking on them. Use the Add, Insert, or Delete buttons to add or remove records.
Questionnaire ID items are selected from the Common items. These items occur in the same position on each record. They are defined in the Common items Window of the dictionary. Items for each type of record are defined in the Record items Window of the dictionary. Use the following buttons to move between these windows.
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Questionnaire Window (yellow marks) |
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Common items Window (dark blue marks) |
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Record items Window (light blue marks) |
The Common items and Record items Windows are split. The top half contains a list of items:
| Item Label | Identifier used by the Windows modules |
| Name | Identifier used by DOS (IMPS 3.1) modules |
| Data | Type of data in the item (Numeric, Alphanumeric, or Mixed) |
| Item | Complete item or subset of a larger item (Item, Subitem) |
| Start | Location in a data record where the item begins |
| Len | Number of digits/characters in the item |
| Occ | Number of adjacent occurrences (repeats) of the item |
| Dec | Number of decimal places in the item (numeric only) |
| Sign | Whether the item is signed (can have negative and positive values) |
The bottom half contains a list of sets of values or categories of the item highlighted in the top half of the screen:
| Value Set | One or more names for a specific set of values which can be used to classify the data values associated with the data item |
| Value Label | Label for a value or range of values |
| From | A single value or the beginning value in a range |
| To | Blank for a single value or the last value in a range |
If you press the Common items button, , you
will see the following screen:
All the items listed here occur on both the Person and the Household records, that is, they are common to all the different record types. The values for the item highlighted at the top of the Window appear at the bottom on the Window. Each of the attributes can be changed by clicking on them.
You can use the Add, Insert, and Delete buttons under the toolbar to add and remove items, value sets or individual values. The buttons refer to items if an item is highlighted. They refer to values if a value set or value is highlighted.
If you press the Record items button, ,
you will see the following screen:
The data item Age is selected. Two value sets associated with Age are shown. The first is required to have the same name as the item label. The second, Age in 5 Year Groups, is a user-defined name. By defining different value sets, you can develop different categorizations for tabulation.
To move between different type records, select the record name from the drop list box under the toolbar. You can also use the arrow buttons to the right of the box.
The following buttons are useful to move records, items, and values around, reverse changes you have made, and for manipulating text in record, item, or value labels.
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Cut |
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Undo (reverse changes) |
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Copy |
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Paste |
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Find |
You can use the Layout button 
to produce a graphic view of the records. An example is shown below.
To produce a listing of the Data Dictionary, use the Report button 
.
Clicking this will allow you to select either a summary listing (names of records and data items
only) or a detailed report (summary plus all the value sets associated with the data items).
You can use the Text Viewer to look at the contents of any text file. The file can be up to 32,000 characters wide and indefinitely long. IMPS uses the Text Viewer to display the Data Dictionary listing (see previous page) and tabulation error reports. You also can use the Text Viewer to look at data files.
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You can start the Text Viewer from the IMPS 4.1 Taskbar button or from the Tools menu option of the Data Dictionary or Cross Tabulation. You can also use it to examine a text file from the Windows Explorer. Right click on the name of a text file. Select Send to and then TextView. The Text Viewer can view multiple files at the same time. By using the Window menu option, you can place files side by side vertically or horizontally. |
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You can use the Find button to search for text within a file. The search begins at the top of the current screen. You can search both forward and backward. The search strings used previously are remembered. |
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You can print all of the file (or part of the file, if you have selected (highlighted) text), by pressing the Print button. |
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You can change the size of the print font by pressing the Font button. |
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You can change the margins and place headings and footings on the printed file by pressing the Print Setup button. |
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You can see what your printing will look like before you send it to the printer by pressing the Print Preview button. |
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You can use the Copy button to copy selected text from the viewer to other applications, such as text editors or word processors. |
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You can press the Copy for Spreadsheet button to copy table text to a spreadsheet. Select the rows and columns you want to copy, before pressing the Copy for Spreadsheet button. Values separated by two or more blanks will appear in different columns in the spreadsheet. Try copying text from the Data Dictionary report to a spreadsheet. |
In the example below, the Popstan.dat file is being viewed.
You can press the Ruler button 
to show the
line and character position of the text. You can select text or data within the file to copy and
paste into another application, save to another file or print. For example, you may want to copy
several questionnaires from a large data file to create a smaller file for testing.
You can use the Goto button 
to locate a particular line in the file. For example, when errors occur in tabulation, you are
given the record number where the error occurred. Use the Goto button to locate the record in error.
To perform cross tabulations, press the Cross Tabulation button 
on the Data Dictionary toolbar or on the IMPS 4.1 taskbar. The screen (similar to that shown below)
will appear. You can perform cross-tabulations on up to four data variables: two Row
Items and two Column Items. You can show the tabulated results as totals,
percents or both. You can tabulate a Value, such as income, and use a Weight in the tabulation. Specific records can be selected as a Universe for inclusion in the tabulation. In addition, tables can be produced for geographic Areas.
Press the Item buttons to select or change items. You can type the name of the item or click on an item to select it. Press OK to complete the selection or Remove to delete the selection. The list of items normally appears in alphabetic order. Your can change this to the order that the item appear on the records.
The table title is generated and modified automatically. If you don't like the generated title, you can change it by changing the text in the title box, and then checking the lock box to the right.
Use the Add, Insert, and Delete buttons under the toolbar to add, insert, and delete tables.
Pressing the Universe button allows you to create a filter to select only certain records for tabulation. You can select one or more conditional expressions of item, relation, and value. An example of such an expression is:
Pressing the Area button allows you to create multiple table panels by geographic area. To produce tables by area you must select at least one Area Id and you must have an area names file. You can create an area names file using the CENTS module of IMPS 3.1. You can also create one with a text editor using the Popstan.anm file as a model. Every tabulation in a run has the same area selection. If no row items are selected, the area names will be the table rows.
You can create a frequency distribution for any item by selecting it as the row item and not selecting any column items. This will create a table with two columns, frequency and cumulative frequency.
There is a check box to Include undefined row and column. Checking this box will create a extra row or column for each item you tabulate. The extra rows and columns give counts of the number of out-of-range values for each item. Choosing from the menu Options/Dump Undefined will cause each undefined value to be dumped in a log file, together with questionnaire and record identification.
If you want to change or view your Data Dictionary, you can press the button.
Try to create a table. Select Relationship = Head as the Universe. Select Province and District as the Area Ids. Choose Popstan.anm as the area names file. Select Sex as the column item. Do not select a row item. The geographic areas will be the row of the table.
Press the Run tabulation button 
to perform the tabulation. Use the Popstan.dat file as the input file.
When a tabulation is completed the Table Viewer displays the results as shown below:
If the tabulation is not exactly what you wanted, use the back button 
to return to respecify your cross-tabulation. If the tabulation is what you wanted, you can print
it, save it to a file, or copy it to a word processor or spreadsheet.
The Page Setup and Print Preview buttons are available to change the
margins, heading, and footing for printing and to preview the print image. You can also
change the font size and style for the table by pressing the Font button.
In Table Viewer you can select rows and columns to print, save, or copy. The rows or columns do not have to be adjacent. To make a selection, move the cursor to any table cell and press the left mouse button down. While holding down the left mouse button move the cursor over the other cells to be included, then release the button.. The selected cells turn green. When the left mouse button is released, the stubs and column headings associated with these cells are also highlighted. To select additional cells, hold the Ctrl key down while you make your additional selection. To select the entire table, click the Edit and then Select All from the menu.
If the table you are viewing was produced using Area and an IMPS Map Viewer map is available with the same area codes as used in the tabulation, you can produce a thematic map of the tabulated data directly from the Table Viewer.
To create a thematic map, select a data cell from the table you are viewing, for example, a
cell from the Total column, by clicking on it with LEFT mouse button. Then click the
RIGHT mouse button and select Map or press the Map Viewer button 
on the toolbar.
You will be asked for an IMPS map file. For this example, choose Popstan.mpc. Map Viewer will display a map showing the tabulated values of all the provinces in Popstan.
To add another variable to the map, switch back to the Table Viewer by selecting its button on the Windows taskbar (usually at the bottom of the screen). DO NOT exit the Map Viewer. Select a cell from another column, for example a cell from the Female column, and press the Map Viewer button. Notice that the variables available for mapping are Total and Female.
Pressing the Map Viewer button on the Table Viewer toolbar or the IMPS 4.1 taskbar provides an easy way to present tabulated data
in a thematic map. In the previous section you invoked the Map Viewer twice to display two sets
of tabulated values: the Total number of Household Heads, and the total number of Female Household Heads.
The second variable, (Female) should be currently displayed. Pass the mouse cursor over the map. Notice that the cursor changes to a magnifying glass. This means you can "drill down", or descend to a lower map level, by clicking the left mouse button. You will see the districts within the province you click on. Press Esc key to go back to the Popstan map. The map of Popstan shows the provinces in different colors. You can show all the districts in the country by clicking the drop-down list (above the country and province list) and selecting District. By clicking the right button while on the map, you can see the exact number of female household heads for a given district.
The hierarchical tree on the left side of the screen gives another way to move around among geographic units. The + in front of the names shows there is more geography available. Click on the + in front of a province name to show the districts in that province. Click on any province name itself to display the thematic map of that province. Click on any district name to outline in yellow the district in the province map. To close up the geographical listing, click on the - in front of the name.
To change the number of intervals, the ranges of each interval, the colors which the map uses and the text in the legend box, click on the legend box with the right mouse button. To change the title text and/or font, click on the title with the right mouse button. The title can be more than one line; use Ctrl+Enter inside the box containing the title to make new lines. With a little practice, you will be able to produce high quality thematic maps with minimal effort.
You can change the variable which is displayed on the map. Click on the drop-down list labeled Variable. You can also compare two variables. Click on the drop-down list labeled Base Variable and select Total. This will display the Percent change defined as
Click on the Calc drop-down list to change the way the two variables are compared. The Percent statistic would seem more reasonable in this example: percent of households with female heads. If you select Percent, the map shown below should appear.
Use the Print button to print your map, or the Copy button to copy it to a word processing document.
To save the data variables you have brought into the Map Viewer, press the Save button and create a new map data file (.mdf). You can open this map data file directly from IMPS 4.1 by starting the Map Viewer and then selecting the .mdf file which you just created. (Note: When a map data file is opened only the first variable is mapped.)
The map data file (.mdf) contains the variables and their values for each geographic unit. You can make your own or change one you saved by using standard spreadsheet software. Data from previous censuses or surveys can be entered into the file. See Help for a description of the Map Data File and how to modify it.
The map data file is associated with a map file, which contains the map polygons, area codes and names for each geographic area. Usually two or three levels of geography are adequate for thematic maps. You need to create this file first, before generating or making your own map data files. The format of the map file is given in the Map Viewer Help. If you already have a digitized map file, either in ArcView or Atlas GIS format, we can assist you in converting it to our Map Viewer format. (Contact us for more information.)
Pressing the Data Sort button 
on the
IMPS 4.1 taskbar allows you to sort files up to two gigabytes. Since the questionnaire is the unit
of processing for IMPS, sorting is performed on questionnaires, not records. (To sort the data
file on records, you must create a Data Dictionary for the file which defines only one kind of
record which occurs only once.)
Once you have selected a Data Dictionary, you are presented with a list of Questionnaire Ids to use as sort keys. Select Questionnaire Ids from the left-hand column. Click the > button to make these item keys. You can use the >> button make all the items keys. You can remove keys by selecting them and pressing the < button. The << button removes all the keys.
You can use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to move a particular key up or down the list of keys to obtain the required order (major to minor). Select the key to move, then press the button.
You can use the Ascending (small to large) and Descending (large to small) buttons to change the sort order for a key. Again select the key, then press the button.
Once you have select the keys, press the Run Sort button .
You will be asked to enter:
It is important to remember that no matter what the data file size, there must be at least twice the data file size of free space (intermediate work file(s) + final sorted file) in order to complete the sort. This free space does not need to be on the same device as the file being sorted.
The sort specifications (keys and ascending/descending switches) can be saved in a sort specification file which will have the extension .ssf.
Some important notes regarding the Data Sort:
To use the modules from IMPS 3.1, press the DOS IMPS button on the IMPS 4.1 taskbar. The following dialog box will appear. Select the folder you want to be your default directory while using IMPS 3.1 modules. The example files for IMPS 3.1 are in the ..\imps31\bench folder.
Once you have selected a default folder, you will enter the DOS IMPS 3.1 system. There is printed documentation for each of the IMPS 3.1 modules. This documentation is available in WordPerfect 5.1 format.
The CONCOR and CENTS modules of IMPS, use a COBOL compiler, which is contained on your installation diskettes. (Note: The Internet version does not contain this compiler.)
Most of the functions of the QUICKTAB module of DOS IMPS are provided in a much better way in the Windows Cross Tabulation module. However, for creating frequency distributions of all the items in data file, you will want to use the Frequency part of QUICKTAB.
The DOS version of IMPS uses a different Data Dictionary that the Windows version. In the DOS version the Data Dictionary file extension is .dd, while in the Windows version the extension is .ddw. You can save most, but not all, Windows Data Dictionaries in the DOS format. To save a Windows Data Dictionary in DOS format, use the File/Save As menu option and set the file extension to .dd. The DOS Data Dictionary is required by the CENTRY, CONCOR. CENTS, QUICKTAB and CENVAR modules of DOS IMPS.
To obtain information on how to use IMPS 4.1 modules, press the Help button 
. The Index tab, shown below provides an easy way to
search for information on a particular topic. Use box 1 to type in a word, or use box 2 to click
on the index entry.
You can use the Contents tab to look through the helps by topics, like a book. The Find tab allows you to locate the use of any particular word in the help documentation.
You can print any page of the help by pressing the Print button at the top of the help screen. You can also print groups of help pages from the Contents tab.
While IMPS menus and documentation are only in English, most of the information you supply can be entered and displayed in your own language. For example, Data Dictionary labels and notes can be entered in languages other than English. Data entry screens and tables can appear in other languages.
During installation, you are asked what language you want to use for your tables and maps. If you choose a language other than English, then small words like Table, Total, to, Legend, Percent, Ratio, and so on, which appear in CrossTab tables or Map Viewer maps will appear in the language chosen.
The International Programs Center provides user support for IMPS without charge to national statistical offices and certain international organizations. It also provides, on a contract basis, training in the use of IMPS for census and survey processing. From time to time, it conducts IMPS workshops in Washington.
