Layer is essentially a multiple filter. It allows you to add another dimension to your study. Without it you could only ask, "what did respondents purchase based on marital status?". If you add occupation to the Layer you can ask "by occupation, what did people purchase based on marital status?". The only way to do this without Layer would be to filter for each occupation individually.

Create Layer From

You can either choose to create a Layer from a single question (default) or from studies.

You are restricted to one Layer question, but there is no restriction on the number of Layer studies.

To choose a Layer question, click on the Layer tab on the right hand side of your question selection view, then click in the white area below 'Create Layer From' to make sure the questions appear on the left. (The Single Question radio button should be selected.)

Now you may select your Layer question.

To choose a Layer study, click on the Layer tab on the right hand side of your question selection view.  Ensure the Multiple Studies radio button is selected. Then click in the large white area below to make sure the available studies appear on the left. Now you may select your Layer studies.

Note: When you use a Layer question AND Layer studies at the same time, you will be forced to view the results of all included studies as one.

Also, it is best to have the most recent database as your primary study when using Layer studies.

Make sure you read the rest of this page to ensure that all possible respondents get included in your results.

If you are using Layer studies, some question icons in your study may turn yellow or red. Yellow means that the responses to a question are different from one database to another, and therefore you must recode that question to turn it green. Red means the question does not exist in your non-primary layer study and there is nothing that can be done about that. Green of course means that everything has stayed the same and you can use the question without a problem.

Page Display

Although Inside Columns is the default and helpul in a quick export, it is sometimes preferable to use Outside Worksheets. When you use Outside Worksheets on a question such as occupation, you get a neat little tabs at the bottom of the page, as you would in an Excel workbook, with numbers filtered for each individual layer response on its own page. Switching between the formats may require you to juggle the questions around a bit, so as always pay careful attention to what is going on with the numbers and what they mean.

Layer has also been enhanced to offer Inside Rows and more detail of this feature can be found here.

Layer