Getting started with NVivo

Cases are people, organizations, locations, events or other entities that represent the focus of your research.

You can use case classification to record descriptive information about the cases in your project.

To set up your case structure:

1. Create a case classification
2. Set up attributes and values for the case classification
3. Add cases to the classification
4. Set up attribute values for the case

1. Right-click on the blank area under Case Classification in the List View, select New Classification. The New Classification dialog box appears.
2. Enter the name and the description for the classification.

1. Right-click the case classification you want to add attribute(s) to, select New Attribute. The New Attribute dialog box appears.
2. Enter the attribute name (e.g. Age, Gender, Marital Status, etc.) and its description, select the data type in the Type field.

3. Click the Values tab to add attribute values. For example, you can add Married, Single, Divorced, and Widowed for Marital Status

To create cases manually:

1. Go to the List View of the classification that you want to create a new case in.
2. Right-click on the blank area and choose New Case.
3. Enter the name, description and attribute values for the new case.

4. You can expand a case to review and edit its attribute values in the List View.

To create cases automatically from individual files (one file per participant):

1. Select all applicable files, right-click and choose Create > Create as Cases. The Select Location dialog box appears.

2. Select a location for the case(s) and assign a case classification.
3. The entire content of each file is coded to its case.

You can also create cases automatically based on the speaker names in a file or from another dataset. Click here for more information.

There are two ways of setting up attribute values:

1. In the List View of case classification, you can expand a case to review and edit its attribute values.

2. You can use a classification sheet to edit the attribute values of the cases.

On the Home tab, click Case Classification and then under Open Classification Sheet, select the classification sheet you want to open.