Research Office is a software system aimed for automation of the process of carrying out quantitative researches. It integrates all toolkit of the research project, which allows working with a uniform database of the research project at all stages of the process, easily moving from stage to stage, performing them simultaneously and in various sequence. It enables to improve the process of performing research projects substantially, achieve the maximum level of automation of its stages and to get rid of unnecessary more routine components of the process. It is the main difference of Research Office system from other software products used in research agencies today.

The concept of Research Office system was developed for company “Rating” (now – "MASMI-Rating") in 1995. In 1997 the first working prototype of the system under the code name “SocRate” was created and put into operation. The system “SocRate” has been in operation for 9 years so far, and in this time it has been generously repaid, which is the best validation of the concept of the given product.

In 2002 the main designer of the system SocRate organized a software company Miratec (now it is called Helicode). At that time the company already had a unique technology of data storage – a component-oriented database management system ObjectHaven.

ObjectHaven provided extreme productivity in managing the data of any structure and of practically unlimited volume. Due to its flexibility, extensibility and simplicity of administration ObjectHaven removed all technical restrictions because of which it was not possible to realize the concept of the program control system of research projects to the full earlier.

The high skill level and experience gained by experts of Helicode while creating the system SocRate and database management system ObjectHaven enabled them to create a unique product combining uncompromising quality, ergonomics, reliability and operating speed.

At present Research Office system is an advanced product in the branch and continues developing consistently. A strategic direction of the further development of Research Office system is integration on the basis of a uniform program platform in order to provide the maximal labor productivity and optimal distribution of manpower resources available in research agencies.

Here is an incomplete list of tasks scheduled by Helicode for the nearest future:

• Storage of all project documents in one DB which will become a DB of the project, instead of DB of the data;
• Designer of report templates for generating reports in MS Word and Power Point;
• Application for clients of agencies;
• Research Office version for OS Linux, Free BSD.

Each research project is fulfilled within the framework of definite purposes, budget, terms, and resources. The primary goal of research project management can be formulated as follows: how can terms, budget and resources required for project performance be reduced? The problem consists in the fact that reduction of terms entails increase in the budget or resources, etc. That is, we cannot reduce anything without increasing something else at the same time.

This problem can be represented as a triangle with lateral lengths proportional to terms, budget and resources. At the same time, no matter how we change the length of the sides of the triangle, its area should remain constant. In other words, the problem can not be solved on the plane.

In order to solve our problem, it is necessary to add one more measurement. This measurement is Process. By improving the process of performing research projects, it is possible to reduce resources, terms and budget simultaneously. Our triangle turns into a prism the volume of which is constant and the height is proportional to the efficiency of the applied process.

All these problems arise from the fact that the sequence of stages of the process is too rigidly set. In turn, such inflexibility is coupled with poor connection among the toolkits used at various stages of the process. Therefore, in spite of the fact that powerful programs can be used at each stage, the process taken as a whole remains manual and nonflexible.

Such products as SAS, SPSS, Statistica and similar systems are designed for use by separate highly qualified experts at certain research stages. In contrast to this, Research Office System is integrated and integrating, and it is designed for the whole research agency. Therefore, Research Office will be also useful to those agencies that carry out researches completely on their own, and to agencies that delegate some tasks to other agencies, as well as to those ones to which these tasks are delegated.

There is no doubt that Research Office also has a number of other functional and technological advantages (such as object-oriented structure of questionnaire descriptor, component model of database, the multi-user data entry, etc.), but their value becomes really appreciable only after realizing what Research Office system actually does. It does not serve for supporting separate stages of quantitative research process. It reconstructs this process in such a way that it is convenient for use by organizations. At a functional level it means transition from a set of isolated utilities to a package of integrated technologies, such as:

• Technology of data entry;
• Technology of data analysis;
• Technology of report creation.

In order to understand how Research Office allows optimizing the quantitative research process, let us first we shall consider a typical sequence of research process stages:

1. Preparatory stage. At this stage the purposes of research are defined and the tools necessary for performing the research project are created. Such programs as, for example, MS Word and Excel are used here.
2. Field stage. At this stage gathering of data to be analyzed is performed. If it is a consumer poll, the result of performing the given stage will be an array of filled in questionnaire forms. In order to fulfill the field stage it is necessary to have a research project toolkit developed at the preparatory stage.
3. Consistency data check. At this stage the filled in forms shall be checked for correct filling with observance of all instructions. In order to automate this stage, the data shall first be entered into a computer. However, it is difficult to do that as the data are not coded yet, and coding the data that have not passed consistency check is ineffective.
4. Coding of open-ended questions. In order to transfer data from forms into a computer they should be coded. It is obvious that the stage of data gathering and their consistency check should precede this stage. Otherwise coding should be repeated.
5. Data entry. Data entry operators cannot start entry of answers to open-ended questions until corresponding lists of responces are not coded. Variants when coding of open-ended questions is made simultaneously with the entry of answers to other questions of the questionnaire are possible, but they are coupled with a number of problems having both technical and organizational character.
6. Data analysis. At the given stage the created Database is analyzed according to the research problem statement.
7. Report development. The report is created according to the results of data analysis.

With the help of Research Office this process is optimized as follows:

• Right after finishing the preparatory stage, the preparation of database for entry, consistency check, coding, classification and data analysis starts. This work finishes approximately when the first sets of the filled-in questionnaire forms start coming in.
• As forms come in, they are entered into the database prepared beforehand. The entry is made in one and the same database from several workplaces of data entry operators simultaneously.
• The consistency data check is performed automatically as each form is entered, according to data consistency check rules prepared beforehand and entered into the database. The same rules are automatically transformed by the program into the context-dependent table of transitions among questions used by the program for speeding-up the data entry procedure.
• Response lists of open-ended questions are formed during the entry of data. Thus data entry operators can use their text instead of codes. Without interrupting data entry operators, a competent officer can be engaged in operative processing of open-ended questions.
• Since lists of responces of open-ended questions are formed at the data entry stage, the stage of data coding is absent in the process in question. Instead of this, performing insignificant, as for man-hours, post-processing of open-ended questions after data entry would suffice, finally putting corresponding lists of responces in order. Here the values of codes are not important at all for Research Office users as they are used only at a program level.
• Rich in various sorts of information on the stored data, the component model of the database of the research project Research Office also allows transforming the approach to the performance of the last two research stages – data analysis and report development. Since the structure of the report becomes known already at early stages of research project, it is reasonable to develop the report template beforehand in order to generate a draft variant of the report automatically at an early stage of data analysis.