Documenting your work
Documentation can be done on two levels.
1. You can document your progress in your project for yourself and your collaborators.
2. You can document your methodology, that is what you have done and how you have done it, as supplementary files to your final work.
In the following, you'll be introduced to the functionalities in Nvivo that you can use to document your work.
Project event logs
When you activate the event log, import and export operations are logged. The operations are logged per session, which means that the event log will be blank when a project is started anew.
The event log is not interactive and you can not return to an earlier version of the project by clicking on a specific change in the log.
For PC users
For PC users, find the event log by clicking on "Files" in the top menu (the "ribbon" view) and choose "Project Properties". In the dialog box that pops up, in the "General" tab, activate "Write user actions to project event log". The event log is automatically saved after you close your project. It is a good idea to clear the log at regular intervals, to optimize project performance. If you want to retain the information in the log, you can export it to a spreadsheet or document file, before you clear the log.
It is also via the "File" tab that you can view the Project Log. Click the File tab and then click "Open Project Event Log", The event log opens in Detail View and you can then sort, filter and export the event log.
For MAC users
For MAC users, find the event log by clicking on the little 𝒊 in the bottom left corner of the NVivo interface. In case of an error, the i is turned into an exclamation mark.
Please note that changes such as coding of text or the creation of a new folder are not registered in the event log.
Since the event log is cleared when a project is closed, it is a good idea to copy/paste the information into another file, so that you can maintain an overview of the changes that have been made in a project.
You also have the option of downloading the project event log. This should be done immediately before you close a session.