Our field workers have been using Network Canvas to collect social network data, and we were wondering if you might be able to advise on the best way to update a protocol on Server without deleting the protocol itself (and all of the associated data) and starting over with a new one?
Server is designed to create a “workspace” for each protocol file. This is because Server refers back to the protocol file when exporting data, in order to look up variable definitions and determine how to correctly encode the data. It is not possible to update a protocol file after a workspace has been created, because if these definitions change there could be a disagreement between what the protocol says and what the interview sessions contain.
The intended workflow is to create a new workspace in Server for each new version of the protocol. Multiple workspaces can happily co-exist, and any data you have already collected can remain in Server without any problem (it does not need to be deleted).
With all of the above in mind, if you have not yet started data collection might I suggest that you consider not using Server for data management? If you simply export the interview data from your interview devices directly (perhaps uploading them to a cloud storage provider or secure file server?) you will not need worry about installing or configuring Server and your data can be stored in a single location regardless of the protocol revision. This will of course require you to manage any data differences in interview files yourself.
Hope this helps!