 | This articlerelies excessively onreferences toprimary sources. Please improve this article by addingsecondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "CSPro" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(July 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
CSPro, short for theCensus and Survey Processing System, is apublic domain andOpen sourcedata collection and processing software package developed by theU.S. Census Bureau andICF International. Serpro S.A. was involved in past development. Funding for development comes primarily from theU.S. Agency for International Development. The main purpose of thissoftware suite is to design applications fordata collection, processing and tabulation.
CSPro was designed and implemented through a joint effort by the developers of two earlier software packages that were used to capture, edit, and tabulate census and survey data on DOS-based machines: the Integrated Microcomputer Processing System (IMPS), developed by the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Integrated System for Survey Analysis (ISSA), developed by Serpro S.A. As a result, CSPro is founded on more than 35 years of development.[1]
The software can be run on Windows-based OS (8,10 and 11—Linux andIOS operating systems are not supported) to design applications able to be deployed on Android and Windows family OS following its "Build Once, Deploy Many" ability. These applications can be used for mobilesurvey data collection (via Smartphones or tablets), or for office-based collection (via laptops or desktops). The public domain distribution isopen source.[2] Support for Unicode data entry began with version 5.
A CSPro designed application can be a dynamic and intelligent questionnaire for entering, editing, tabulating, mapping, and disseminatingcensus andsurvey data. Also, the simple IDE of the CSPro Designer can be used to implement sophisticatedInformation System in various fields such as Monitoring and Evaluation, Business Administration, Logistics and so on.
This package is widely used worldwide by statistical agencies, international organizations, NGOs, consulting firms, colleges and universities, hospitals, and private sector groups, in more than 160 countries.[3] Major international household survey programs, such asMultiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) andDemographic and Health Surveys (DHS) also use CSPro for Census and Survey works.
While the program uses a simple graphical interface (IDE), CSPro also contains a sophisticated programming language that can be used to create highly customized applications. Beginning users can program simple quality control checks, and advanced users can write dynamic applications using his procedural and object oriented programming language.
It remains actively in development (as of Winter 2025). With latest improvements, CSPro designed application support:
The source code of the CSPro software Suite: CSPro Designer, CSEntry Windows and Android, CSPro Help Documentation, CSWeb API[13][14] have been released to the public. And starting 2025, CSPro become an open source project.[15] In addition to the help system disseminated with CSPro, an active users forum is maintained as well.[16]
