There is an increasing demand from respondents, primarily in the public sector and in enterprises, to provide data by sending files rather than filling in questionnaires. When the respondent has data available in electronic form, file transfer enables data provision to a lower cost and burden than traditional questionnaires. With a purely electronic communication of data, the possibilities of higher data quality by avoiding misinterpretations, data entering errors and such are also better. Therefore, it is in the interest of a statistical office to provide good tools for file transfer.

At Statistics Sweden, a generalised tool for web data collection has been in use since 2005. In May 2009, this tool was extended by a generalised file transfer function, that enables secure file transfer of large data files, receipt of received files and, most importantly, a possibility to include survey specific edit checks, with erroneous or suspicious data presented to the respondent with the possibility to correct possible errors. This presentation gives an overview of the file transfer tool and its possibilities.