All DSS sites with repeat study visits must plan how the data collected in each study visit would be differentiated for data management and analytical reasons. Since all the study participants have a unique identifier the data pertaining to each individual should be uniquely identified for each study visit. One of the methods is the unique naming or labeling of each study visit or round. An example of visit naming is R01, R02, R03 (for rounds 1 or baseline, 2 or second visit,  3 for third visit etc…). When preparing the forms for the study visits they should uniquely be titled for ease of differentiation. Each form for specific study visits must be labeled (in title) with the visit number.  The unique identifier for study participants may also be appended with the visit name on the forms used (e.g. R01RK0001, R02RK0001, R03RK0001 for study participant with identifier RK0001 where visit number is appended at each visit).

Special care must be taken when planning for data entry and storage. Where the data system appends records for each visit to the census database then the visit number would uniquely identify the records. By appending the visit number at the beginning of the participant number it would be easy after indexing to easily separate out the records for a particular visit.

There are some data systems that have separate tables for each study visit. For these ones there is a need to think through table naming. The table names should be a pointer as to which visit the data contained comes from. The naming of variables also needs to be thought of for each study visit for such data systems. Some data systems allow for the visit number to be appended to the core variable name to uniquely identify the visit from which the data was collected (e.g. partnerR01, partnerR02). This may take up more storage space. It all depends on the data management system that the DSS site has.