Your First Analysis
So, you’re ready to run your first analysis with MyRA? That’s great! MyRA is designed to help you uncover valuable insights quickly and efficiently.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know to get started, from preparing your data to interpreting your results. Plus, we’ll share some handy tips to help you maximise the power of MyRA and get the best possible outcomes from your analysis. Let’s dive in!
Jump to a section:
Creating Your Account
If you haven’t signed up yet, getting started with MyRA is quick and easy.
Sign up – Head over to MyRA and create your account.
Verify your email – Check your inbox for a verification email and follow the link to activate your account.
Preparing Your Data for Analysis
If you want to explore MyRA without preparing your own data, you can download our sample dataset to get started quickly. However, if you’re uploading your own data, follow these steps to ensure a smooth and secure analysis process.
1. Anonymise Your Data
To protect privacy and maintain ethical research standards, all files should be fully anonymised before uploading.
Remove identifying information – Ensure transcripts do not contain names, addresses, phone numbers, or any other personal details.
Extra security measures – While MyRA adheres to the highest data security standards, we ask users to anonymise their data for an additional layer of protection. Learn more about our security practices.
2. Use Unique File Names
Each document should have a clear and unique identifier to help you track responses after analysis.
Use a simple naming convention, such as ‘Participant 1’, ‘Participant 2’, etc.
Avoid generic file names like "Interview" or "Transcript", as these can be difficult to identify later.
3. Check File Format Compatibility
MyRA currently supports the following file formats:
PDF (.PDF)
Word Document (.DOCX)
Ensure your files are saved in one of these formats before uploading.
4. Keep Files Within Size Limits
To ensure optimal processing, transcripts must not exceed 8,000 text tokens (approximately 6,000 words).
What are text tokens? Read more about text tokens here.
Handling large files? – If a document exceeds the limit, you can split it using copy-paste or an online tool like iLovePDF.
Naming split files – If you need to split a transcript, label the parts clearly, e.g., ‘Participant 1 – Part 1’, ‘Participant 1 – Part 2’, to maintain clarity.
By following these steps, you’ll ensure your data is formatted correctly and ready for a seamless MyRA analysis experience.
Uploading Your Files
Now that your files are prepared, it’s time to upload them to MyRA.
How to Upload
Drag and drop your files into MyRA, or click ‘Choose Files’ to browse and select them from your computer.
MyRA will automatically check each file to ensure it does not exceed the token limit.
Handling Large Files
If a file exceeds the 8,000 token limit, you will see a ❌ red cross next to it. You have a few options:
Remove the file by clicking the 🗑️ trash icon.
Check how much it exceeds the limit by hovering over the file.
Manually trim unnecessary content if the file is only slightly over the limit. Consider removing:
Footnotes
Bibliographies
Appendices
Repetitive headers or disclaimers
Extra spaces and formatting elements
For significantly oversized files, follow the steps in the previous section to split your file and re-upload.
Get Started for Free
We want you to experience MyRA with no barriers! That’s why you can upload up to 5 files for free and explore all the core features.
Need to analyse more? Upgrade to MyRA Pro for just $50/month, allowing you to upload up to 20 files.
If you require even more capacity, contact us to access MyRA Max for enterprise-level qualitative and quantitative analysis.
With your files uploaded, you're now ready for the exciting part—choosing your analysis approach! Let’s explore the options available to you. 🚀
Choosing Your Analysis Approach
MyRA offers two powerful analysis methods to help you gain insights from your data:
Inductive Analysis – Let MyRA identify themes for you.
Deductive Analysis – Define your own themes.
Inductive Analysis
MyRA defines themes based on patterns emerging naturally from your data.
This exploratory approach is perfect for uncovering unexpected insights without predefined expectations.
Best for: Researchers looking to explore data without preconceived notions and willing to uncover new insights.
Deductive Analysis
You define themes before analysis, and MyRA identifies where they appear in your data.
This approach is great for testing hypotheses, tracking specific themes across files, and extracting supporting quotes.
Best for: Researchers who have clear themes for their analysis.
Which Should You Choose?
For a well-rounded approach, start with Inductive Analysis to let MyRA surface emerging themes. Then, refine your insights using Deductive Analysis to focus on the themes that matter most.
If you choose Deductive Analysis
When selecting Deductive Analysis, you’ll be asked to define your themes before running the analysis. Setting clear themes helps MyRA move beyond simple descriptions, enabling deeper, more analytical insights.
To get the best results, keep your themes succinct and focused—this ensures MyRA can accurately identify patterns and provide meaningful findings.
Asking Your Research Question
For the best results, ask only one question per analysis. MyRA is designed to process a single research question at a time—asking multiple questions can dilute the focus and reduce the quality of insights. If you prefer not to enter a research question, simply type a single space in the field.
How to Craft a Strong Research Question
A well-defined question leads to a sharper, more insightful analysis.
✅ Recommended:
Ask only one clear and focused question.
Frame it with context for richer insights.
Example structure: "How does X influence Y in context Z?"
🚫 Not Recommended:
Vague or overly broad questions ("Does X affect Y?")
Yes/no questions that limit analytical depth ("Is remote work good or bad?")
Asking multiple questions at once ("How does remote work impact productivity, collaboration, and job satisfaction?")
Using overly complex queries.
Good examples:
"How do employees describe the impact of remote work on their productivity?"
"What challenges do patients face when accessing mental health services?"
"How do customers perceive the sustainability efforts of our brand?"
The sharper your question, the stronger and more meaningful your analysis will be!
Running Your Analysis
Once you’re satisfied with your research question, you’re ready to run the analysis. Simply follow the steps within the app.
MyRA will process the analysis, and you’ll receive an email once it’s complete. Please note that this can take up to 15 minutes.
Remember to check your junk or spam folder if you don’t see the email in your inbox.
Once you receive the notification, click the link in the email to download your report and explore your results! The output will be in a Word document format. If you don’t have Microsoft Word, don’t worry. You can easily view and edit Word documents in Google Docs or LibreOffice.
Your MyRA Report
The report produced by MyRA consists of three sections:
Analysis & Implications – Explore innovative research ideas with a draft report that assesses the potential implications of your findings.
Thematic Overview – Get a high-level summary of your data through thematic analysis, including identified macro themes, their frequency, and key associated quotes.
Detailed Transcript Breakdown – Dive deeper into each document with detailed subthemes (or codes) and relevant quotes. This allows you to verify whether the AI has analyzed the entire text without missing anything while ensuring accuracy.
Next steps:
If you did an inductive analysis you can select the themes that stood out and ask MyRA to do another analysis focussing on those themes - otherwise called deductive analysis. We recommend this.
If you’ve done a deductive analysis, we recommend doing it a second time to compare the results. This gives an indication of inter-rater reliability, as if you had hired two research assistants to code the same dataset.
We hope you will be satisfied with the results, if you have any issue or any other questions feel free to get in touch.