Qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) is an increasingly popular tool for managing and analyzing data from focus groups, interviews, document reviews and other qualitative data sources. This checklist and accompanying slides on optimizing QDAS for use in evaluation were presented at AEA 2014. The checklist and slides cover how to: 1) establish the use of QDAS within your research team or organization, 2) grow your capacity for using it, 3) incorporate QDAS into your data collection process, 4) develop a QDAS-friendly analysis plan and 5) manage ongoing coding and analysis with QDAS. Both materials draw on presenters' experience using and growing support for QDAS across multiple research organizations.#2014Conference #eval14 #QualitativeMethods