Cross-national surveys face the particular challenge of trying to balance optimal survey quality within a country with comparability across countries in terms of data quality. Addressing this challenge during fieldwork requires effective management of fieldwork data, a task made more difficult by the inherent differences between countries. This article argues that changes to the comprehensiveness, timeliness, consistency, and accessibility of fieldwork data facilitate monitoring and represent a necessary step forward towards achieving optimal data quality in cross-national surveys. It discusses the approach of the European Social Survey (ESS) for monitoring fieldwork cross-nationally, and specifically, the improvements made to central monitoring …