If we have such a powerful data platform as DHIS2 and extended tools such as the DHIS2 EyeSeeTea Suite, why do we need to develop custom applications? Sometimes custom solutions can save us a lot of time and training, as they can be specifically adapted to the people that are going to work with it. A case in point is the Data Management App, a customized DHIS2 solution for Samaritan’s Purse.
DHIS2 is an incredible, versatile tool. However, it is not geared towards project monitoring, something that any organisation has to deal with. The Data Management App is a solution to go the extra mile and use DHIS2 for all your project tracking needs, too. It all started in 2019 when Samaritan’s Purse found out about two of our apps, a vaccination platform developed for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and a DataSet Configuration for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), and thought this type of app was exactly what they needed.
“Samaritan’s Purse required an app who could guide their users around DHIS2 towards the things that were really important to them”, explains our director, Ignacio Foche. In the case of Samaritan’s Purse the key information they wanted to track was related to monitoring and reporting their projects. And it had to be done in a quick and easy way. They have people working in the field, sometimes in dangerous situations, that need to be able to report data just in a couple of clicks, regardless of their DHIS2 expertise.
“We have designed the Data Management App with a hybrid approach, making use of custom components but also reusing all we could from DHIS2. It does not make any sense to build custom things if the feature already exists and has already been implemented by the University of Oslo team”
And so we started to develop the International Projects Data Management App. During the following years we have developed different custom applications for them, but always keeping in mind our philosophy: recycle as much code as you can. Now we can say that they have been a complete success. Overall, the Data Management App is used by Samaritan’s Purse in more than 30 countries all over the world for monitoring thousands of projects.
“The Data Management app has provided Samaritan’s Purse International Projects a consistent, standard, and secure framework for creating, maintaining, and reporting on field projects. The tool gives us a transparent view of our programming and allows us to better serve our beneficiaries.”
What can you do with a Data Management App?
This app allows you to track and report all stages of a project, from the creation, to the data collection and review to the data analysis. The different stages have been developed so they are quickly configured and you can easily use them even if you are not used to DHIS2 applications. There are several customizations so the user doesn’t see DHIS2 items they don’t need and logic has been implemented to speed up the configuration process and minimize the chance of human errors. Also, it has landing pages from where you can access the most used actions. Last, but not least, we keep developing new features such as file management for projects and custom reports that show the unique beneficiaries, among many more.
"The key to developing this application was to translate project management concepts into DHIS2 concepts in a simple and straightforward way".
Every time a project is created in the app, dashboards, custom reports and datasets are automatically generated, offering users an out-of-the-box solution.
Once the project is created and configured through a graphical wizard, program managers set the target values for the project’s goals, while the field team members record the data during the project execution.
When the project is completed, the field team can request a review directly from the Data Entry App, initiating the Data Approval process with the Project Admins who gets notified through email. They review the data using integrated Data Approval App. Then they provide feedback to the Field Team through the DHIS2 messaging system. Last, the Field Team receives feedback and can make
adjustments to their entered data if needed.
The Project Manager can export the data to custom spreadsheets and consult the dashboards, both automatically generated. Through the Monthly Executive Report, users can generate a customized report containing all indicator data for a specific country and month.
Different "flavours" of the Data Management App
We’d like to highlight some of the variations of this application with specific use cases. For instance, in 2023, Samaritan’s Purse needed a different type of application, focused on emergency field hospitals. The requirements were different now when the projects were hospitals amid an earthquake or in a warfront and then track all the information needed within DHIS2. You also have to translate the whole workflow of a monitoring and evaluation project into the app: register the data, analyze it and then share it by creating reports and sending them to the headquarters. The Emergency Field Hospital has been a success: it has been used in dozens of field hospitals around the world where thousands of patients have been treated.
Another of these custom applications comes in 2024 with the cleft lift and palate data management applications. Now there is also a landing page where you can register all the data and the reports both from the web and from an Android app while being offline.
Another app we have been recently working on is the “Facial Reconstruction Data Management” app that introduces the use of the DHIS2 Capture plugin.
Where do we go from here?
We are constantly improving the Data Management App. We use a tech stack combining the best technologies for this development: React & TypeScript for a dynamic and modular front-end, Material UI for a clean user experience, d2-ui-components so that it is easier to implement any DHIS2 interface, d2-api to ensure a seamless integration with DHIS2 metadata, and, of course, DHIS2 metatada to implement our solution.
All of this is open source. You can go to our Github Repository and see the code and reuse all you need!
Project data monitoring and reporting is something that every organization is doing. If the case use of your organization does not have yet a solution, we’d be more than happy to discuss with you the possibility of adapting one of our apps to your requirements.
Last, but not least, our gratitude to Samaritan’s Purse for their trust these last years and the amazing apps we have built together.
