Spend less time on reporting
Field staff often spend considerable time reporting and re-reporting the same results to different stakeholders who each ask for slightly different indicators with a slightly different format. With an ActivityInfo database in place, field staff enter detailed results and indicators once, as activities are implemented, and stakeholders can access the data as needed.
“I used to have everyone knocking at my door for data — from OCHA, from the WASH cluster, from the Education cluster, from area managers within the donor, and THEN the donor’s finance office… and everyone has their own spreadsheet. Now I take the time once a week to update ActivityInfo and I send everyone directly to the site.”
Program Coordinator – Rapid Response Mechanism, South Kivu DRC
Provide real value out of monitoring at project level
ActivityInfo allows you to easily and quickly create tables and charts based on the most recent data. You can review results over time, by geography, by partner, or some combination, and export the results to Word, PowerPoint or Excel. In most monitoring and reporting systems, monitoring is one directional. ActivityInfo provides value to enable monitoring of all sorts at every level within the organisation.
Easy and simple data entry
ActivityInfo makes data entry possible for almost every literate employee, not just the program manager. As soon as the database has been developed with indicators to be used, designated project employees are able to enter data. Users require a minimum of training to use the system. In most cases, users are able to log in and are able to begin using the system immediately. Similarly for your partners, they simply receive an invitation email with a password and a link to the site, and are able to use the system immediately.
Full integration of GIS with your data
ActivityInfo has been designed from the beginning to fully integrate with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Interactive mapping assures that all data provided by the partner is already geo-referenced, greatly facilitating the production of high quality maps. All stakeholders can quickly produce their own maps from a web page and professional GIS staff can access the geographical data directly from ArcGIS or other software.
“Last year they sent me 11 separate Excel sheets with distribution sites. They were all with different structures, just hundreds of village names. There was no way I could track them all down, and the map never got made. With ActivityInfo, it’s different. I get one dataset with proper coordinates. I can work with this.”
OCHA – GIS Officer, North Kivu DRC
Maintain an overview of operations in quickly changing environments
The humanitarian field is characterized by its chaotic, fast pacing and quickly changing environment with aid being delivered under tremendous time pressure. Keeping track of all operations, projects and programmes from a project-level scale (how many schools where, how many emergency kits in village x,y,z and number of assisted returnees where) is a difficult job. ActivityInfo allows organisations and project managers to have an overview at any given time of its operations, based on its own indicators and requirements.
Effectively link project monitoring and evaluations to needs and response
Information is the foundation on which decision-making for an effective response is based. Accurate and timely information is therefore crucial to the effective provision of humanitarian assistance. ActivityInfo is concerned with continues data gathering instead of ex post research evaluations. ActivityInfo improves the capacity of humanitarian organisations for analysis and decision regarding current needs and responses by its “real-time monitoring nature”, allowing quick responses. ActivityInfo provides secure information management within an organisation but also the possibility for organisations to quickly share information, with other humanitarian actors or donors, to improve humanitarian assistance through needs based proportional responses.
“Humanitarian assistance should be in proportion to humanitatarian need and of high quality” (ALNAP, 2007; ALNAP strategy 2008-2013).
Secure your data
When an organization creates an ActivityInfo database for their program, that organization controls completely who has access to the data, and the rights each user has to view, add, or change data. For example, if a program has many partners, you can choose to allow partners to see the results of all other partners, or, if you so choose, only their own results.
The ActivityInfo server — at ActivityInfo.org — is hosted on Amazon’s web services — the global leader in computing infrastructure, so you can be confident that your data remains as private as you choose, and remains safe thanks to continuous, multi-site backup.
Enable real partnerships
Often counterparts, headquarters or donors are simply not in the position to offer constructive input into projects and programmes because they have so little visibility of field realities, progress and outputs. ActivityInfo allows for indicator-based monitoring on progress and responses at any given time, and share them with others. ActivityInfo thereby makes real partnerships possible, between organisations and their counterparts, between a project site and their headquarters or between a field offices and and donors.
Improve accountability
Accountability in humanitarian relief has been discussed widely, and being “accountable” requires responsible and considerate behaviour within several domains; within the organisation’s determination of decisions and actions, within reporting and explaining actions and operations, as well as how concerns arising from decisions and actions of others can be reported and gain redress as and where appropriate. ActivityInfo provides an organisation with a project tool that can reinforce accountability, learning and verification, all stakeholders (intended beneficiaries, affected communities, donors, partner organisations and other actors alike) might benefit by its use. ActivityInfo helps an organisation’s accountability in a systematic way, whereby programme quality, impact and outcomes can be enhanced.
In humanitarian responses “quality, accountability and programmes results are inextricably linked”. Whereby “accountability in humanitarian situations means that the power to help in situations of conflict and disaster is exercised responsibly”.
HAP, Humanitarian Accountability Partnership International
Reduce your consultant and software costs
ActivityInfo reduces costs associated with managing your information in several ways.
First of all, regarding consultancy cost: ActivityInfo provides organisations a jump-start in information management and database development. Program managers can generally set up an ActivityInfo database with 1-2 days of effort. It is generally not necessary to hire a consultant to build the database, so your organization can focus on your mission rather than technology. As your logical framework evolves, program managers can update the definition of the database directly without needing to track down the original consultant. ActivityInfo can easily be linked within any system used by internal M&E departments or external M&E mission.
Secondly, ActivityInfo also reduces costs related to software development and maintenance. ActivityInfo can be used from any given computer without any fancy requirements, it only needs a browser installed on it. Additionally the ActivityInfo system also requires a minimum of IT support. Furthermore, there is no software to install and no server to maintain. Since ActivityInfo is open-source software, it can be used without any licenses cost involved and it can be used for free by any organisation.
Constant improvements and extra features
ActivityInfo is open-source software, which means that anyone can use and improve ActivityInfo at no-cost, but all improvements must also be shared. This means that users of ActivityInfo benefit from continuous updates, fixes, and improvements to the software contributed by a number of actors, including UNICEF. The goal is to assure that organizations of any size have the ability to access to ActivityInfo.org. For larger organizations who want the assurance of phone or email technical support, annual support contracts are available from ActivityInfo.org.
Improve your organisation’s transparency
In the aftermath of a crisis or in a protracted complex emergency it happens all to often that we still don’t know the basics: “what is delivered”. During a crisis, operational agencies are occupied (hence their core business) with saving and protecting live by providing the basics of human dignity for distressed populations. In such situations documenting, reporting and monitoring (as well as providing transparency from it) is not the first thing on a project manager’s mind. ActivityInfo however allows for only one system in place to provide an overview of what has been delivered, when where and how, within one systematic tool; to be used for all required reports at the same time.
Link monitoring to fundraising
Fundraising is for most organisations crucial for its financial resources and hence a core-business at headquarters level. Fundraising departments are however often only connected to the operational division at headquarter’s level. ActivityInfo allows your organisation’s divisions to connect at all levels. Thereby providing easily accessible figures, tables, charts and maps to be created on the most recent data, without delays in information sharing and providing, whenever needed.
