00:00:00 Introduction

Jeric: Hello everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening to you, depending on where you're coming in from. We are very excited to have you today in the third of our "Getting Started with ActivityInfo" series. This series is targeted at those who are very new to ActivityInfo and are just getting started in trying to familiarize themselves with the different functionalities. Last week we covered how to design your first database. Today, we'll focus on actually analyzing the data that you now have in your database.

Basically, there are two main sections for this session. First is going over how analysis in ActivityInfo works. In general, we'll present to you a framework for how you can approach your data analysis, and we'll go over what features are available to help analyze your data within the platform itself. Then, we'll do a live demonstration to show you how you can actually go about creating your own reports in ActivityInfo. We encourage you to follow along with a project that you're currently working on. As we present to you the steps for how to create your own reports, you might have already created your own database following last week's session. Feel free to use the data that you have in that database. Hopefully, by the end of this session, you will have created some reports that will be useful for your own analysis.

00:01:51 A framework for data analysis

Ganesh: Before we discuss ActivityInfo's data analysis component, I would like to brief you about the framework of data analysis in general: the "Data to Action" concept. "Data to Action" is broken down into three major component elements. First, set clear expectations regarding data use by visualizing data. Second, track progress by swiftly moving data from field to fingertips. Third, act on the data to fuel further improvements.

Setting clear expectations will minimize data analysis as an extra burden and help effective use of analysis and best utilization of your time. If you don't have clear expectations about the technologies, the reports, and what information you need, then you might be extra burdened by analyzing all the possible data, or you may spend lots of time doing unnecessary work. Therefore, we must have a clear plan for data analysis to understand what kind of decisions need to be made, who the decision-makers are, what they care about regarding the information, and what measures are needed for upward and downward accountability.

You can define the metrics first. What information do you need? What do you want to track exactly? Second, it would be good to define the objective of having it. Why do you want to do this? For example, to know whether malaria cases have been correctly treated by providers. Third, you have to define very clearly how you're going to analyze this data rather than testing every calculation, so that you can minimize your time. Fourth is the visual analysis part. What analysis do you want to do within those indicators? Are there specific requirements like pivot tables, a geographic map, or a pie chart? You have to define very clearly how you will present your results so that people can directly use them in a very easy way.

00:07:28 Analysis features in ActivityInfo

Now, I'm going to show what features are available in ActivityInfo. Within ActivityInfo, you can analyze your data using pivot tables, bar charts, line charts, pie charts, and maps for geographical locations. With the report layout features, you can create single reports, Notebook reports, and dashboards.

Pivot tables allow you to summarize your data and make comparisons between two variables or data fields to gather patterns and trends. When you open your form and click the 'Analyze' button, you can select pivot tables. You will see your form fields, which are the data fields you can use. The components include measures and two different dimensions: rows and columns. The quantity field in your form represents the values that you want to summarize, which you would put under measures. Any other fields can be put under the row and column dimensions.

ActivityInfo also has a powerful feature called calculated fields. If you need more advanced analysis or calculations, you can use this feature within the analysis section. This takes you to the formula editor platform, which is the same as when you develop forms. You can add, subtract, multiply, and divide indicator fields. You can find the count, count distinct, average, median, max, and minimum of the indicators. You can also use calculated fields to search text values, merge text values, use logical functions, and more.

Once you have created your pivot tables, you can immediately convert that information into bar charts, line charts, or pie charts. You don't need to spend more time; you can simply select visualizations within the pivot table to convert the data into graphical presentations. Additionally, if you have geographic points or geographical information, you can directly map those data or use the ActivityInfo reference data to visualize location-based information.

00:15:43 Notebooks and dashboards

Regarding reporting, you can create nice reports either in Notebooks or Dashboards. A Notebook is a collection of tables, charts, and maps along with text and section headings. Notebooks allow administrators and data analysts to combine individual analyses or visualizations into a coherent narrative status. A Dashboard is more flexible and allows you to organize data more compactly. You can create multiple pages within a dashboard. If you would like to tell a story on one standalone page, you can use Notebooks. If you would like to present multiple pieces of information as a snapshot, you can use the Dashboard.

When you've created your Dashboard and Notebooks, you can share the reports with internal users or save your reports as a resource. You can also share these reports or exports with external stakeholders via standalone webpage publishing. Regarding user access, reports are not available offline; they are only available online. If you need them offline, you can export the data reports in PDF and other formats.

For user roles and responsibilities, you can move a report to another Dashboard or folder, but you need permission. You should have delete, home, and report permissions in the user access. Viewers with permissions will only be able to view the reports and any updates. If you would like to have edit access, you must have access to edit the form, folders, and report permissions. Furthermore, within the ActivityInfo platform, you can directly link through the API and easily use third-party software like Power BI or R for further analysis.

00:22:00 Live demonstration: Scenario setup

Jeric: Now that we know how analysis works in ActivityInfo, let's see how we can actually do it within the platform itself. We're going to go over a scenario building off the database we built in the last session for a child protection training project. The data we might have includes training sessions implemented, participation data, and a post-training evaluation survey. The database also contains reference data about training courses and training institutions.

Before we go into ActivityInfo, we will apply the framework Ganesh discussed. First, we want to be clear on our expectations. We might ask questions like: Where is our training being held? Who is participating? How effective is our training? From these insights, we will think about the decisions we need to make, such as whether to continue the training program or change the content.

Next, we think about the practical matters of setting up reports. We need to know where in our database the specific data is located. We need to understand the structure—do records represent participants, sessions, or survey responses? We need to decide how to summarize the data (sum, average, etc.) and what dimensions to incorporate (gender, age, location). Finally, we decide how to convey the analysis, whether through tables, charts, or maps.

00:32:33 Creating a dashboard and map report

I'm going to create a dashboard for the project overall. I'll click on the 'Analyze' button and select 'Add dashboard'. This opens the Dashboard Builder with a blank canvas. I'll start by creating a header called "Child Protection Training Dashboard" and include a logo.

First, I want to show where our trainings are being implemented geographically. I'll click the map component. In the report design interface, I can see fields from the current form and related forms. I'll navigate to the training institution form and drag the 'Count of all records' into the layers section. This displays the institutions as circles on the map, pulling geographic information stored in that form. I'll click "Done" to add the map to the dashboard, resize it, and label it "Sites of the training institutions."

00:39:00 Creating pivot tables and charts

Next, I want to show detailed information about the training courses. I'll add a pivot table component. I'll find the 'Training course' field under training sessions. I'll drag 'Count of all records' to measures and the training course name to rows. This creates a basic pivot table showing how many sessions were implemented for each course. I'll add this to the dashboard. I might also include a text block to provide an overview or summary statistics.

I'll add a second page to the dashboard for a participant analysis. I'll create a pivot table using 'Count of all records' from the participants form, which represents individual participants. I'll break this down by gender by dragging the gender field to the rows section. To visualize this better, I'll convert it into a pie chart. This shows we have about twice as many females as males. I'll add this to the dashboard and label it "Participants' gender."

To see how participation trended over time, I'll create another analysis. I'll use 'Count of all records' and the 'Date of training' field from the parent training sessions form. I'll drag the date field to the rows section. I can change the date hierarchy to summarize by month. Then, I'll convert this visualization into a line chart to see the trend over time.

00:47:13 Analyzing survey data

Now let's look at the evaluation survey data. I'll create another pivot table. Since the evaluation data is in a separate form, I'll click 'Select forms' and choose the 'Post-training evaluation survey' form. I'm interested in the score participants gave. I'll add the score field to the measures section.

By default, it sums the scores, which isn't intuitive. I'll click on the card and change the aggregation to 'Average'. Now the scores are averaged around 300. I want to break this down by training course, so I'll add that field to the rows. I can see differences between courses; for example, the Foundations course score is lower. If I want to focus on that, I can right-click the category and filter to show only the Foundations course.

00:51:32 Saving reports and conclusion

From here, I want to save the report. Clicking 'Save report' presents two options. I can save it as a resource within the database, which makes it accessible to other users in a specific folder. Alternatively, I can "pin" the report, which saves it to my personal list of reports that are private to me. I'll save it in the reports folder in my database.

That rounds out our webinar for today. We encourage you to try it out for yourself on your own data or using the Training Monitoring template available on our website. If you have questions, please sign up for our Office Hours webinar on March 1st. Also, feel free to sign up for the final part of the series next week, where we'll talk about introducing ActivityInfo to your team and best practices for rolling out the system.