00:00:00 Introduction

We have a good program for you today. We are going to focus on a specific type of challenge that ActivityInfo can address, namely partner reporting. We will look at the advantages of centralized data collection and management, and access permissions to support the data collection phase. Then, we will look at how ActivityInfo supports the analysis and sharing of reports to put that data into practice. Finally, we will look at two real-world examples where ActivityInfo has made a difference.

By way of introduction, we should clarify what we mean by partner reporting. This describes a case where you have a donor, or it could be an implementing program or consortium, collecting secondary data from many different implementing partners. Secondary data is generally aggregate data, such as the number of people reached or the number of kits distributed, as opposed to primary data, which would include the actual list of participant names, survey results, or other raw data at the individual level.

Managing primary data in the field is its own challenge, but once you have even a few partners, collecting and organizing all of that secondary data—all of those numbers or qualitative data about results of the individual partners—can be just as important and just as challenging. This is actually what prompted ActivityInfo's first version back in 2008. At the time, I was an information management officer for UNICEF in the DR Congo, and I was tasked with collecting and analyzing data from UNICEF's implementing partners for a returnee integration program.

I spent so much time shifting through Excel sheets or, if I was unlucky, Word documents with key figures buried in them. You never had the right information, so you still had to call somebody in the field. It was so time-consuming to get even the most basic information together that it left very little time to actually use the data. It was difficult to answer basic questions like how many schools we rebuilt last quarter. There are also more substantive, impact-driven questions, like looking across all geographic areas to see what nutrition assessments show are the biggest needs and where to prioritize funding. All of those program-level questions require good data from your partners.

00:03:25 Challenges in partner reporting

I have a lot of interactions with people who are looking for solutions to do partner reporting. A lot of them are in a system where they might be collecting just Word documents or PDFs from partners and having to parse through that to extract the information they need to get into the reporting framework. Others are using Excel, hopefully with some sort of standardization on the schema, but they are having to harmonize that data and clean it before they can do their analysis.

I hear time and time again how challenging this is. There are a lot of errors in the spreadsheets. At a certain point, just the number of records is too cumbersome for office tools like Google Sheets. Also, the big challenge is around getting that data in one place and cleaning it so that you can actually start to answer questions about the data. Commonly, people say it just takes too long to provide information.

ActivityInfo is a solution to address many of these challenges. Fundamentally, from a feature perspective, we are supporting data collection, data management, and analysis for reporting purposes. When we are engineering ActivityInfo, our goal is to support the entire data life cycle: from the point of collection coming in from the partners themselves, processing it, storing it, managing tools like role-based access control, and finally analysis and visualization. We are trying to provide a single integrated digital system to support that whole life cycle.

Specifically regarding partner reporting, we support these fundamental categories: data collection and entry through web or mobile applications; validation to ensure correct format and quality; and facilitating dialogue with partners to resolve issues. Once we have data of good quality coming in a timely manner, we help you make sense of it by aggregating it up to KPIs and disseminating it to get it into the hands of people who need it.

One of the real value propositions for ActivityInfo is how easy it is to deploy and manage. ActivityInfo makes it really easy for people who aren't necessarily coders or developers. We have a no-code form designer that helps you implement your data model from your logical framework or reporting framework, either from scratch or by importing from a system like Excel. It is built on a relational data model, so pretty much any data structure you have can be implemented. It allows you to thread the balance between standardization and flexibility. You might have core indicators that all programs need to report on, but you can also allow for local needs to collect other types of information. If a donor wants you to start tracking new information, it is very easy to update the system as you evolve.

ActivityInfo is software as a service. You don't need to procure hardware or cloud infrastructure; we take care of all the security and maintenance. It is also very easy to use for your partners. You invite them through email, determining what permissions they have, so when they open the invitation link, they are automatically entered into the system with the permissions they need. They can work in the browser or on mobile applications, online or offline. There is two-way synchronization, which is helpful in intermittent bandwidth environments.

Importantly, the data in the system is being entered and viewed in real-time. Information managers and program managers have a live view of the data as it comes in. There is no intermediary step where you need to harmonize the data. Regarding IT considerations, the platform is secure (ISO 27001 certified and GDPR compliant), supports single sign-on, and can handle very large datasets and a high volume of users.

00:16:42 Centralized data collection and management

Centralized data collection is one of the key elements to help with the partner reporting process. Fundamentally, ActivityInfo streamlines your data entry because your partners can enter data directly into the system. There is no harmonization step; it is just there. This helps information managers and leadership have real-time, program-wide visibility of everything coming in. It creates a single source of truth for everyone in the organization, eliminating the need to hunt for data in files or shared folders.

It is not just a mechanism for collection and entry. Through permissions, you can give information back to partners. You can configure reports specific to those partners so they can view the data they are contributing in a consolidated way. They are also able to create their own analyses and reports to help with their own goals.

Managing with ActivityInfo in a centralized way improves the integrity of the data coming into the system. When you design your forms, you are implementing a structure with specific field types, which acts as a form of validation. There is also powerful validation logic you can implement through expression languages or drag-and-drop tools. This acts as a filter to keep out messy data, meaning less time spent cleaning and improved quality of analysis.

00:20:00 Demo: Data collection and validation

In this demo, I am logged in as the owner of a sample database built from our 3W templates. ActivityInfo is built on the relational data model, so we have set up reference datasets and forms capturing things like geographies and a list of partners. This partner list is where we register all the partners we are working with, which powers lookups and allows us to do analysis later on. We also have a list of sectors. These reference datasets allow us to create connections to our reporting forms, facilitating lookups for data entry and providing dimensions for analysis.

In the form view, we can create views of our data based on filtered selections. For example, I can set up a view specifically for agricultural projects and save it to share across the organization. If program managers want a specific view of the data, they can easily access it.

In the form designer, you can see how easy it is to use. I want to highlight the validation logic. For example, for "funding received," we have set it to be valid only if it is related to a health project and is between certain values. We also have relevance rules, such as only showing a question if the project status is set to "suspended." Additionally, we have "reviewer only" fields, which are useful for administration or approvals; these fields are only accessible to individuals with specific permissions.

If you are transitioning from Excel, you can use the importer as a harmonization tool. You can paste data from a spreadsheet, and the system provides a conflict resolution dialog where you can match columns to fields. The system highlights invalid records, which you can download and send back to the partner for correction. Once imported, you can use the deduplication tool to scan for duplicates using machine learning to identify potential matches based on your sensitivity settings.

00:28:40 Access and permissions

Access and permissions are a significant differentiator between Excel-based systems and ActivityInfo. Our system is built around Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). You can configure access and permissions that mirror your organizational structure based on roles. You create a role, give it permissions and access to resources, and then assign that role to an individual. Ideally, this gives them the access needed to do their job and nothing more.

We have a number of different permissions you can assign. For example, an Information Manager might have broad permissions to design databases, manage data, and share reports, but you might restrict them from bulk deleting data or exporting it. Conversely, partners will have a much more scaled-back version of these permissions. They will be focused on data management—entering and updating information—and will not have access to all resources. Specifically, they will only be able to add and update records related to their program or geography. You can assign granular permissions down to the record level.

00:32:16 Demo: Configuring permissions

In the database settings, we can manage roles. I have set up a "Reporting Partner" demo role. When assigning resources to this role, we can configure permissions not just on what they can access, but what they can do with those resources. We have set up conditions for their access related to parameters. These parameters reference the tables we saw earlier, such as partners and sectors.

I have set a condition that the permissions on the form are related to the parameter set for the user. When I add a user, I select which partner and sector they are associated with—for example, Care International and the Protection sector. When that user logs in, they will only have access to records related to Care International and the Protection sector. When they go to add records, they can only add records related to their assigned organization and sector. This ensures partners have a simple view and can focus on their specific tasks without seeing irrelevant data.

00:36:10 Reports and analysis

Once you have the data, the next step is putting it to use to drive impact or accountability. Our philosophy regarding analysis is that simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible. We make it easy to drag and drop for simple sums, counts, and percentages. However, ActivityInfo also has a powerful query language for complex indicators, which is useful when trying to avoid double counting from secondary data.

We offer built-in tools for visualization designed with usability in mind. We don't want just one person on the team to know how to use the software; everyone should be able to drag and drop to get the answers they need. Once you have created your report, you can share it using role-based access or use the "publish reports" function to produce a link that can be shared with external stakeholders who don't need to log in.

We also support integration with external tools. If you prefer Power BI, Tableau, or R, we have a great API integration that creates a live connection. As soon as partner reports come in, you can refresh your dashboard to get the latest results.

00:39:15 Demo: Analysis tools and integration

In the interface, you can grab a JSON endpoint URL to paste into Power BI or ArcGIS for a live connection. You can also use our R package to query the data directly in RStudio.

Focusing on the built-in tools, you can use the "Analyze" menu to get a quick start. This is available to everyone, including reporting partners. You can start with something simple, like dragging and drop to see a count of all projects. You can drag fields to rows to see projects by partner or sector, and easily turn that into a bar chart or pie chart. You can also analyze based on time by dragging start dates to the chart and rolling them up by quarter or year to see trends.

We make it easy to design and share dashboards. You can combine multiple analyses into a multi-page dashboard, edit the layout, add logos, and make changes to charts on the fly. You can publish these dashboards to generate a public URL. We also have a notebook layout which gives you more space for analysis, allowing you to add headings and text alongside your visualizations.

00:43:40 Real-world success stories

We have two examples of where this has been applied. The first is UNICEF in the Syrian Arab Republic. They are funding a massive response with over 100 partners in 269 sub-districts. They needed to produce high-frequency output and outcome indicators for their humanitarian performance management. This involved a large volume of data—around 500,000 data points in 2024.

The challenge was complex indicator calculations to avoid double counting. For example, if two partners are doing education activities in the same district, you don't want to just add those reports together. They used a data entry form for partners to report on individual work and the importer for bulk uploads. They then used ActivityInfo to turn those data points into reach and outcome indicators.

To handle double counting, they used calculated measures. For instance, they had door-to-door activities and radio commercials both promoting "back to school." Adding these directly would double count people. The formula they used summarized activities to the district level, took the maximum of either door-to-door or radio reach for that district, and then summed those maximums to the governorate or national level. This required upfront investment in the formula, but once set up, everyone could use the measure easily. They also pulled this data into Power BI for further visualization.

The second case is the Spotlight Initiative, an EU-funded program with the UN to eliminate violence against women and girls, operating in 30 countries. The challenge was aggregating information from individual country programs to a global level. Initially, they used a system combining Google Sheets and third-party forms with many formulas. This required a workbook for each country plus a global aggregation workbook. This proved not to be scalable or error-proof, as broken links and overwritten cells were common.

They switched to ActivityInfo using one central database. Each country was given access to parts of that database using permissions. This meant they didn't have to replicate work across 30 workbooks. They had one central data model where everyone collaborated. This allowed the secretariat to move much faster during annual reporting and perform continuous monitoring and evaluation.

00:55:38 Q&A session

Does ActivityInfo support DAX, or is it a new language for calculation? We were very much inspired by DAX and have incorporated a lot of its functions. It is not exactly DAX, but we support a similar approach. You can check our formula reference for details on calculated measures.

What are the limitations that users face, and how have developers amended them? We have been at this for 15 years. The first version was only in French, so we added English and now support around 15-20 languages, including right-to-left languages. We added translation features so partners can report in their preferred language. The first version didn't have the formula language we have today; it was just sums and counts. We also did a major user interface redesign in 2018 based on user feedback.

Can I use the relational database to connect different data collection platforms? Yes, you can add your own forms for your cluster or section and still reference key indicators. You can build everything into one system to make sharing and harmonizing information easier.

How can we ensure the data collected is rigorously analyzed and clean? ActivityInfo helps ensure data is clean at the point of entry through validation logic and database structure design. We also offer tools like deduplication and the importer to enforce validation. Regarding analysis, the platform gives you the space to ask the right questions, whether for accountability, gap analysis, or impact assessment.

Does ActivityInfo support full backups? Yes, with one click you can do a full export of the whole database, including data and metadata, into Excel. However, we also take responsibility for data protection. We replicate data across two different data centers in the Netherlands and Belgium, ensuring at least two copies exist in real-time. We also have point-in-time backups and a full audit log to reverse accidental deletions.

How can I use ActivityInfo to manage and report qualitative data? You can collect qualitative data like stories of change. We recently added a reader view to make consuming this information easier. While it is not a full qualitative analysis tool like NVivo, capturing qualitative data alongside structured data makes it discoverable. You can filter by categories or locations to easily access relevant qualitative information.

Can reporting partners create an account to contextualize their organization's data? Yes. We try to ensure ActivityInfo is not just a one-way street. Anyone with access has access to analysis tools. You can combine data you have reported to different sectors into a single report for your organization to use for advocacy, fundraising, or your own gap analysis.