Monitoring using mobile technology: the case of dispensers for safe water

Since 2009, Dispensers for Safe Water (DSW) has collected thousands of community surveys, dispenser surveys, promoter surveys, installation forms, and chlorine delivery records to track and monitor the quality of service it provides to local communities in Kenya and Uganda. In late 2011, the program began the transition to electronic surveys on handheld mobile devices and the complex data management systems needed to support this technology. Mobile surveys have proven faster, cheaper, and more accurate than paper forms; they have also enabled increased innovation, iteration, and course correction through rapid feedback and analysis. However, challenges remain, including connecting daily field activities to higher-level analysis and aggregation of results in the cloud. To address this, DSW is working to build a system of dashboards and mobile applications to better enable the field team to access, edit, and operationalize the information collected.