Leslie Sage

Today, an organization can go from zero to a fully-configured DevResults site in less than a week. Sometimes organizations need more time to gather program information internally, but once that info is ready, a few simple steps create a DevResults platform that’s ready for folks to report data and analyze results. How did we get here? The beginning through 2013 DevResults began with a fairly tedious setup process, for »

Protection of personally identifiable information (PII) is one of the most important responsibilities in M&E and a solemn duty of technology providers. As the situation deteriorated yesterday in Kabul, our team discussed what we could do to protect the people that our partners and software endeavor to serve. Our team reached out to every organization we work with that reports any data in Afghanistan and has applied the »

A blog post for anyone who writes indicators Contents: Percentages Percent Change Cumulative vs. Incremental Targets Cumulative vs. Incremental Actuals Disaggregation vs. Free Response Cross-Disaggregation vs. Parallel Disaggregation Deduplication Background In seven years as a data scientist at DevResults, I’ve worked with donor agencies, implementing partners, nonprofits, and private companies. I’ve had a front-row seat to M&E planning in the sectors of health and sanitation, education, »

One of DevResults' most anticipated features is finally here. We can now rename the concept of an "activity" to anything you like. Whether you work with projects, programs, grants, offices, operating units, partners, awards, or teams, your DevResults site can reflect the terminology of your organization. Plus, your chosen term will be translated automatically for users who view the platform in another language. Two caveats: All help materials and training »

DevResults instituted a sabbatical policy earlier this year. We looked into types of sabbaticals across sectors and found a wide variety; for us, an employee earns 12 weeks to focus on professional development for every five years of service. In light of this policy, I’m excited to share that I’ll be attending a programming course from June 24th to October 4th. What this means for you: In the »

DevResults prides itself on continuous innovation in response to our users’ needs. Every improvement we make is a response to the feedback we get in person and through our help desk. As our company grows, DevResults works constantly to optimize our own internal processes. We strive for transparency in how we evaluate and execute feature suggestions, and this blog post will offer a peek behind the curtain of our feature »

We’re releasing an update tonight that will change the layout of DevResults menus. This update won’t add or subtract any menu items or features, just rearrange them in a more intuitive way. The four main menus will be: Data, for accessing features where you can view or edit indicator data Program Info, the place to manage the content of your DevResults site Tools, for additional features that aren't »

By: Chris Gegenheimer (Chemonics) and Leslie Sage (DevResults) Back in September, Chemonics and DevResults spoke at MERL Tech DC about the inherent compromise involved when purchasing enterprise software. In short, if you want good software that does everything you want exactly the way you want it, cheap software that is affordable and sustainable, and fast software that is available immediately and responsive to emerging needs, you may have to relax »

All of the world's major donors have agreed to publish their data using the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) standard. Many now require that grantees and recipients report back to them in IATI format. In 2017, DevResults responded by developing one-click IATI exports. Earlier this summer we expanded our IATI support to include additional activity information. Now we've added even more options to better serve our customers who face mandatory »

We shared what we built in 2017. Here's where we're headed next. Our team recently collaborated to lay out our 2018 goals for DevResults. From many competing priorities, we established a set of objectives that reflect the needs of our users, the direction of international development, and our vision for how to deliver excellent software and service. Not all of these goals will be accomplished this year but they will »

Stage one is complete. We're in the middle of a big project to bring you relational data tables. Relational data tables will allow you to link one or more tables by information common to both. For example, you'll be able to have one table of trainees and a separate table of all the trainings they attend without needing to repeat demographic information (age, sex, etc.) about them every time. This »

What are relational tables? Relational tables let you link two or more tables using information shared between them. Imagine a table of beneficiaries and a table survey responses. The beneficiary table includes the beneficiary's ID and demographic information about them. In the table of survey responses, each response set would be identified with the ID of the beneficiary who took the survey. If these tables are relational, or "linked", then »

Reporting Cycles will let you more easily assign different reporting frequencies to your indicators, like having some indicators report annually and some report quarterly. 1 How Does It Work? Reporting Cycles contain Reporting Periods. A quarterly Reporting Cycle contains all of your quarterly Reporting Periods; an annual Reporting Cycle contains all of your annual Reporting Periods. You can view and manage Reporting Cycles under Administration > Reporting Cycles. Reporting Periods are »