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 both you and us. On our end, we pored over M&E documents and wrote custom code to pull information into the system. This took weeks or even months. On your end, there were no features for doing things in bulk online. For example, assigning 30 indicators to 10 projects took at least 300 clicks. We’ve come a long way since then.
The original DevResults setup template
In late 2013, we introduced a more systematized process that served folks well for a decade; we created a single Excel template that defined and captured all the program information needed to create a DevResults site. It had a dozen tabs that captured activities, organizations, indicators, disaggregations, locations, users, and reporting periods, plus all the ways these things were linked together. We typically collaborated with organizations for weeks to perfect this template, making sure that everything was internally consistent and linked up correctly. Then we used some standardized code on our end to import the template, creating the ready-to-use DevResults site.
This process offered huge benefits over the earlier bespoke process: The template clearly expressed what information was needed and highlighted any decisions that still needed to be made. But it came with drawbacks as well. First, it was a little complicated to represent all the content and relationships of an M&E program in a simple Excel file. Over the course of a decade, precious few ever nailed it on their first try without a fair number of reviews and revisions from our team. Second, the setup template was only used once to create a “final starting point” as we called it. Our counterparts doing the setup first had to learn how to use the template, and then they had to learn how to use DevResults itself.
Introducing our new User-Directed Approach
In the last couple years, we’ve added new setup features based on some simple guiding principles:
- Users should have fast, friendly tools to define their M&E portfolios and enable reporting.
- These tools should work the same way for getting started and for ongoing program changes down the road.
- Users should have the option to work however they choose — online in the app, or offline with Excel templates.
At this point, we’ve covered just about everything, including:
- Activities (aka Projects, Awards, etc.)
- Users
- Indicators
- Locations
- Organizations
- Reporting Periods
- Result Frameworks
- Disaggregations
- User Assignments to Activities
- Indicator Targets
- Mechanisms
- Tags
- Activity-Geography Mappings
- Activity-Indicator Mappings
- Narrative Questions
Let’s have a look at indicators as an example. Our commitment to fast, friendly tools means that we support:
- Quick imports of new information
- Bulk actions for making the same edit to many things at once
- Easy editing for one-off changes
- Export and import options to get a full set of info, make edits offline, and re-import
Quick imports of new information
Our new bulk imports page collects all these templates in one place. Each key component of DevResults is listed with three buttons that let you visit the index for that component, get a blank template for making additions, and importing that template. A DevResults site can be created from scratch by filling out and importing each template in any order, and then it’s ready to go. Partners can then report data, managers can approve it and generate reports, and executives will have dashboards and visualizations at their fingertips. These tools can be used at any time to add a lot of information at once, like if you’re launching 10 new activities or projects.
Bulk actions for making the same edit to many things at once
Each index page has a suite of relevant actions that you can do to some or all of the items in the index. For example, I’ve selected three indicators here and could bookmark them, assign them all to a selection of activities, assign tags, and so on.
Easy editing for one-off changes
It’s still easy to make individual changes to any part of DevResults by editing a field directly, if you have permission to do so. Changing an indicator’s code just takes two seconds on its definition page.
Export and import options to get a full set of info, make edits offline, and re-import
Sometimes you have a lot of edits to make, or even a systemic change to the whole index. For example, maybe you want to re-do your whole indicator coding scheme. No problem – you can export your whole indicator list (or just the relevant rows/columns), make edits, and re-import it just like attaching a file to an email.
These four tools are enabled for every key component of DevResults, from activities to users. We completed this shift about a year ago and have seen dramatic results:
Organizations are now better empowered to update program information. We’ve eliminated the tedium of repeated changes and enabled users to make the kinds of bulk updates that were previously only realistic for our team to do on the backend. This reduces the friction between program changes and users having the reporting tools they need.
We’ve increased the efficiency of the setup process. One of our main goals in making these changes was for 100% of the setup effort to double as useful training in how to administer a DevResults platform going forward. Previously, we’d collaborate in Excel, build the entire site, and then start training on the platform. Now the setup process itself gives our counterparts all the training they’ll need to manage changes in program information, meaning that trainings can focus on other tools and user groups. The result is better, faster transfer of capacity.
With this major project done and tested, we’ve turned our attention to enabling bespoke user permissions and, as always, anticipating organizations’ need for technology integrations across the international development sector. Stay tuned.
As always, we welcome your feedback, questions, and ideas at team@devresults.com.