Monitoring

Akvo Flow's monitoring consists of two main components:

• What you are monitoring, the subject of your data collection. We call this a data point.
• Time.

The core idea of the monitoring feature in Akvo Flow is to create ‘data points’ to which information can be added over time through one or more monitoring forms. You can create multiple forms in a survey on the online space. These forms then together capture different aspects of a data point. One form is used to create the data point with attributes that are unique to the point and which will not change over time. The other forms are used to add additional information to an existing data point that may change over time. Every time you return to the data point you can submit more data with the monitoring forms.

Flow's monitoring supports collaboration. Often the initial monitoring round in done by a group of enumerators, who might not be available for the following rounds. In Flow's app, you can simply download existing data points for your monitoring (even if created by another enumerator), and add additional information to the points by filling out the monitoring forms. To make it easy to work with many data points on the app, you can search for a specific point by ID, or data point name, or sort the list by distance seeing the closest points to you first.

All data submitted to a data point is connected with the data point ID. When analysing the data you can visualise the latest status of your points, or show change over time for all your points or a for a specific one of your interest.