Using Akvo Flow's online workspace

Only have a few minutes? Start using Akvo Flow to create surveys, manage app users in the field and check, clean and export captured data in 5 easy steps:

The Akvo Flow online workspace is the web-based location where you access and manage your Flow data. All the data collected through Flow is stored and processed here. It is also where you can create and edit surveys; view, edit and export data; and manage data collection projects. Each organisation has its own URL to access its online workspace.

Log in

To access your Akvo Flow online workspace, you need a Google account and to be a registered user. Log into our organisation's online workspace via the Log in link at the top of your Flow online workspace.

Create surveys

Each survey in Akvo Flow is created to capture data on a different subject. A survey can consist of one or multiple forms (monitoring surveys have multiple forms), which hold your questions that are organised into question groups. In Flow you can use different types of questions, such as free text, options, cascading options, numbers, geo-location, geographic shape, photo, video, date, barcodes, signature and water quality tests. You can also apply different rules and logic to the questions to ensure the captured data is of the best quality.

To create a survey:

1. Go to the survey folder in which you want to create a new survey.
2. Click on ‘New survey’. Your new survey is shown in the folder. Now click on 'Edit'.
3. Give your survey a name and decide on its settings.
4. Add a new form to this survey.
5. Create a question group.
6. Add questions to the group. To do this, when in a question group click on ‘show questions’. Now the ‘add new question’ button appears. Don’t forget to Save the changes you make.
7. Once your survey form is ready for data collection, publish it.

Manage devices

Your survey is now ready to be sent to your enumerators capturing data in the field. In the Devices list you can see which devices, with the Flow app, are connected to your instance. To distribute your survey to the enumerators you need to create an assignment. To give them the survey offline, use manual survey transfer.

To create an assignment:

1. Select 'New assignment' in the Assignments list page.
2. Give your assignment a name and set its start and end dates.
3. Select which survey form you want to assign and hit 'Add selected forms'.
4. Select which devices are to receive this survey and hit 'Add selected devices'.
5. Save the assignment.

Explore data

Once your data is collected, you can explore it in different ways on your Flow online workspace. In the Inspect data and Monitoring pages you can view each submission made to a form. Maps shows you the data in location and explore the submitted data. Reports page gives you different options to download all the data for a form for further cleaning and analysis, or you can get a quick overview of it using the Summary report.

Manage users

You can add any number of users to your Flow online space. Roles and permissions describe the different levels of access a user has and are fully customisable to fit your workflow. Access can be restricted either by activity, such as creating or editing a survey, making a report, or deleting data, or by survey or survey folder.

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