The COVID pandemic has focused a spotlight on a variety of things affecting the world right now: equitable access to medicine and care, the role of public health in our society, and the importance of reliable, public data. These things helped us understand the importance of how Secure Data Kit can play a role in the... Continue reading
The COVID pandemic has focused a spotlight on a variety of things affecting the world right now: equitable access to medicine and care, the role of public health in our society, and the importance of reliable, public data. These things helped us understand the importance of how Secure Data Kit can play a role in the... Continue reading
In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, access to clear and credible data is more important than ever. Data is not only informing policy decisions and public health initiatives, but during this unusual time the *general public* is also seeking out data to inform how to feel about where we stand in our efforts to comb... Continue reading
Version 3.0.5 of the SDK mobile app was released today, which includes a safeguard allowing us to manually extract the database from Android devices should the user experiencing issues submitting data collected on the device. Continue reading
Version 3.0.3 of Secure Data Kit was released today, containing the following improvements:
We have updated our API so that only projects leveraging the new SDK app will show in the apps home page, and projects leveraging the legacy app will not be shown. Continue reading
Given how much work we do throughout Africa, it goes without saying that we've kept a close eye on the developments of Covid-19 (Coronavirus) throughout the region. So it came as a bit of a surprise that when I went to look for a consolidated list of countries in Africa and their stats on the virus, I couldn't find ... Continue reading
If you’re in North America no doubt you’ve at least heard of the debacle in Iowa. In short, the Iowa team deployed a new app to help collect data from over 1600 precincts. It used to be done with pen / paper but, since it’s 2020, everyone’s first impulse is to say “tech can make EVERYTHING better” Let us stop you... Continue reading
Last week the Atlanta Startup Awards happened. And we actually won something — the Impact award. Which is super cool because there are a lot of different startup awards out there — fastest growing, best culture, best looking team (not actually an award but If it was we’d definitely win). The impact award is espe... Continue reading
We recently updated the reporting engine that powers SDK Dashboards (Metabase). If you see a problem with any of your dashboards that may have been caused by this update, please contact us and we will be happy to help! Just click 'Support' in the bottom right and describe your issue — our customer success team will ... Continue reading
I’m staring at my calendar looking at the date two weeks from now — the year will be 2020 and for as long as I could remember, 2020 was “the future”.
Throughout our experience working with a variety of partners on all-things-data, we've picked up some simple tips + tricks along the way. Some of the best practices we use & share with all of our clients are:
Recently we released a fun update that allows you to view your records by their label rather than their variable name (this means you can read your data in plain English — or whatever language — instead of trying to decipher the variables that the database stores). We noticed a small bug where labels wouldn't displa... Continue reading
We created a new customer success page which brings together all the helpful information we often share with customers on their journey to making the most of Secure Data Kit. Check out our customer success pageContinue reading
Our Q4 Product Guide was recently released! Read on to learn more about how Secure Data Kit can be used to collect, analyze, and share data. Download the Q4 Product Guide Continue reading
We've seen a lot of (really smart) folks who have collected a lot of (really great) data, but once their survey wraps up, they're left with too much information that's not organized in the best way — making analysis quite difficult. This is where we've been stepping in lately to say 'Slow ya roll' and let's chat ... Continue reading
Secure Data Kit's robust Analytics section has allowed our clients to create their own custom reports by writing SQL queries and uploading R scripts, but it hasn't always made it easy to update those reports because after the query or script was uploaded, you can't see it ever again! Which was silly, we know... ... Continue reading
With the Secure Data Kit mobile apps you can capture photos in the field. Previously, the file names of those photos displayed in your dataset, which wasn't particularly useful. Now, we've removed the file names and are instead displaying a link which will take you directly to your image, where you can view or save ... Continue reading
Secure Data Kit has long supported the popular form authoring techniques XLSForm and XML files. While relatively simple to learn, XLSForm and XML files can be very difficult to troubleshoot if any issues do arise. That's why we worked hard to help you identify any issues in your files when you upload them to Secure ... Continue reading
For the past few years we've been using a home grown ticketing system to field requests and issues regarding Secure Data Kit. It's become clear that it's time we move to something a bit more official -- something that aligns better with the great customer service our support team prides themselves on. We are now usi... Continue reading
Our favorite thing in the world is to build data science tools for the global health world. We like it so much that we want to do it often and do it together, so we’ve adopted a process that makes working with us just as fun as using the tools we create together. This way of working... Continue reading
With the launch of SDK:Analyze, more and more of our customers are making use of real-time dashboards, which tell the true story of the progress their organizations are making. The Analytics module within Secure Data Kit can hold lots and lots of reports, but previously those reports were buried behind 'cards' and y... Continue reading
One question we often get from clients is how best to maintain anonymity of the people they’re interviewing and tracking via Secure Data Kit. The answer we almost always come back to a relatively straightforward solution: bar codes. Here’s how it works:
There are many challenges in conducting research studies in a variety of countries in remote parts of the world:
Once a quarter we bring our core team to Atlanta, Standard Co’s unofficial home (we’re remote but it’s about as central as we get). During that trip home we share what we call a Quarterly Business Review. It’s a forum to share with the team some high level things — our vision, what makes us tick, big wins (and losse... Continue reading
3 years ago, we embarked on a pretty crazy project with our good friends at Merck and the Kenyan Ministry of Health: use mobile technology to track the “last mile” of medicine distribution throughout a few thousand sch... Continue reading
Back in 2017, we had the opportunity to work with our first NGO client, Amigos for Christ (AFC). Their mission: “We work shoulder-to-shoulder with Nicaraguan neighbors to bring clean water, healthcare, education, and economic opportunity to rural communities in need.” This mission seemed to line up nicely with what ... Continue reading
A customer reported an issue they encountered when trying to download the dataset records to a CSV. The CSV would show all records from the dataset crammed into a single row, rather than dedicating one row for each record. The root cause was quickly identified and a fix was deployed, and this issue is no longer occu... Continue reading
About a year ago, we rolled out a major overhaul to Secure Data Kit’s reporting system. You can read the link for all the cool stuff we did but it included things like making data exportable, integrations with... Continue reading
The SDK2 mobile app (available on Android and iPhone) is now sporting new language support - Spanish! SDK2 has always supported forms in multiple languages, the the app itself was only available in English. Now the app can be used in Spanish as well. If you'd like to use SDK2 in Spanish, please contact us by adding ... Continue reading
This release focuses on improving our support of 'repeaters' in forms, and some general bug fixes. Improved Support for Repeaters
SDK's latest updates include new user invitation functionality which will allow project administrators to invite users in bulk! In the user invite section of your project, click 'Bulk Add Users.' ... Continue reading
Today we released a new role in SDK: View Only. This new role allows organization admins to invite individuals to a project that can view all the data, without permissions to download or edit data. To invite someone to a project with view only permissions, click the checkbox next to 'User can view data' when inv... Continue reading
We started Secure Data Kit with humble intentions; we knew that Open Data Kit, an open-source suite of tools built to help organizations author, field, and manage mobile data collection, had gaps in its offering. More importantly, we knew we could do more than just fill in the gaps Open Data Kit had, improving our o... Continue reading
Building an app that is used around the globe and in locations with slow internet speeds resulted in some logic being built out to protect ourselves from data loss in SDK. Although we have done our best to make sure each submission saves without issue, it’s always good to have backups in case something goes awry. Th... Continue reading
Late in 2017 we rolled out a revamped Secure Data Kit that we’re calling...wait for it….SDK 2! We’re geniuses, right? Part of that rollout was a big upgrade to SDK Reporting. The first iteration of Secure Data Kit was all about collecting and organizing data. We made it easy to get data into SDK via mobile, SMS, A... Continue reading
If you want your project to be successful, you will need good people on your team. Happy, hard-working experts. Your team will need skills across two dimensions. They should be specialists in their role and they should be a pleasure to work with. More projects have been scuttled by interpersonal issues than by a lac... Continue reading
This past week the World Health Organization agreed to class the disease chromomycosis as a Continue reading
There are countless ways to develop a survey, but none as comprehensive as the XLSForm. XLSForms are easy to author, and can be as simple or complex as needed to meet your goals. There are two ways to author an XLSForm:
The CDC through AFENET runs a program called START Kenya. START Kenya provides on-the-job training and mentoring to sub-county and health facility immunization staff to improve program planning, monitoring, and supportive supervision. The START Kenya program uses LINKS System to track the activities of the mentor... Continue reading
Standard Code's product Secure Data Kit adopted LINKS System this week. Standard Code has worked closely with the NTD Support Center in the development of LINKS System and is excited about having more control over its development to better meet the needs of the Global Health community. You can read more about the an... Continue reading
Do you want to make life better for someone who is suffering? Maybe you want to reduce the burden of Malaria in Eastern Kenya or protect mothers from gender-based violence in the Central African Republic. Before you start collecting data, ask yourself what do you hope to achieve. What is the goal of your project? ... Continue reading
