SurveyCTO Mobile Data Collection for M&E Training Course

Course overview

Monitoring and evaluation teams need reliable evidence from dispersed field sites, often under weak connectivity, time pressure and strict donor reporting requirements. Poorly designed mobile forms create missing values, inconsistent codes, duplicate records and delayed cleaning; weak device and user controls can expose sensitive respondent information. This course equips M&E professionals to replace paper-heavy or error-prone workflows with controlled SurveyCTO data-collection systems that support routine monitoring, assessments, baseline and endline studies, beneficiary feedback and post-distribution monitoring.

Participants build SurveyCTO projects from a defined results framework and data-collection protocol. They learn to translate indicators into well-structured questions, create XLSForms, configure relevance logic, constraints, repeat groups, calculations, rosters and multilingual labels, and publish forms to SurveyCTO. The course also covers user roles, server folders, device deployment, offline collection, GPS and media capture, quality checks, data exports and a practical workflow for resolving field-data issues. Attention is given to informed consent, data minimisation and secure handling of personally identifiable information.

Instruction combines live demonstrations, guided form-building labs, humanitarian and development case scenarios, peer review and daily troubleshooting clinics. Participants work through a realistic programme-monitoring case and leave with a deployable SurveyCTO form package: an indicator-linked XLSForm, data dictionary, enumerator workflow, quality-control rules and a field deployment checklist. This provides both the attendee and their manager with an immediately usable template for a live or upcoming data-collection activity.

The course is suited to professionals who commission, manage, analyse or supervise mobile data collection and need enough technical fluency to build forms themselves or quality-assure work produced by partners, consultants and enumerator teams.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Translate a logframe indicator and data-collection protocol into a SurveyCTO question specification
• Build an XLSForm with groups, repeat sections, choice lists and multilingual labels
• Configure skip logic, relevance conditions, required fields and validation constraints in SurveyCTO
• Create calculations, preloaded datasets and roster-based lookups for respondent-level forms
• Publish and version a SurveyCTO form using server folders, user roles and controlled access
• Deploy forms to SurveyCTO Collect for offline fieldwork and synchronise completed submissions
• Apply field-data quality checks using review status, constraints, audit logs and export checks
• Produce a deployment-ready mobile data-collection package with a data dictionary and enumerator instructions

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Monitoring and Evaluation Officers — who need to build and quality-assure routine monitoring and survey forms
• MEAL Coordinators — who oversee evidence systems, enumerator workflows and data-quality assurance across programmes
• Programme Officers — who translate activity outputs and outcome indicators into practical field questions
• Research and Assessment Officers — who require repeatable digital instruments for baselines, endlines and rapid assessments
• Field Coordinators — who prepare enumerator teams and resolve offline mobile data-collection issues
• Data Managers — who administer form access, data exports and controlled handover to analysis teams

Requirements and prerequisites

This is a foundation-to-intermediate course and does not require prior SurveyCTO use or programming experience. Participants should understand the basic purpose of indicators, questionnaires and respondent consent in an M&E or research setting, and should be comfortable working with spreadsheets: entering data, filtering rows and using simple formulas in Microsoft Excel or a similar tool. Experience supervising enumerators or reviewing survey data is helpful but not essential. Participants do not need prior knowledge of XLSForm syntax, ODK, databases, statistical software or GIS. Complete beginners should expect structured, hands-on form-building practice from the first day.

Training methodology

The instructor uses a single development-programme monitoring case to connect each technical feature to an M&E decision. Short demonstrations of SurveyCTO are followed by individual build sessions in which participants create, test and revise forms in XLSForm and on mobile devices. Teams review one another’s skip logic, indicator wording and validation rules against a data-quality checklist. Troubleshooting scenarios address failed synchronisation, incorrect relevance conditions and duplicate submissions. The final day includes an application-planning workshop in which each participant adapts the course workflow to an upcoming collection exercise.

Course outline

Day 1: Designing mobile M&E instruments

• SurveyCTO architecture: server, forms, devices and submissions
• Mobile data collection use cases for monitoring, assessments and feedback
• Translating logframe indicators into observable questions and response options
• Questionnaire flow, respondent burden and enumerator usability
• Informed consent, data minimisation and sensitive-data classification
• SurveyCTO project folders, user roles and permission boundaries
• XLSForm workbook structure: survey, choices and settings sheets

Workshop: Participants convert a results-framework extract into a question specification and first-draft XLSForm for a beneficiary monitoring visit.

Day 2: Building controlled SurveyCTO forms

• SurveyCTO question types and field parameters
• Choice lists, cascading selects and other response coding methods
• Groups, field-list appearance and section navigation
• Relevance expressions for skip patterns and eligibility screening
• Required fields, constraints and customised validation messages
• Calculated fields, hidden values and metadata capture
• Repeat groups for household members, distributions and service visits

Workshop: Participants build and test a multi-section household monitoring form with skip logic, constraints, calculations and a repeat roster.

Day 3: Advanced field workflows and offline deployment

• Preloading datasets for case assignment and respondent lookup
• Using pulldata and search appearance for roster-based selection
• GPS, image, barcode and audio capture decisions
• Multilingual form labels and enumerator guidance notes
• Form publishing, version management and server-side testing
• SurveyCTO Collect configuration and offline form download
• Enumerator device preparation, synchronisation and submission protocols

Workshop: Participants publish a multilingual form, load a sample case list and run an offline device-based collection and synchronisation test.

Day 4: Data quality, security and handover

• Preventive data quality controls built into the form
• Submission review status and fieldwork follow-up workflows
• Audit logs, timestamps and enumerator accountability checks
• Duplicate detection and case-management identifiers
• Server access control, encryption considerations and data retention
• Exporting submissions to Microsoft Excel and analysis-ready formats
• Data dictionaries, codebooks and documented form handover

Workshop: Participants inspect a flawed submission set, identify quality issues using a review checklist and prepare a corrected export and data dictionary.

Day 5: End-to-end M&E deployment simulation

• Planning a SurveyCTO workflow from protocol to cleaned export
• Enumerator briefing content and supervised pilot procedures
• Pilot testing for wording, logic, duration and technical failures
• Issue logs, change control and form revision decisions
• Monitoring dashboards and reporting requirements for collected fields
• Partner and consultant quality-assurance checkpoints
• Deployment checklists and post-collection lessons learned

Workshop: Participants present a complete SurveyCTO deployment package for their case, receiving instructor feedback on form logic, safeguards and field readiness.

Tools & standards covered

SurveyCTO, SurveyCTO Collect, Microsoft Excel, XLSForm

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions