Link Indicators to Custom Forms in LogAlto

LogAlto has just released a new way to link your indicators to your custom forms. You are now able to tell the system which “field” in your form should map out to which “disaggregation” in your indicator and how this is displayed.

Below will take you through how to link an indicator to a form, how to update the indicator’s value, and how to populate forms and link indicators to them.

What is the purpose of linking an indicator to a form

When an indicator is linked to a form, the indicator’s value can be calculated (updated) based on data (records) in the form.

For instance, if the indicator is ” % of participants that were satisfied with the training” and if this information is available in a “training evalaution form“, then it may be useful to link the indicator to that form so LogAlto can calculate the indicator’s value.

Doing so will reduce the risk of calculation errors and facilitate the process.

1. How to link an indicator to a form

Open the indicator configuration panel
Check the “Link to custom form” checkbox
Select the form that contains the data that will be used for the indicator’s calculation
Select a calculation method:
- Sum: this will add up all the values from all the records in the form
- Percentage: Use this option if you want to calculate a percentage concerning specific values in your form. (see the example in a section below)
- Count: this method will count how many records have been entered, regardless of the values
- Average: this method will take all the records and make an average of the values
Select a unicity field: select a field that will ensure that some items are unique and are not counted twice.(see the example in a section below)
If the calculation method is Sum or Average: Select a Value field
If your indicator is disaggregated, you will see other fields appear allowing you how to map the form’s fields to your indicator’s categories.
Filter can also be added (so only the records corresponding to the filters will be used in the calculation)
Save the indicator form once the link is configured

2. How to update the indicator’s value

Once you have configured your indicator, if you want to update the indicator’s value:

Open the logframe
Click the “Data Entry” tab.
When you click in the cell, you will see a calculator icon

When you click the calculator icon, a window will pop-up:

You can then choose whether you want to use all the data or only data entered before a specific date.
Finally, click “Calculate and apply”

3. How to populate forms and link them to indicators

Once you have configured your indicator, and your form, you can link them and disaggregate the data accordingly.

To link forms to indicator and updated the disaggregated data accordingly you must follow the following steps:

Create your form. In our example, we will create a form called “Zoo” where we want to know how many elephants and lions are in each zoo and what are their genders. Based on the form below, we should have.
1. 42 total animals
2. 18 lions
3. 24 elephants
4. 25 male animals
5. 7 female animals
Link the form you want to disaggregate in the indicator menu
In your custom form, you must make sure that the data matches correctly what is in your system list. In our example we will go to system list and add our animals. Add the disaggregation to your system list
Choose your disaggregation from the indicator menu. Make sure that that disaggregation are matching correctly with your forms. In our example, we want to disaggregate our data with Animal and Gender as shown below.
To have your disaggregation, you must select the calculation method to be either Sum or average
Choose your preferred method either by disaggregation or category
1. By category: it permits the user to choose for each item/category, a method of calculation and a value field corresponding to the value in the custom form
2. By Disaggregation: it allows the user to map the disaggregation with the field in the form. Example is the gender. Users would like to map the gender system list of the custom form.
Fill out the data entry
in your indicator, you should see the chosen disaggregation
Fill it out automatically by clicking on the calculator symbol. This will feed the indicator the data found in the form
We see that the forms are disaggregated correctly after manually calculating them in Step 1