Sites are locations or facilities that can be monitored over time. Using surveys to monitor sites is the foundation of mWater's unique ability to monitor changes over time. This permits powerful data analysis and visualization to provide insight into specific sites and their history instead of just the survey sample as a whole. To maximize their usefulness and reduce duplication of efforts, sites can be shared with the whole mWater community so that the entire sector can work from a common dataset. Setting the site privacy lets users define who can view and edit the site to protect their data and privacy.
Sites are monitored over time using surveys
Video Tutorial
About sites
To standardize data collection and make it easy to share and collaborate, mWater only offers fixed types of sites; these include water points, communities, health facilities, schools, and many others. We also work with our partners and clients to develop new site types or custom site fields, so new types are added all the time. Each site type is a separate table, which has some Properties common to all sites and others which are specific to certain site types.
Because site tables are common to everyone in the platform, users cannot create new properties unless they work with mWater directly. We find it is best to keep the number of site properties to a minimum to facilitate collaborative data collection on core Properties. Properties are typically used for data about the site, which isn't likely to change over time, like GPS location, borehole depth, type of school, etc. For site data that changes over time, it's better to connect a site to a survey form that can monitor them over time (e.g., functionality, school attendance, water quality testing, etc.).
Some organizations partner with mWater, for a fee, to add their own custom properties to sites. Custom properties are typically only visible to users in the organization. This is part of a service package that includes custom app configurations to streamline the mobile app for a specific organization or use case. For more information on mWater's custom app configs, please see this resource article.
Site types and properties
The list below shows the current list of sites and the common properties available in mWater.
The site data for all users is kept in the same table, regardless of who collected and manages it. Having all sites, e.g. water points, in a single table allows various organizations and users to use and reuse the same data without having to recreate or migrate it to their system. One of the core functionalities of sites is that the privacy levels can be set for each individual site, allowing users to define who gets to view, edit, delete their site data. The sites feature gives users the ability to balance the confidentiality of site data while also sharing common data.
Sites can have three levels of privacy:
Private - Only the organization that manages the site can see it and modify it.
Protected - Anyone can see the site, but only the organization that manages the site can edit the basic information (name, location, etc.)
Public - Anyone can see, edit, and delete the site information ("crowdsourcing")
Who will manage the site? - When data is made Private or Protected, users must define which organization manages the data. Users in the managing organization can view, modify, and delete the site.
Setting the site privacy levels
Connecting sites and surveys
There are various ways to collect GPS data using survey forms.
These include:
Site questions - Used to track information about a location over time. Users can return to the site and complete a new survey to register the changes. The GPS and site properties of the site won't change over time, so they only have to be registered once.
Location questions - Used to register the GPS for the survey response. These are used for one-off surveys where users won't have to return to the same place later on to see how things have changed.
"Record GPS location where question was answered" - This setting can be activated on most questions in order to automatically register the GPS location of the enumerator when the question was answered. Many survey administrators add this question so that they can verify where the survey response was actually completed. This GPS data will be registered in the background, meaning the enumerator won't be able to see that it is being collected.
WARNING: Using the "Record GPS location where question was answered" option will not save the GPS location if the enumerator advances to the next page before the app can register their location. mWater does not recommend using thias function as the primary data source for GPS location data
Adding a site question
Site questions can be added to surveys to track changes over time. To do so, the survey administrator can use the Survey > Design page to add a site question, as shown in the figure below.
The mWater Surveyor mobile app allows users to create, view, modify and delete sites both online and offline. For a more detailed guide on using site data in the mobile app, please see this resource article.
Viewing sites
Click the Map menu or, from a survey's site question click Select
Select the site from the list, map or search bar
a) If the site is part of a water system, it will display the parent water system at the top
b) Uses can share the site page via Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp, or link
c) For users within the organization which manages the site data are an Edit button will allow them to modify/delete the site
f) Create a survey response or issue related to the site. This will open a new survey response and pre-fill the Site ID in the site question.
g) A history of all survey responses conducted on the site. Only those surveys for which the user has view permissions will show in the list. Clicking the response will provide the full survey details.
Creating sites
Click +Add a Site from the Map, Home page or Add menu
Select thesite Type
Fill in the core site information
Press Create
Questions in sites are split into sections:
Privacy setting - Set the view and edit/delete permissions for the site
Core data - Name, description, type, GPS location, and photos
Related sites - Depending on the site type, it can be connected to other related sites, e.g., the community where the water point is located
Additional information - Checking the Additional information button will display a set of additional questions specific to that type of site, e.g., well depth, treatment equipment, water supply type, etc
Custom questions - For a fee, some organizations choose to partner with mWater to add their custom questions to sites or display a completely custom configuration for the app. For more information on the many advantages of custom configs, see this resource article.
Approving and cleaning site data
The mWater platform has several features which help users to ensure the quality of their site data.
Approving sites
The site approvals feature is an optional feature that provides administrators more control over changes made to their site data. The feature introduces an approval step for every modification done on a site, including site creation, modifications, and deletion. Once site approvals are turned on from the organization page, the site approvers can see all site changes made from that point on.
Enable site approvals from your organization top branch. 1) Setting 2) Enable approving sites 3) Add approvers
Administrators can Approve, Reject and Undo site changes
Deduplicating sites
A common issue with site data is that users collect data on a site that already exists instead of simply updating or completing a survey on the existing site. The best way to address this is by ensuring that enumerators don't do this in the first place by following the steps shown in this resource article under "Going offline." If a duplicate site does get created, the mWater "Deduplicator" is the simplest way to combine these into a single site without losing data.
This feature allows data managers to identify duplicates based on any of three match criteria:
Match by distance- Compares the GPS locations of the sites. Sites which are close together are more likely to be duplicates.
Match by property - Compares one or more properties of sites, e.g., Name, Description, Custom ID, etc. If any of these properties match, the sites will be displayed as potential duplicates. Note: that you can select more than one property to match on.
Match known duplicates - Allows users to enter the unique mWater IDs of two or more sites you know are duplicates as a comma-separated list.
When an enumerator inputs a site's Unique ID into a site question, mWater will display basic data for the referenced site, including the Name, Description, GPS, Photos, etc. As shown below, when viewing the site question within a survey response, it will display many data fields as a single question e.g., water system. A red box will appear if the referenced site is ever deleted or you don't have permission to view it.
Site management tasks like import, modification, and export are often done via the Manage > Sites page.
Importing site data
Site data can be collected in the field via the mobile app or by uploading site data from an Excel or CSV via the process outlined here. When sites are imported, they can be added to an existing or new dataset to them group together.
Viewing
The Manage > Sites page displays all sites which your user account has permission to see. For a set of sites, users who are a part of the "Managed by" Organization can modify their site data either in bulk or one by one.
Editing sites
To edit an individual site, users can click on the site from the map or list and select the edit button at the top right. Editing and deleting sites are only available to users who are part of the organization designated in the "Managed by" property.
Bulk editing sites
Users can bulk edit site data by checking the boxes next to the sites to modify and clicking "Edit/Delete Selected." This will display a set of blank properties that the user can use to make changes, which will then overwrite that property for all selected sites.
Revert changes
A full history of changes made to each site can be viewed by clicking on the site and selecting "View history of changes." Changes can be undone by selecting "Revert to before this change."
Exporting site data
Any site data which is visible to your user account can be downloaded to Excel or CSV. This data can include all the site properties and related indicators, surveys, and sites. To learn how to export data from mWater, see the resource article here.
The site management page
Moving sites
If a Site is not in the proper desired location, the existing site can be moved in the mWater App.
Steps
In the image below, the Demonstration Community says "Please Remap" which means that it needs to be moved to its actual location on the mWater map.
Click on the "dot" where the Site is currently placed to open the site dialogue box.
Choose "edit" on the Site page.
Choose "Use Map" to open the map.
The map will open with Site's current location.
Select "Hybrid" for a Satellite view in the top right of the screen. This option allows you to see the buildings.
Use the Zoom buttons in the top left corner to Zoom In (+) closer to the location.
Use your cursor to move the site. After you have positioned the marker in its new location, click "Set Location Here."
Clicking "Set Location Here" will take you back to the Site page. If you are certain of the site's new location, you can delete the note for remapping the school in the Name bar.
Moving Sites
Deleting a Site
When Sites (e.g., household, school, community) are deleted, the data stored within them will become difficult to locate.
Unique ID Created
What happens
The Unique ID:
- When data is collected, they are connected to a Unique ID. These Unique IDs are created when Sites are created.
-When a site is deleted, the Unique ID is also deleted. When a Unique ID is deleted, the survey data linked to the Unique ID cannot be used for most reports or dashboards. It becomes unattached data.
Unattached Data
Survey Responses: - The unattached survey responses will still be in the records of a survey deployment, but they will not be attached to any Site. - The Unique ID attached to the response will be gone and the survey responses will show that a Site has been deleted.
Unattached Survey Responses
Survey responses show that a site has been deleted.
Accidentally deleted sites can be restored by contacting mWater.
Please be careful to never delete a site without Administrator permission!
Visualizing sites
Visualization widgets like maps, charts, tables, pivot tables, and calculated text fields can all be used to display sites and related surveys. Users can combine data sources in various ways using the mWater expression builder to calculate exactly the information they need. Before creating a visualization, it's important to ask some key questions, as shown below.
What kind of data do I want to display?
Individual sites or surveys in a tabular format - Use tables
The location of sites and surveys - Use maps
A summary of sites and surveys in a tabular format - Use pivot tables
The exact dates of site or survey were created - Use a calendar
A single, calculated value - Use a Text widget with a dynamic field
Do I want to show a Cross-Section or a Time-Series?
Cross-Sections - A snapshot of the data for a single time period. Sites or surveys within the time period e.g., 2017-2019, are combined into a single value. Cross-sectional data is typically represented by bar charts, pie graphs, doughnut charts, scatter plots, tables, pivot tables, and maps.
Time-Series - A history of the changes in data over time. Sites and surveys in each time period e.g., 2017, 2018, 2019, have a separate value. Time-series data is typically represented by line charts, area graphs, bar charts, and scatter plots.
What data source should I use?
Sites and survey responses are each stored in different tables, so it's important to choose the correct data source for your visualization. When a site table is chosen, each row represents a unique site. When a survey table is chosen, each row represents a unique survey response.
Sites and survey responses are linked together by a ONE-TO-MANY relationship. This means that ONE site (e.g., Water point 1) can be connected to MANY survey responses (e.g., 2018, 2019, & 2020 water quality reports). Conversely, MANY surveys can be connected to ONE site. The diagram at the right shows the MANY survey responses attached to each ONE waater point site.
What calculated values should I use?
Depending on the data source chosen, the question that you want to display may be in the source table or the related table. If it is in the source table, you can select the question from the list. If the question is in a related table, you must create an expression that defines how to calculate the value from the related table.
Expressions from related tables have the following format:
As shown in the figure below, questions from related tables can be accessed by clicking the + icon next to the related survey and selecting the required field. If the site table is chosen as the data source, users must choose how to aggregate the MANY survey responses into ONE value for each ONE site. The type of aggregation that is chosen (e.g., Latest, first, number of) will define how mWater will combine the surveys related to each site into a single value.
The table below shows various expressions containing questions within the source table and those within a related table. Any Expression with the ">" symbol means that the question is being aggregated from a related table.
The tables widget is used to display individual sites or surveys. As shown below, users must choose whether to use the site table or the survey table as the data source to display their data.
Sites table
Surveys table
Using the site table as a data source will show each site in a single row. To include survey data in this table, an expression must be used to aggregate the survey data into a single value for each site, e.g., Number of Surveys, Latest, etc.
Using the surveys table as a data source will display one row for each survey response. To include the site data for each survey, users must select the site question within the survey.
The expression to display the latest survey response's functionality status
The expression to display the site question's name
Water point sites
Functionality surveys
Mapping sites
Sites and surveys can be easily mapped together. The map below shows water points that have had a "Water point functionality" survey completed on them. The colored circles display the results of the most recent (Latest...) functionality survey. Clicking on the site in the map displays a table of all related surveys conducted on that site.
Using the site table as a data source will display each water point on the map. In order to display data from the related survey, an expression must be used to aggregate the surveys into a single value e.g., Number of surveys, Latest..., etc.
Functionality survey
Using the surveys table as a data source will display each survey response on the map. The GPS that is used in this case is the related site's GPS location. Note the > symbol, which means that the question is from a related table.
Note: The above map displays only the site data. It could also display survey data using an expression to aggregate the many survey responses into a single value for each site.
Note: The above map displays multiple surveys for each site, one on top of the other. The most recent survey response is displayed on the top of the stack.
Creating charts with sites
Using charts in mWater is simple and powerful. Before creating a chart, decide whether you will be displaying data as a Cross-Section or as a Time-Series. Cross-sectional data is typically represented by bar charts, pie graphs, doughnut charts, and scatter plots. Time-series data is typically represented by line charts, area graphs, bar charts, and scatter plots. Sites and/or surveys can be used as the data source for any of these charts.
The charts below will display:
Site* cross-section - Displays site information for one period of time
Site* time-series - Displays the changes in site information over time
Survey** cross-section - Displays survey information for one period of time
Survey** time-series - Displays the changes in survey information over time
*For ease of use, all site tables and charts have been filtered to only display 5 types of sites
**For ease of use, all survey tables and charts have been filtered to only finalized data from 2017-2019
Site cross-section - Summarizes the number of water points added by type between 2017-2019
Site time-series - Summarizes the number of water points added over time
Survey cross-section - Summarizes the number of functionality surveys in each category during 2017
Survey time-series - Summarizes the number of functionality surveys in each category over time
Use sites in pivot tables
Pivot tables are used to summarize site and survey data in a tabular format. Just like charts, pivot tables can display both cross-section and time-series data. The site and survey data can be represented in various ways, based on the data source chosen and the type of aggregator used.
Site cross-section - Summarizes the number of water points by type
Data source: Water points
Value: Number of water point sites
Vertical axis: Type
Survey cross-section - Summarizes the number of water point functionality surveys by functional status from 2017 to 2019
Data source: Water point functionality survey
Value: Number of survey responses (2017-2019)
Vertical: Functionality status
Site time-Series - Summarizes the number of water points by year added
Data source: Water points
Value: Number of water points
Horizontal axis: Year added
Survey time-Series - Summarizes the number of water point functionality surveys completed by functionality status and year of report
Data source: Water point functionality survey
Value: Number of survey responses
Horizontal axis: Year
Featured case studies
The case studies shown below outline how users are leveraging sites and surveys to monitor and manage the WASH sector. Feel free to duplicate these consoles and surveys to adapt them to your context.
