The Assignments tab allows users to create pre-filled survey responses that can be assigned to specific enumerators to complete. The pre-filled data can come from a previous mWater survey, site data, or data that you upload as a spreadsheet. These assignments can be thought of as survey responses where part of the response is filled out via the assignments tab and the enumerator is left to fill in the rest. An example of this is when performing monitoring, a random sampling of houses can be assigned for return visits. The Household site question will be automatically filled in via the assignments tab, while the rest of the survey response is left blank. This is then assigned to an enumerator and the survey response appears under the Assignments tab of the mWater Surveyor. The enumerator then uses the household name and GPS location to locate the house and then perform the survey.
About Assignments
When to use assignments
Assignments help you organize large surveys and impact evaluations in cases where you already have a listing of respondents. The listing might come from:
Previous survey respondents that you want to follow up on
Census data or rosters of households in a particular area
Inventories of infrastructure locations, such as water points or healthcare facilities
Once you plan out which enumerators or teams will visit each location, you can create assignments based on the listing. We also offer some advanced features such as random sampling from lists and cluster sampling (random sampling from groups of respondents).
Creating assignments
Go to the Assignments tab in any survey. Note that the survey must already be deployed before assignments can be created.
The Assignments tab in a survey
Assignments can be created from an Excel or CSV spreadsheet or using existing mWater data. Existing mWater data can include various data sources in the platform including surveys, sites, issues, etc.
From existing mWater data
In this example, imagine that we are planning an endline
survey where we will revisit a group of respondents in the GeMap baseline
survey, where the male and female heads of households were asked about water
access. Depending on the objectives of the survey and the budget, we may try to
visit every household, or we might want to just go back to a smaller sample of
the households. We might also have decided to ask some new questions, or remove
old questions that weren't working. In order to make sure we visit the same
households, we will want to use the contact information from the previous
survey (note that in our example survey we have deleted the private information
on the household such as name or phone number).
1. Click on + Add Assignment and choose Pre-fill using existing mWater data
2. Choose the deployment (for the new assignments) and click Next
3. Select the mWater data source and choose Surveys. You can choose the current survey (shown at the top) or any other survey.
Choose the survey that will provide the pre-fill data
4. Add Filters (optional). Use a filter if you only want to create assignments from responses that meet a certain condition, like a certain region or characteristic. The example below will only create assignments corresponding to all households where "What is the name of the area of Ekiti where the person lives" is any of "Moferere".
5. Choose which questions in the new survey should be pre-filled. This will create a table at the bottom of the page where you can Select which answer from the previous survey should be used to pre-fill the new survey.
6. Press Select for each pre-fill field and choose the previous answer to use for filling it.
There are 3 optional special Assignment fields that are always shown:
Cluster - this is used to make groups of assignments. Use this if you want to assign enumerators to certain regions or if you plan to do cluster random sampling.
Name - the name given to the assignment. You might want to choose the household name or something else that would help the enumerator locate the right assignment.
Location - choose any location (GPS) question from the survey. This will be converted into a Google Maps link to provide directions to the location.
Selecting answers (right hand side) to use to pre-fill the new survey questions
7. Press + Create New Assignments. A preview is shown. Press Finish to create the new assignments.
From Excel or CSV
In order to pre-fill assignments from an Excel or CSV file click the "Pre-fill from a spreadsheet" button.
Assignments allows for random sampling. This will create a certain number of assignments, randomly chosen from the original spreadsheet list.
Select a deployment that will contain the assignments. Then click the "Next" button.
Upload assignment data from a spreadsheet
In this step, you will download a spreadsheet where you can
paste in your assignments and pre-filled question responses. Pre-filling is
optional.
There are some default fields that are always included in
the template and are optional:
Name - This will appear at the top of each assignment on the
enumerator's device
Location - GPS coordinates to help the enumerator find the
location of the assignment
Cluster - Grouping variable, each unique value will create a
cluster
Select which questions in the survey you would like to pre-fill and a column for each one will be added to the spreadsheet template.
Download the blank template by clicking the "Download Template" button.
This template will include the three default fields along with all the fields checked in the "Questions to be pre-filled" section.
Paste the Excel or CSV data into the template and save the template
Click the "Upload Completed Spreadsheet" button
Preview
The preview page allows the user to preview the assignments that will be created before doing so.
Click the "Finish" button to create the assignments.
Managing Assignments
Giving assignments to users
Assign to a user, organization or organization branch
Assignments can be made individually or as a group. Each assignment can be assigned to one or more users. This will allow any of those users to see and complete the survey via the mWater Surveyor.
Individual assignments:
Important notes on assignments
It is possible to give assignments to teams or multiple users. Please use this feature with caution! You still have to plan out the work and organize your enumerator teams.
Once a user takes an assignment, it is converted into a draft survey response and is not available to any other enumerator once they sync.
Use the Assignments tab to monitor the status of any assignment. Once someone takes an assignment, you will see their draft response in the Responses tab.
Large batches of assignments, over a few hundred can be difficult to create and manage*.
*Please contact mWater at info@mwater.co or info@solstice.world if you have a more complex survey that requires custom support for larger batches.
Using assignments in the mWater Surveyor
Assignments will appear in the app as soon as a user or team is given the assignment. New assignments will add to the red number in the badge that appears over the Tasks tab.
To complete an assignment:
Go to the Tasks tab and click on the Assignments tab
Click on an Assignment to view the name and location information. If the location has been pre-filled, you will see a link to open it in Google maps.
Click on Begin Survey to accept the assignment. Once accepted, the assignment converts into a draft survey with the appropriate questions pre-filled.
