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Manage your Data with ODK Aggregate

Open Data Kit (ODK) is a suite of tools that allows data collection using mobile devices and data submission to an online server, even without an Internet connection or mobile carrier service at the time of data collection. Once you've collected data in the field with ODK Collect, you can upload and manage your data using ODK Aggregate. ODK Aggregate is the intermediary server storage platform that accepts the data and can send it on to external applications, if desired. ODK Aggregate also allows you to download your datasets in aggregated formats, such as one .csv file. ODK Aggregate allows you to use Google's AppEngine hosting platform for managing your remotely collected data online.

Created by developers at the University of Washington's Computer Science and Engineering department and members of Change, Open Data Kit is an open-source project available to all. Please visit their ODK project page for more information, recent updates, more tutorials, and to contribute to the project.

 

Tutorial Contents:

In this exercise, we will use the same odk_sample.xml form we used in the previous tutorial, Mobile Data Collection Using ODK Collect.

Prerequisites

  • No programming skills needed!
  • We strongly recommend that you take the tutorial "Mobile Data Collection with ODK Collect" before proceeding.
  • You will need a Google Account to view your data in ODK Aggregate. Don't have a Google Account? Get one here. (It's free!)

 

Let's Get Started!

  1. Go to the training instance of ODK Aggregate at http://odk-tutorial.appspot.com.
  2. This instance of ODK Aggregate is available to anyone with a Google Account. Log in with your Google Account.
  3. You will see a list of forms that have been uploaded to the instance of ODK Aggregate for http://odk-tutorial.appspot.com.


Upload a Form to your ODK Aggregate Instance

You can upload forms that have been created with ODK Build or using xforms to your ODK Aggregate instance. Once you've uploaded a form, anyone with a Google Account who knows the domain name of your AppEngine instance can view your form, its submissions and download your form to their mobile device to upload submissions to your form. (You can set access preferences in your AppEngine settings. Read more in "Getting Started with Mobile Data Collection Using ODK.")

For this tutorial, we have already uploaded a form to http://odk-tutorial.appspot.com. If you won't be creating new forms or uploading forms, you can skip this section.

  1. Click "Upload a Form" at the top of the page.
  2. You will be able to select the form to upload from your computer. Choose the .xml form you wish to upload to your ODK Aggregate instance.


  3. Click "Upload." If your XML form is in the correct format, it will be uploaded and you'll see it appear on the "List of Forms" page.


Delete a Form from your ODK Aggregate instance

You can host up to 500MB of data storage on your AppEngine instance. If you would prefer to have control over which forms are uploaded to your instance, you can learn how to restrict access to your AppEngine instance. You can also delete forms you don't want to have appear.

  1. Click "Delete a Form."
  2. A dialog box will appear showing you a list of forms. Check the box next to the form you wish to delete, and hit "Delete Forms."

Upload a Submission Manually using a USB Connection

ODK Aggregate allows you to import your data submissions individually if you don't have an Internet or mobile data connection to send your forms to your ODK Aggregate instance directly from your mobile device. This is useful if you want to transfer files from your mobile device to a computer or external hard drive and free up some space on your mobile device. You can use a USB cable to connect your phone to your computer and upload the files to ODK Aggregate when you next have access to the internet.

  1. Connect your mobile device to your computer with a compatible cable. You can use a mini-USB to USB cable or whatever proprietary port that your phone uses. Your device most likely came with a cable that allows you to connect to a computer) Be sure to mount your device to your computer so you can transfer files over the USB cable. You do not need an internet connection for this step.
  2. When you have access to the internet again, go to your ODK Aggregate URL (e.g. http://odk-tutorial.appspot.com) and click "Upload a Submission. "

  3. Find the files on your computer along with any corresponding data files, such as photos in .jpg format, that you would like to link to your data submission.
  4. Hit "Upload." Your data submission will now appear within the list of submissions corresponding to the appropriate form.

Viewing Your Form Submissions

  1. Click on View Submissions in the row next to the name of the form. For this tutorial, we will view the submissions for the ODK Sample form. Click on the "View Submissions" button next to the "Sample" form.
  2. You'll see all submissions, created by yourself and others, who have sent completed submissions to http://odk-tutorial.appspot.com. Submissions with photos have a link on the far right of the row to view each individual photo submission.

Exporting Data from ODK Aggregate as CSV

ODK Aggregate allows you to easily export your data as a .csv file. You might be interested in this functionality if you want to import your data on other servers or in other applications like Google Spreadsheets or Microsoft Excel.

  1. Click "Download CSV."
  2. A .csv (comma separated values) file will download to your computer.

Congratulations! You have learned how to use ODK Aggregate to manage your ODK submissions.

 

Discussion & Feedback

Have questions about this tutorial? Want to give us some feedback? Visit the Google Earth Outreach Discussion Group to discuss it with others.

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