Design your form

Below you can find detailed information on how to design and test your MDC form and what rules to keep in mind when designing. These rules concern more technical MDC issues, as indications for XLS coding, but also methodological and theoretical aspects, such as general M&E principles and advice.

NB: Don't hesitate to also check out the "Train your teams" page, where the Survey Manager presentations cover a lot of material on Kobo and XLSforms coding. Also, the "Data Protection Starter Kit" page provides you with useful information such as how to set up encryption in your Mobile Data Collection tool.

Generic M&E principles and advice

• Generic M&E principles and advice

Don't hesitate to check out ACAPS's great technical brief on questionnaire design

Form-design rules

• Encoder guide for Kobo Excel data analyser users
  
• Recommendations for the naming of questions variables and answer choices
• Name vs Label

Choosing your tool and setting up your form

• Advanced user - Advanced XLS form tool features
  

• First steps with XLS form (see also: https://xlsform.org/)
• Best practices for adapting an existing XLS form
• Managing external data
  
• Running a pre and post training assessment
• Working with different languages
• Using barcodes
• Adding media as responses or helpful notes

Don't hesitate to also refer to the wealth of information available on XLSform.org, the ODK and Kobo websites and forums and also some CartONG blog posts for advanced features: https://blog.cartong.org/2015/08/11/advanced-xls-forms-coding-1/ and https://blog.cartong.org/2015/08/21/advanced-xls-forms-coding-2/

Basic user - Online form builder

• Basic user - Online form builder

—Coming soon---

Managing administrative data (see also: https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/fr/applications/kobotoolbox/document/how-use-p-codes-kobo)

Tdh MDC data sharing rules

Best practices for form testing

Most common technical survey conception errors