Dodoma forms, FD priorities

Users
1

Hey,

For some crazy reason, I wasn't thinking about having to re-create the
newborn module in the new FD. However, we'll need to do that. This is not
as pressing as re-making the household module if everyone is okay with
keeping .9HQ up and running the migration scripts.

The newborn module is different from the other modules currently deployed in
Dodoma in that it uses images and audio.

Amelia - do you know if there any other special technical requirements of
the form?

Anton - just to verify, these features are currently supported in the FD,
right? Is there a timeline for this? I realize this was part of the
"priority setting" neal was bringing up. So, I guess I'm just saying that
we do have a need for some more multimedia support if the FD doesn't support
that stuff currently.

Thanks,
Nick

Nick P. Amland

CommCare Field Fellow
Dimagi, Inc.
Dodoma, Tanzania
Google Voice: 253.642.7790
TZ Mobile: +255 762 740 996
Email: namland@dimagi.com namland08@gmail.com

··· On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 7:11 PM, Nick Amland wrote:

Okay, cool.

I've just started doing exactly that - creating all of the questions with
the text, first. I'll let you and Anton know if any problems arise with the
other functionality.

Thanks,
nick

Nick P. Amland

CommCare Field Fellow
Dimagi, Inc.
Dodoma, Tanzania
Google Voice: 253.642.7790
TZ Mobile: +255 762 740 996
Email: namland@dimagi.com namland08@gmail.com

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 6:36 PM, Clayton Sims csims@dimagi.com wrote:

Nick,

Agreed. I think that realistically if there's a rush to any specific
deadline we can get the forms made very quickly, but it would be very good
to know whether the Form Designer can handle this use case today, since
other than the bug anton is fixing we think that it can.

Please try and get as far as you can defining the form in th FD and let us
know how much of it seems possible. Even just getting the questions and text
in place will definitely make things much easier going forward if we do need
to do them by hand.

-Clayton

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Nick Amland namland@dimagi.com wrote:

Sounds good. Ideally, I was trying to have everything built and then
release the new build on Wednesday (4/6). This gives me Thursday to test
the new application on the phone. Then Friday for any last second
adjustments and/or bug fixes. We would like to start training on the
verification process on Monday the 11th, so I can be involved. (Last
projection for my departure for Moz is the 18th).

But this just doesn't seem realistic to me. If I run into any bumps in
the FD (even with Anton fixing them quickly after I spot them), that could
potentially set me back a day given the time difference.

Regardless, seems worth it to give it a shot and let's see what happens.
It'll be great test of the FD. The nice thing here is that we can dictate
the timeline here so no real harm caused by a slipped deadline.

Thanks,
Nick

Nick P. Amland

CommCare Field Fellow
Dimagi, Inc.
Dodoma, Tanzania
Google Voice: 253.642.7790
Email: namland@dimagi.com namland08@gmail.com

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 8:03 PM, neal lesh nlesh@dimagi.com wrote:

super & thanks.

nick—sound good to you? i think it’s worth you redoing the forms from
scratch if that will make it work via the FD in our time frame.

n

From: Anton de Winter [mailto:adewinter@dimagi.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2011 11:35 AM
To: Rowena Luk
Cc: Clayton Sims; neal lesh; Amelia Sagoff; droberts; namland;
Jonathan Jackson; Cory Zue
Subject: Re: dodoma forms, FD priorities

Yep, that about sums it up I think. As always, please feel free to
contact me directly or create a ticket if you run into any sort of issues
when attempting to design a new form. If it's high priority I can easily
retask and get on it so that there's a fast turn around time.

Re: the bugfix, the fix will be deployed later today. I was out this
morning due to illness, but will be back to working this afternoon.

Cheers,

Anton

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 11:16 AM, Rowena Luk rluk@dimagi.com wrote:

agree that getting these forms done is high priority, that we should do
it in form designer, and that it should get done this week. for what it's
worth, anton is now 100% on form designer quality assurance as far as i
know, so even if we come across a few other hiccoughs in the next few days,
we should be able to resolve those quickly.

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 10:55 AM, Clayton Sims csims@dimagi.com wrote:

Neal,

Couple comments based on our last discussion

  1. These timelines do make a lot more sense to me. The deadline for
    Nick's moz trip that I'd heard was June 1st, so April 18th seems much more
    pressing. However, other than one bug that Anton is fixing today (adding the
    random() calculate,) there are no aspects of the Dodoma forms which we know
    of that are not currently capable of being made in the form designer. I
    think it would be worth trying to create the forms currently. We can
    document anything that is missing.

  2. I'm not sure if the future development path came across particularly
    clearly here. The two paths of development are:

a) Add more complex structures (easier multimedia text addition, dynamic
itemsets, etc) to the form designer

b) Extend the form designer's upload capabilities to handle more
structures.

(a) would involve new primary development for Derek/Nick to expand what
forms can be created, (b) would involve allowing more people to upload their
forms to CCHQ and still be able to edit them with the GUI form designer.

-Clayton

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 6:14 PM, neal lesh nlesh@dimagi.com wrote:

hey everybody,

I just wanted to sync up on the plan for dodoma and the form designer.

(1) Dodoma & FD

We’re coming up to a bit of a crunch in Dodoma with time pressure due to
Nick’s expected trip to Moz starting around April 18-25th. I see it as
high priority for Nick to be able to deploy the new forms he is working on
next week. And I think we all agree it is also high priority to have Nick
use the form designer to make these forms rather than do them
directly/manually. I think right now the FD isn’t able to support the form
design he needs.

I’m not sure how to weigh these against each other and if you all think
that the FD will soon be able to support Nick’s needs, then we’ll be all set
but I want to lobby for getting the forms deployed next week even if means
bypassing the FD. I think the main thing is just to have a phone module to
train the CHWs on. Nick can clarify. But I think we can do that and still
find a way to keep the pressure on FD, no?

(2) multimedia support vs. ability to author more sophisticated forms

Amelia mentioned that soon there will be a question of whether to push
on extending the FD to better handle multimedia or for authoring more
sophisticated forms. I have no strong feelings here other than to verify
that the multimedia works well enough for Derek and Nick to use the system
reasonably smoothly (even if a bit clunky or requiring more XML than we’d
like) to make multimedia enabled applications? After that, I’m not sure
which is more important.

thanks!
n

2

The newborn module has some skip logic, but it's fairly simple and aside
from the multimedia aspect should be straightforward to create with the Form
Designer.

I'll plan to put up instructions on the wiki for how to add multimedia using
the current Form Designer -- I'll send the link out to commcare-users when
it's up.

You'll also have to create the mother content from scratch, right? How do
these tasks fit into your current timeline?

Amelia

··· On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Nick Amland wrote:

Hey,

For some crazy reason, I wasn't thinking about having to re-create the
newborn module in the new FD. However, we'll need to do that. This is not
as pressing as re-making the household module if everyone is okay with
keeping .9HQ up and running the migration scripts.

The newborn module is different from the other modules currently deployed
in Dodoma in that it uses images and audio.

Amelia - do you know if there any other special technical requirements of
the form?

Anton - just to verify, these features are currently supported in the FD,
right? Is there a timeline for this? I realize this was part of the
"priority setting" neal was bringing up. So, I guess I'm just saying that
we do have a need for some more multimedia support if the FD doesn't support
that stuff currently.

Thanks,
Nick

Nick P. Amland

CommCare Field Fellow
Dimagi, Inc.
Dodoma, Tanzania
Google Voice: 253.642.7790
TZ Mobile: +255 762 740 996
Email: namland@dimagi.com namland08@gmail.com

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 7:11 PM, Nick Amland namland@dimagi.com wrote:

Okay, cool.

I've just started doing exactly that - creating all of the questions with
the text, first. I'll let you and Anton know if any problems arise with the
other functionality.

Thanks,
nick

Nick P. Amland

CommCare Field Fellow
Dimagi, Inc.
Dodoma, Tanzania
Google Voice: 253.642.7790
TZ Mobile: +255 762 740 996
Email: namland@dimagi.com namland08@gmail.com

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 6:36 PM, Clayton Sims csims@dimagi.com wrote:

Nick,

Agreed. I think that realistically if there's a rush to any specific
deadline we can get the forms made very quickly, but it would be very good
to know whether the Form Designer can handle this use case today, since
other than the bug anton is fixing we think that it can.

Please try and get as far as you can defining the form in th FD and let
us know how much of it seems possible. Even just getting the questions and
text in place will definitely make things much easier going forward if we do
need to do them by hand.

-Clayton

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Nick Amland namland@dimagi.com wrote:

Sounds good. Ideally, I was trying to have everything built and then
release the new build on Wednesday (4/6). This gives me Thursday to test
the new application on the phone. Then Friday for any last second
adjustments and/or bug fixes. We would like to start training on the
verification process on Monday the 11th, so I can be involved. (Last
projection for my departure for Moz is the 18th).

But this just doesn't seem realistic to me. If I run into any bumps in
the FD (even with Anton fixing them quickly after I spot them), that could
potentially set me back a day given the time difference.

Regardless, seems worth it to give it a shot and let's see what happens.
It'll be great test of the FD. The nice thing here is that we can dictate
the timeline here so no real harm caused by a slipped deadline.

Thanks,
Nick

Nick P. Amland

CommCare Field Fellow
Dimagi, Inc.
Dodoma, Tanzania
Google Voice: 253.642.7790
Email: namland@dimagi.com namland08@gmail.com

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 8:03 PM, neal lesh nlesh@dimagi.com wrote:

super & thanks.

nick—sound good to you? i think it’s worth you redoing the forms from
scratch if that will make it work via the FD in our time frame.

n

From: Anton de Winter [mailto:adewinter@dimagi.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2011 11:35 AM
To: Rowena Luk
Cc: Clayton Sims; neal lesh; Amelia Sagoff; droberts; namland;
Jonathan Jackson; Cory Zue
Subject: Re: dodoma forms, FD priorities

Yep, that about sums it up I think. As always, please feel free to
contact me directly or create a ticket if you run into any sort of issues
when attempting to design a new form. If it's high priority I can easily
retask and get on it so that there's a fast turn around time.

Re: the bugfix, the fix will be deployed later today. I was out this
morning due to illness, but will be back to working this afternoon.

Cheers,

Anton

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 11:16 AM, Rowena Luk rluk@dimagi.com wrote:

agree that getting these forms done is high priority, that we should do
it in form designer, and that it should get done this week. for what it's
worth, anton is now 100% on form designer quality assurance as far as i
know, so even if we come across a few other hiccoughs in the next few days,
we should be able to resolve those quickly.

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 10:55 AM, Clayton Sims csims@dimagi.com wrote:

Neal,

Couple comments based on our last discussion

  1. These timelines do make a lot more sense to me. The deadline for
    Nick's moz trip that I'd heard was June 1st, so April 18th seems much more
    pressing. However, other than one bug that Anton is fixing today (adding the
    random() calculate,) there are no aspects of the Dodoma forms which we know
    of that are not currently capable of being made in the form designer. I
    think it would be worth trying to create the forms currently. We can
    document anything that is missing.

  2. I'm not sure if the future development path came across particularly
    clearly here. The two paths of development are:

a) Add more complex structures (easier multimedia text addition,
dynamic itemsets, etc) to the form designer

b) Extend the form designer's upload capabilities to handle more
structures.

(a) would involve new primary development for Derek/Nick to expand what
forms can be created, (b) would involve allowing more people to upload their
forms to CCHQ and still be able to edit them with the GUI form designer.

-Clayton

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 6:14 PM, neal lesh nlesh@dimagi.com wrote:

hey everybody,

I just wanted to sync up on the plan for dodoma and the form designer.

(1) Dodoma & FD

We’re coming up to a bit of a crunch in Dodoma with time pressure due
to Nick’s expected trip to Moz starting around April 18-25th. I see
it as high priority for Nick to be able to deploy the new forms he is
working on next week. And I think we all agree it is also high priority to
have Nick use the form designer to make these forms rather than do them
directly/manually. I think right now the FD isn’t able to support the form
design he needs.

I’m not sure how to weigh these against each other and if you all think
that the FD will soon be able to support Nick’s needs, then we’ll be all set
but I want to lobby for getting the forms deployed next week even if means
bypassing the FD. I think the main thing is just to have a phone module to
train the CHWs on. Nick can clarify. But I think we can do that and still
find a way to keep the pressure on FD, no?

(2) multimedia support vs. ability to author more sophisticated forms

Amelia mentioned that soon there will be a question of whether to push
on extending the FD to better handle multimedia or for authoring more
sophisticated forms. I have no strong feelings here other than to verify
that the multimedia works well enough for Derek and Nick to use the system
reasonably smoothly (even if a bit clunky or requiring more XML than we’d
like) to make multimedia enabled applications? After that, I’m not sure
which is more important.

thanks!
n

3

I'm not planning on including the mother-focused content into the module
just yet. We're not quite ready on this side for that. We're planning to
roll that out after we do this first upgrade.

I'll keep my eyes out for that email.

Thanks,
Nick

Nick P. Amland

CommCare Field Fellow
Dimagi, Inc.
Dodoma, Tanzania
Google Voice: 253.642.7790
Email: namland@dimagi.com namland08@gmail.com

··· On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 1:31 AM, Amelia Sagoff wrote:

The newborn module has some skip logic, but it's fairly simple and aside
from the multimedia aspect should be straightforward to create with the Form
Designer.

I'll plan to put up instructions on the wiki for how to add multimedia
using the current Form Designer -- I'll send the link out to commcare-users
when it's up.

You'll also have to create the mother content from scratch, right? How do
these tasks fit into your current timeline?

Amelia

On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Nick Amland namland@dimagi.com wrote:

Hey,

For some crazy reason, I wasn't thinking about having to re-create the
newborn module in the new FD. However, we'll need to do that. This is not
as pressing as re-making the household module if everyone is okay with
keeping .9HQ up and running the migration scripts.

The newborn module is different from the other modules currently deployed
in Dodoma in that it uses images and audio.

Amelia - do you know if there any other special technical requirements of
the form?

Anton - just to verify, these features are currently supported in the FD,
right? Is there a timeline for this? I realize this was part of the
"priority setting" neal was bringing up. So, I guess I'm just saying that
we do have a need for some more multimedia support if the FD doesn't support
that stuff currently.

Thanks,
Nick

Nick P. Amland

CommCare Field Fellow
Dimagi, Inc.
Dodoma, Tanzania
Google Voice: 253.642.7790
TZ Mobile: +255 762 740 996
Email: namland@dimagi.com namland08@gmail.com

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 7:11 PM, Nick Amland namland@dimagi.com wrote:

Okay, cool.

I've just started doing exactly that - creating all of the questions with
the text, first. I'll let you and Anton know if any problems arise with the
other functionality.

Thanks,
nick

Nick P. Amland

CommCare Field Fellow
Dimagi, Inc.
Dodoma, Tanzania
Google Voice: 253.642.7790
TZ Mobile: +255 762 740 996
Email: namland@dimagi.com namland08@gmail.com

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 6:36 PM, Clayton Sims csims@dimagi.com wrote:

Nick,

Agreed. I think that realistically if there's a rush to any specific
deadline we can get the forms made very quickly, but it would be very good
to know whether the Form Designer can handle this use case today, since
other than the bug anton is fixing we think that it can.

Please try and get as far as you can defining the form in th FD and let
us know how much of it seems possible. Even just getting the questions and
text in place will definitely make things much easier going forward if we do
need to do them by hand.

-Clayton

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Nick Amland namland@dimagi.comwrote:

Sounds good. Ideally, I was trying to have everything built and then
release the new build on Wednesday (4/6). This gives me Thursday to test
the new application on the phone. Then Friday for any last second
adjustments and/or bug fixes. We would like to start training on the
verification process on Monday the 11th, so I can be involved. (Last
projection for my departure for Moz is the 18th).

But this just doesn't seem realistic to me. If I run into any bumps in
the FD (even with Anton fixing them quickly after I spot them), that could
potentially set me back a day given the time difference.

Regardless, seems worth it to give it a shot and let's see what
happens. It'll be great test of the FD. The nice thing here is that we can
dictate the timeline here so no real harm caused by a slipped deadline.

Thanks,
Nick

Nick P. Amland

CommCare Field Fellow
Dimagi, Inc.
Dodoma, Tanzania
Google Voice: 253.642.7790
Email: namland@dimagi.com namland08@gmail.com

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 8:03 PM, neal lesh nlesh@dimagi.com wrote:

super & thanks.

nick—sound good to you? i think it’s worth you redoing the forms from
scratch if that will make it work via the FD in our time frame.

n

From: Anton de Winter [mailto:adewinter@dimagi.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2011 11:35 AM
To: Rowena Luk
Cc: Clayton Sims; neal lesh; Amelia Sagoff; droberts; namland;
Jonathan Jackson; Cory Zue
Subject: Re: dodoma forms, FD priorities

Yep, that about sums it up I think. As always, please feel free to
contact me directly or create a ticket if you run into any sort of issues
when attempting to design a new form. If it's high priority I can easily
retask and get on it so that there's a fast turn around time.

Re: the bugfix, the fix will be deployed later today. I was out this
morning due to illness, but will be back to working this afternoon.

Cheers,

Anton

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 11:16 AM, Rowena Luk rluk@dimagi.com wrote:

agree that getting these forms done is high priority, that we should
do it in form designer, and that it should get done this week. for what it's
worth, anton is now 100% on form designer quality assurance as far as i
know, so even if we come across a few other hiccoughs in the next few days,
we should be able to resolve those quickly.

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 10:55 AM, Clayton Sims csims@dimagi.com wrote:

Neal,

Couple comments based on our last discussion

  1. These timelines do make a lot more sense to me. The deadline for
    Nick's moz trip that I'd heard was June 1st, so April 18th seems much more
    pressing. However, other than one bug that Anton is fixing today (adding the
    random() calculate,) there are no aspects of the Dodoma forms which we know
    of that are not currently capable of being made in the form designer. I
    think it would be worth trying to create the forms currently. We can
    document anything that is missing.

  2. I'm not sure if the future development path came across
    particularly clearly here. The two paths of development are:

a) Add more complex structures (easier multimedia text addition,
dynamic itemsets, etc) to the form designer

b) Extend the form designer's upload capabilities to handle more
structures.

(a) would involve new primary development for Derek/Nick to expand
what forms can be created, (b) would involve allowing more people to upload
their forms to CCHQ and still be able to edit them with the GUI form
designer.

-Clayton

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 6:14 PM, neal lesh nlesh@dimagi.com wrote:

hey everybody,

I just wanted to sync up on the plan for dodoma and the form designer.

(1) Dodoma & FD

We’re coming up to a bit of a crunch in Dodoma with time pressure due
to Nick’s expected trip to Moz starting around April 18-25th. I see
it as high priority for Nick to be able to deploy the new forms he is
working on next week. And I think we all agree it is also high priority to
have Nick use the form designer to make these forms rather than do them
directly/manually. I think right now the FD isn’t able to support the form
design he needs.

I’m not sure how to weigh these against each other and if you all
think that the FD will soon be able to support Nick’s needs, then we’ll be
all set but I want to lobby for getting the forms deployed next week even if
means bypassing the FD. I think the main thing is just to have a phone
module to train the CHWs on. Nick can clarify. But I think we can do that
and still find a way to keep the pressure on FD, no?

(2) multimedia support vs. ability to author more sophisticated forms

Amelia mentioned that soon there will be a question of whether to push
on extending the FD to better handle multimedia or for authoring more
sophisticated forms. I have no strong feelings here other than to verify
that the multimedia works well enough for Derek and Nick to use the system
reasonably smoothly (even if a bit clunky or requiring more XML than we’d
like) to make multimedia enabled applications? After that, I’m not sure
which is more important.

thanks!
n

4

The mail bounced from commcare-users, so sending again. Also, to clarify:

It is possible to author a multimedia xform using the FormDesigner. At
present, there is a requirement to side-load multimedia onto each phone*,
beyond that the actual form authoring with multimedia content is easily
done.

Thanks,
Anton

  • At present this is the only method of getting multimedia onto a phone. In
    future we may support downloading the media from CCHQ or some other
    mechanism but for now that feature is still in the planning stages.
··· On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 10:04 AM, Anton de Winter wrote:

Hey Nick,

Multimedia is supported in the FormDesigner. The trick is that you can
edit the itext for each question, add a text form ("image" or "audio" or
whatever) and enter the URI for the multimedia file you wish to use. Then
we need to figure out how we'll be doing multimedia on the CCHQ side (ie,
how we'll upload media and link it with the form). You could make a form
right now and as long as you entered the correct URIs for the media, and
have that media already loaded on the phone, you should be ready to roll.
Are you familiar with multimedia forms? We should chat on Skype when you
start getting into it if you have any questions.

Cheers,
Anton
On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 4:25 AM, Nick Amland namland@dimagi.com wrote:

I'm not planning on including the mother-focused content into the module
just yet. We're not quite ready on this side for that. We're planning to
roll that out after we do this first upgrade.

I'll keep my eyes out for that email.

Thanks,
Nick

Nick P. Amland

CommCare Field Fellow
Dimagi, Inc.
Dodoma, Tanzania
Google Voice: 253.642.7790
Email: namland@dimagi.com namland08@gmail.com

On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 1:31 AM, Amelia Sagoff asagoff@dimagi.com wrote:

The newborn module has some skip logic, but it's fairly simple and aside
from the multimedia aspect should be straightforward to create with the Form
Designer.

I'll plan to put up instructions on the wiki for how to add multimedia
using the current Form Designer -- I'll send the link out to commcare-users
when it's up.

You'll also have to create the mother content from scratch, right? How
do these tasks fit into your current timeline?

Amelia

On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Nick Amland namland@dimagi.com wrote:

Hey,

For some crazy reason, I wasn't thinking about having to re-create the
newborn module in the new FD. However, we'll need to do that. This is not
as pressing as re-making the household module if everyone is okay with
keeping .9HQ up and running the migration scripts.

The newborn module is different from the other modules currently
deployed in Dodoma in that it uses images and audio.

Amelia - do you know if there any other special technical requirements
of the form?

Anton - just to verify, these features are currently supported in the
FD, right? Is there a timeline for this? I realize this was part of the
"priority setting" neal was bringing up. So, I guess I'm just saying that
we do have a need for some more multimedia support if the FD doesn't support
that stuff currently.

Thanks,
Nick

Nick P. Amland

CommCare Field Fellow
Dimagi, Inc.
Dodoma, Tanzania
Google Voice: 253.642.7790
TZ Mobile: +255 762 740 996
Email: namland@dimagi.com namland08@gmail.com

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 7:11 PM, Nick Amland namland@dimagi.com wrote:

Okay, cool.

I've just started doing exactly that - creating all of the questions
with the text, first. I'll let you and Anton know if any problems arise
with the other functionality.

Thanks,
nick

Nick P. Amland

CommCare Field Fellow
Dimagi, Inc.
Dodoma, Tanzania
Google Voice: 253.642.7790
TZ Mobile: +255 762 740 996
Email: namland@dimagi.com namland08@gmail.com

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 6:36 PM, Clayton Sims csims@dimagi.com wrote:

Nick,

Agreed. I think that realistically if there's a rush to any specific
deadline we can get the forms made very quickly, but it would be very good
to know whether the Form Designer can handle this use case today, since
other than the bug anton is fixing we think that it can.

Please try and get as far as you can defining the form in th FD and
let us know how much of it seems possible. Even just getting the questions
and text in place will definitely make things much easier going forward if
we do need to do them by hand.

-Clayton

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Nick Amland namland@dimagi.comwrote:

Sounds good. Ideally, I was trying to have everything built and then
release the new build on Wednesday (4/6). This gives me Thursday to test
the new application on the phone. Then Friday for any last second
adjustments and/or bug fixes. We would like to start training on the
verification process on Monday the 11th, so I can be involved. (Last
projection for my departure for Moz is the 18th).

But this just doesn't seem realistic to me. If I run into any bumps
in the FD (even with Anton fixing them quickly after I spot them), that
could potentially set me back a day given the time difference.

Regardless, seems worth it to give it a shot and let's see what
happens. It'll be great test of the FD. The nice thing here is that we can
dictate the timeline here so no real harm caused by a slipped deadline.

Thanks,
Nick

Nick P. Amland

CommCare Field Fellow
Dimagi, Inc.
Dodoma, Tanzania
Google Voice: 253.642.7790
Email: namland@dimagi.com namland08@gmail.com

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 8:03 PM, neal lesh nlesh@dimagi.com wrote:

super & thanks.

nick—sound good to you? i think it’s worth you redoing the forms
from scratch if that will make it work via the FD in our time frame.

n

From: Anton de Winter [mailto:adewinter@dimagi.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2011 11:35 AM
To: Rowena Luk
Cc: Clayton Sims; neal lesh; Amelia Sagoff; droberts; namland;
Jonathan Jackson; Cory Zue
Subject: Re: dodoma forms, FD priorities

Yep, that about sums it up I think. As always, please feel free to
contact me directly or create a ticket if you run into any sort of issues
when attempting to design a new form. If it's high priority I can easily
retask and get on it so that there's a fast turn around time.

Re: the bugfix, the fix will be deployed later today. I was out
this morning due to illness, but will be back to working this afternoon.

Cheers,

Anton

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 11:16 AM, Rowena Luk rluk@dimagi.com wrote:

agree that getting these forms done is high priority, that we should
do it in form designer, and that it should get done this week. for what it's
worth, anton is now 100% on form designer quality assurance as far as i
know, so even if we come across a few other hiccoughs in the next few days,
we should be able to resolve those quickly.

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 10:55 AM, Clayton Sims csims@dimagi.com wrote:

Neal,

Couple comments based on our last discussion

  1. These timelines do make a lot more sense to me. The deadline for
    Nick's moz trip that I'd heard was June 1st, so April 18th seems much more
    pressing. However, other than one bug that Anton is fixing today (adding the
    random() calculate,) there are no aspects of the Dodoma forms which we know
    of that are not currently capable of being made in the form designer. I
    think it would be worth trying to create the forms currently. We can
    document anything that is missing.

  2. I'm not sure if the future development path came across
    particularly clearly here. The two paths of development are:

a) Add more complex structures (easier multimedia text addition,
dynamic itemsets, etc) to the form designer

b) Extend the form designer's upload capabilities to handle more
structures.

(a) would involve new primary development for Derek/Nick to expand
what forms can be created, (b) would involve allowing more people to upload
their forms to CCHQ and still be able to edit them with the GUI form
designer.

-Clayton

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 6:14 PM, neal lesh nlesh@dimagi.com wrote:

hey everybody,

I just wanted to sync up on the plan for dodoma and the form
designer.

(1) Dodoma & FD

We’re coming up to a bit of a crunch in Dodoma with time pressure
due to Nick’s expected trip to Moz starting around April 18-25th.
I see it as high priority for Nick to be able to deploy the new forms he is
working on next week. And I think we all agree it is also high priority to
have Nick use the form designer to make these forms rather than do them
directly/manually. I think right now the FD isn’t able to support the form
design he needs.

I’m not sure how to weigh these against each other and if you all
think that the FD will soon be able to support Nick’s needs, then we’ll be
all set but I want to lobby for getting the forms deployed next week even if
means bypassing the FD. I think the main thing is just to have a phone
module to train the CHWs on. Nick can clarify. But I think we can do that
and still find a way to keep the pressure on FD, no?

(2) multimedia support vs. ability to author more sophisticated
forms

Amelia mentioned that soon there will be a question of whether to
push on extending the FD to better handle multimedia or for authoring more
sophisticated forms. I have no strong feelings here other than to verify
that the multimedia works well enough for Derek and Nick to use the system
reasonably smoothly (even if a bit clunky or requiring more XML than we’d
like) to make multimedia enabled applications? After that, I’m not sure
which is more important.

thanks!
n