Can a team of 15 year olds design a simple SMS early warning system for DH1S2

We are a small team building a simple SMS/USSD tool where community members report a small number of symptoms, clinics send short confirmations, and the system generates early-warning signals (not diagnoses) to help clinics prepare for possible NTD outbreaks.

We are currently trying to understand how something like this could realistically connect into DHIS2, but we are still early in our technical understanding.

We would really value guidance on a few foundational questions:

• At a very basic level, what would we actually be sending into DHIS2 (e.g. what does an “early warning signal” look like in practice inside the system)?
• What is the simplest possible structure for this kind of data to be usable without overcomplicating things?
• Are there examples of similar “signal” or alert type data being integrated into DHIS2?
• What are common mistakes teams make when trying to connect new data sources into DHIS2?

We are aiming for a very small, low risk pilot (SMS/USSD only, limited scope) and want to make sure we understand the fundamentals before building further.

Any guidance or mentorship would be hugely appreciated.

Hi @Sadie,

I’d be happy to know more about your use case and I can share some experience from our side on these topics. I’m sending you an email so we can organise a call and go through your questions.

Hey stefano I’m so sorry for the delay it’s just been mock GCSE season . I would absolutely love to arrange a call and go through the questions . Let me know when you are free .

Hi @Sadie,

can you send me an email so we can continue the discusion there?

My email adress is stefano@dhis2.org