DHIS2 Integration with Kobo Toolbox

Connect - Connectez-vous
1

I’m working at an organization with many country instances and a global instance. A few of our projects are considering the use of Kobo Toolbox for evaluations and want to know more about the integration between DHIS2 and Kobo. If anyone here has experience with this integration, can you reach out to me? I’m looking to learn anything and everything I can!

Thanks.

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2

Bumping this as I’m also really interested if anyone knows about any DHIS2/Kobo Toolbox interoperability :slight_smile:

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Hi @monika,

BAO Systems has created an application that easily integrates DHIS2 and KoBoToolbox: DHIS2 App Hub

Best,

Blake

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Hi @berhard,

That’s amazing! Glad so much has progressed since you first posted about this back in 2018. Thank you very much for sharing :slight_smile:

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Hi all!

Following up and trying to connect with people who have used this integration… I have the Kobo-DHIS2 set up on a test DHIS2 instance and I’ve successfully submitted test data through Kobo and synced it into DHIS2. Have other people used this in the field? I’d love to talk about some questions I have:

  1. Once created, can the DHIS2 metadata be revised/renamed? I’m assuming it’s linked through the code and not the name - in analytics, it’s not appealing to have all the data elements be KB-XXXXX and then a long question name. The tables and graphs are messy. Do you end up using program indicators for everything?
  2. I am trying to test the answer to question 1 by changing the metadata names in DHIS2 and submitting new forms, but DHIS2 is saying no new submissions since last sync, though I have submitted new test forms in Kobo. Have you found whether new submissions in Kobo are available in real-time to DHIS2?
  3. Has anyone found a way to incorporate submissions from Kobo into tracker programs or into EXISTING event programs? It seems that if I create the integration, but then move the newly created data elements to a tracker program stage, it can no longer sync. And I can’t figure out how to map the Kobo data into an existing event form that I’ve already created.

Let me know if you have insight or experience with this integration and how you’ve used it! Thanks!

~Natalie

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Hi @Natalie_Tibbels,

Funny you ask this – I reached out to a contact at BAO Systems (the creators of the app) about this exact thing last week and just heard back today.

  1. The Connector does not use UIDs to identify metadata, but does in fact use the names of the objects and I was told that there are no plans to change this. We are just starting to use the Connector and I do plan to create program indicators to mask the data element names.

  2. They are available in real time, but if you change metadata names in DHIS2, the Connector will no longer recognize the metadata and you won’t be able to sync. I was able to create survey metadata, enter surveys on KoBo, and sync the data to DHIS2 within a few moments.

  3. I have not tried this, so I’m not sure if it’s possible.

Blake

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This is great. This information helps me make some decisions. Would love to hear from you or others anytime you have insights on using this connector in the field for realtime monitoring, not necessarily for a survey with one-time sync! Thanks again!!
~Natalie

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Looks like that link expired. Here is the new one DHIS2 App Hub

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Hi all. Scott, thanks for the updated link, that looks fantastic.

@Natalie_Tibbels, in response to your question, we’ve done a lot of integration work with both Kobo and DHIS2 at OpenFn. OpenFn is typically used for slightly more complex, ongoing data flows (which may involved multiple steps, data cleaning, or automating related processes—like paying CHWs via MPESA or notifying enumerators by SMS when input contains outliers that need human inspection).

Also might be useful if you want to either have this integration happen in real-time or if you want more control over when data processing happens. Event-based jobs in OpenFn listen for submissions to Kobo as they’re delivered, and cron-based jobs allow you to run a particular automation flow (like harvesting, cleaning, and loading Kobo data to DHIS2) at a specific time… say at 11pm every Saturday night.

Hope this helps!

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