Required/Mandatory GPS coordinates on Android app for Capture

Support - Assistance technique
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Hi All

We have been running an ‘event without registration’ program for several years now to capture events directly in the field. One thing that we have encountered fairly often is that users tend to forget to capture the GPS coordinates every time they capture the data. This is usually simply due to volume (they may be entering hundreds of records from the field in a day) and miss some.

Is there any way to make the GPS coordinates field mandatory/required when capturing data on the Android app?

We are currently using DHIS2 Version 2.33.10 and App version: 2.7.11

Any advice or suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks!

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Hello, @Terence_Scott .

Please check this post: Geolocation of tracker enrolment and events: why is data often missing? and follow the related JIRA issue.

Let me know if that helps :slight_smile:

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Hi @jaime.bosque

Many thanks for the suggestion. I have followed the JIRA issue and have also added in my own use case in the comments there.

The temporary solution of the DE with “coordinates” would not be suitable in our instance as this would duplicate the need for data entry (unless there is a way to write a program rule that takes the captured GPS coordinates from event creation and reflects it in that DE field? However, this would cause additional challenges in terms of training people how to return back to the event creation screen to capture the coordinates if they were missed initially.

Thanks for the assistance!

1 Like
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Sorry, @Terence_Scott , I might not be following properly. In the suggestion of the post I mentioned you could have a compulsory DE with type coordinate, is not this what you are looking for?

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No, unfortunately not. We are hoping to be able to make the coordinates (when creating an event) as the compulsory field. The issue with creating another DE with the coordinates field is that is then another thing for the field personnel to fill in. We are trying to keep data capture to the absolute minimum to ensure that it is high-quality data that is fast and easy to capture.

If it were possible to create a rule that auto-filled the compulsory DE field with the coordinates captured when creating the event (I am not sure if this is possible), then it would require additional training and effort to show the field teams how to go back to the first page on the app where the coordinates can be captured. This would again slow the data capture process.

Ideally, we would have the coordinates on the first screen (date, OU, coordinates) captured before being able to progress to the next screen on the app that then gets to the DEs.

I hope that all makes sense?