Development programs often have to coordinate data across multiple stakeholders including field staff, donors, manufacturers, other partners, etc. At the same time, there is a need for transparency into what's happening in the field that's historically been filled by using paper forms. Transitioning to mobile technology used to mean simply digitizing the paper surveys then evaluating results in Excel or SPSS.
While this is a good first step to collect data quickly from the field, this doesn't allow critical information back out to the field staff or partner access to data. There is a growing need for mobile technology to allow mobile users to look up information about their records (i.e. farmers, clinics, etc.) - all while offline. Essentially, an easy to use CRM system on mobile devices while offline.
Mobile CRM tools like TaroWorks (integrated with Salesforce) have been built to be used by field staff in offline areas and who aren't familiar with how databases work. This is increasing field staff engagement, allows for faster coordination between stakeholders, and saves time.
Examples used:
Oxfam WISE - The Women in Small Enterprise Program uses a graduation model to select women to receive loans, provides coaching to them, and tracks their progress over time. WISE is using Salesforce's Partner Portal to share a subset of data about the women with their local coaching partners in Guatemala so they can plan each woman's coaching curriculum. Though they are in separate organizations, they can access the data they need from the same central database.
Grameen Foundation - Grameen Foundation's numerous mAgriculture programs allow community knowledge workers to collect data about the farmers they meet with, but also allows them to look up farm plan details from a central database while they're offline.
