Data sources
A data source answers one question: where did this number come from? The beneficiary register, the clinic's attendance sheet, a partner's monthly spreadsheet, a household survey. You register it once for a project, and every data collection that uses it points back to the same record.
Why it matters
Months after a project ends, a donor or an auditor asks where a figure came from. With your sources registered, the answer is one click away:
indicator → monitoring plan → data collection → data source
Without them, the number is just a claim. The data source is the link people skip most often, because a data collection saves without one.
Add a data source
Open Data Sources and click to create a new one:
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Project | The project that uses it. Only active projects are listed |
| Name | Something a stranger could find: the institution and the document, such as "Clinic A attendance register", not "monthly numbers" |
| Type | What the source is (see below) |
| Description | Who holds it, how often it is updated, what it leaves out, and who to ask |
Tip The description is the most useful field and the one most often left empty. There is no separate field for the owner or the update frequency, so write both here.
The types
| Type | Means |
|---|---|
| Register | An existing list you read from |
| Register form | A form filled in as part of daily work |
| Register review | Going back through records already kept |
| Survey | A structured questionnaire |
| Interview | A structured or semi-structured conversation |
| Observation | Someone watching and recording directly |
| Excel | A spreadsheet handed over by someone |
| API | Another system sending figures automatically |
Source is not method
These are two different questions:
- Source: what you read, such as the district health register.
- Method: how you got the figure out of it, such as a register review. The method belongs on the monitoring plan, not here.
Register a separate source whenever the thing being read is different. "Clinic A register" and "Clinic B register" are two sources, even if you read them the same way.
Keep the list healthy
- Each source shows how many data collections used it. A source used many times is one your indicators depend on: if it disappears, record that in the risk register.
- A source used zero times after a few months was either never needed or never used. Start using it or remove it.
- Look for near-duplicate names. That is usually the same register entered twice.
Warning Deleting a source does not delete the data collections that used it. They simply stop naming a source. To retire a source that has been used, say so in its description instead of deleting it.
What's next
Record your data in data collections, and choose the source each time.