User Guide 1 – Account Setup Guide

This guide walks you through setting up your TolaData account, creating a workspace, building your indicator plan, adding data and visualising your results. Each section ends with a short exercise so you can practise as you go.

1. Setting up your user account

1. The Org Admin for your organisation will send you an email invitation to join TolaData. Org Admins can find more information on inviting new users in our knowledge base: Invite new users to TolaData.
2. Click the link in the email, set your password and you’re ready to go.
3. You can then log in to TolaData at toladata.io using your email and password.
4. If you forget your password, use the reset link on the login page.

Note: TolaData is configured for the latest versions of Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. Please use one of these browsers when setting up your account.

The Workspace

To access the features of TolaData, you must have access to a workspace. You can either create your own workspace or join a team member’s existing workspace.

2. Create a new workspace or join an existing one

1. Create your first workspace by selecting Workspace in the navigation panel on the left, then click Add new workspace.
2. Type in the name of your workspace and its start and end dates, then click Save.
3. To join a workspace someone else has created, ask them or your Org Admin to add you to the workspace team. They can add you and set your permissions in the Team tab of the workspace details page.

Note: Depending on your organisation’s TolaData setup, workspaces may be labelled differently, e.g. “Project” and “Add new project”.

3. Give other users access to your workspace

1. To give other users access to a workspace you have created, add them as team members of that workspace. Note that users must first have been invited by the Org Admin to create their TolaData account.
2. Select Workspace in the left-hand navigation panel, then click the name of your workspace to open its details page.
3. Click the Team tab, then Add existing team member, and select users from the drop-down menu.
4. Team members have access to all data in the workspace, but you control what they can do by setting their role. There are four workspace roles (see Manage team members):

• Project Admin: manages permissions and the set-up of the workspace structure. Has full edit rights to workspace data, plus extra rights for data cleaning and validation. A workspace can have more than one Project Admin.
• Edit Access: has full edit rights to workspace data, with some restrictions on what they can edit. Can support workspace set-up and do everything a Data Entry user can.
• Data Entry: can view all workspace data but can’t edit the workspace structure or data. Can input new results, import data tables, request approvals and add document links, but can’t carry out quality checks or validation (such as editing or deleting results).
• View Only: can view all workspace data but can’t edit or add data.

More information on adding workspace team members is available in our knowledge base: Add team members to your workspace.

Exercise A

• Create your own workspace.
• Add a team member to your workspace and set their permissions.

The Indicator Section

The Indicator section helps you assess whether your interventions and approaches are on track to achieve your intended outcomes and outputs. In the indicator workflow you can track progress against overall and periodic targets, and report both total and disaggregated results.

4. Build a results framework

Use the results framework to visualise the logic model of your workspace and organise your indicators.

1. Select Indicators in the navigation panel, use the drop-down menu at the top left of the page to select your workspace, then click the Results framework tab.
2. Click + to start building your framework levels with your workspace objectives, outcomes, outputs, etc.
3. You can add as many results framework levels as you need to build out your results framework tree.

5. Add an indicator plan

1. Select Indicators in the navigation panel and use the drop-down menu at the top left of the page to select the workspace you want to add indicators to.
2. Click Add new indicator.
3. Fill in the indicator name and select the indicator format. Indicators can be numeric, percentage or qualitative.
4. Finish adding your indicator details and click Save.
5. Drag and drop indicators within the list to organise them under your results framework headings.
6. Click the name of an indicator to open it and add more details.

Exercise B

• In your workspace, add three results framework levels: a goal, an outcome and an output. Add a description and a colour to each level.
• Go back to the Indicators tab and create three indicators: one numeric, one percentage and one qualitative.
• Organise the indicators by dragging and dropping them under your results framework levels.

Adding periodic targets and disaggregations to your indicator

Link reporting periods and disaggregations to your indicator to analyse your data further.

1. Add periodic targets: open the indicator, click the Targets and disaggregations tab, then click Add new period target.
2. Choose one of two sources of periods:

• Standard: monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual periods following the standard calendar (e.g. Quarter 1 = 1 January – 31 March).
• Custom: periods created by admins for the workspace, for example a donor’s annual reporting period (e.g. 1 October – 30 September).

More information on managing reporting periods: Add reporting periods.

3. Link disaggregation types: in the Targets and disaggregations tab, the disaggregation types already linked to the indicator are shown at the bottom of the form. To link another, click Add disaggregation types and select the type you want to make available to the indicator.

• Custom disaggregation types are created at the workspace details level.
• Disaggregations can have default ranges attached to them.

More information on creating and managing disaggregations: Managing disaggregations.

Exercise C

• Open the numeric indicator you created and go to the Targets and disaggregations tab.
• Add a reporting period by selecting Add new period target. Select Standard as the source and Annual as the type of periodic target.
• Add a target for two annual periods, then click Save.
• Link a disaggregation type: select Add disaggregation types and choose the standard disaggregation type Country.

Adding data to your indicator

Data can be added to your indicator manually, from a TolaData form or from any machine-readable source, depending on your data collection method.

6. Manual entry

1. Go to the Indicators section. Each indicator in the list has a Collected data icon on the right-hand side, next to the delete icon.
2. Click the Collected data icon to open the results list for that indicator.
3. Click Add new collected data.
4. Two options appear: manual entry or pull from data table. Select Manual entry.
5. Enter the collected value and the date collected. You can also add an identifier and link the collected data to a site. More information: Add collected data to your indicators.
6. Once you have added all relevant information, click Save.

Exercise D

• Add a result manually to your numeric indicator.

7. Pull from a data table

To add data from a machine-readable source, first import the dataset into TolaData. You can import data from:

• File upload: CSV or Excel
• Spreadsheets: Google Sheets, OneDrive for Business (Excel) or SharePoint (Excel)
• Third-party tools (via API): KoBoToolbox, ONA, SurveyCTO and Aam Digital

1. Click Data tables in the navigation panel.
2. Select the workspace from the drop-down menu, click Import table and select the source of your collected data.
3. More information on importing data: Import data from external sources.

Add a collected data result to an indicator

4. Go to the indicator you would like to add data to.
5. Click Add new collected data and select Pull from data table. This pulls data directly from a dataset imported into the Data tables section and calculates the result automatically. You can apply different mathematical operations and conditions to filter your results.
6. More information: Add collected data to your indicators.

Exercise E

• Import a dataset into TolaData in the Data tables section.
• Once imported, link the data to your numeric indicator.

See a summary of your indicator results

Click the Results summary tab to see your indicator results analysed over time, against your periodic targets and by the disaggregation types used in your collected data.

8. Create a data collection form

You can create your own forms to share with staff, partners and data gatherers.

1. Click Forms in the navigation panel, select the workspace from the drop-down menu at the top left, then click Add new form.
2. Enter the name of your form and click Save.
3. Click the form name to open it. The form is a draft, so you can add and edit questions, save and come back to it as many times as you like until you publish it.
4. When the form is ready, publish it and share it with data gatherers. Data gatherers do not need to be TolaData users; they only need the unique web form link to submit data.
5. Once a form is published you can no longer change it, but you can stop further submissions when you want to end data collection.
6. Publishing a form automatically creates a new data table. Click Data tables in the navigation panel, select the workspace and click the data table name to open it. Each webform submission adds a new row to the data table.
7. More information on collecting data with forms: Building a TolaData form.

9. Create aggregated indicators

Aggregated indicators combine results from contributing indicators, calculated using a predefined formula.

1. You can aggregate within and across workspaces. To aggregate across workspaces, first make sure you are receiving data from the workspace whose indicators you want to use. This is set up in the Sharing tab of the workspace details page.
2. To learn more about sharing data between workspaces, watch the tutorial video.
3. To create an aggregated indicator, go to the Indicators page, click + Add new indicator and tick the box for an aggregated indicator.
4. In the contributing indicators section, select the workspace you want to take contributing indicators from, then select the indicators. You can add as many contributing indicators as you like, as long as they share the same indicator format and calculation formula.
5. You can weight and adjust aggregated indicators and specify the calculation formula. More information: Weighting and adjusting aggregated indicators.
6. Once you have selected all contributing indicators, click Save. The actual value aggregates automatically, along with the disaggregation types and reporting periods applied to the contributing indicators.
7. In the indicator workflow, aggregated indicators are marked with the aggregate icon next to the delete button.

Exercise F

• Create an aggregated indicator.
• Add three contributing indicators, either from within your workspace or from a workspace shared with you.

10. Visualise your results with dashboards

1. Select Dashboards in the navigation panel and click Add new dashboard.
2. Enter a name and click Save. Your new, empty dashboard opens. Add data by clicking Add new widget.
3. Choose from different widget types, including text/image widgets and widgets for workspace indicators, maps and budgets.
4. To share your dashboard externally, open the Settings tab and switch on the toggle to generate an unguessable URL. Click Copy link and send it by email or any other channel to people who do not have access to TolaData.
5. You can also share the dashboard with individual members of your organisation unit or with entire workspace teams.
6. To let other team members edit and add to your dashboard, invite them and set their permissions in the Team tab.
7. Change the colour of your dashboard widgets by selecting a different style package in the Styles tab. Style packages are created by the Org Admin in the Styles tab of the Admin Console.
8. More information on dashboards: Dashboards knowledge base.

Exercise G

• Explore this example TolaData dashboard.
• Read the widget configuration guide.

11. Where to get more help

• In-app guides: click the Guides button in the bottom left-hand corner for step-by-step guides to all TolaData features.
• Live chat: click the Help button in the bottom left-hand corner to speak with our User Support team.
• Knowledge base: find all our user guides, best practice guides and product release notes at toladata.com/docs.
• Videos: watch tutorials on our TolaData YouTube channel.
• Email: contact our support team at support@toladata.com.