Ona Blog

We are thrilled to announce that we added a RapidPro integration to Ona Apps. RapidPro is an open source messaging platform that provides a way to visually build interactive messaging flows (SMS, IVR, Telegram, Facebook Messenger) using its intuitive drag and drop interface. This integration means you can connect a form in your Ona account to a flow in RapidPro and all of your incoming form submissions will automatically be pushed to that flow.

By integrating with RapidPro, we are unlocking tremendous new possibilities. Below are 3 things you can do now to get the most out of this integration.

1. Trigger SMS or email alerts from a form submission

You can automatically push form submissions from your forms in Ona to RapidPro or TextIt, which you can use to trigger SMS and email alerts. Even better, you add logic in your RapidPro flow to evaluate submission data to determine whether to send a SMS or email.

Our team has built alerts to keep track of Ona Impact Grant applications. To do this, we connected our grant application form to a RapidPro flow that emails our team whenever we receive a new application.

 Continue reading 3 ways to get the most out of the new RapidPro + Ona integration...

A special thanks to everyone who attended the Python Expose at the Python Nairobi Meetup.

 Continue reading Thanks for Attending the Python Expose at the Python Nairobi Meetup...

Meet Darlene Kwamboka, who has joined Ona as a data analyst intern.

 Continue reading Welcome Darlene!...

Have you been exporting data from Ona and then uploading to Google Sheets? As part of the recent release of Ona Apps, we are excited to announce your life just got easier with our new Google Sheets integration. Ona users can now export data to, and access data directly in, Google Sheets.

 Continue reading Why you need to start using Google Sheets with Ona...

We are pleased to share a guest blog post written by Sebastian Persch, Ph.D. who is doing inventive work combining Ona with custom R code.

A member of the field team in Laos, collecting data about smallholder farmers. Image courtesy of Forest Carbon.

A lot of people who use Ona for surveying probably know this feeling: You created a survey, did a lot of interviews or measured stuff in the field, downloaded the dataset from the cloud… and then the tedious struggle begins, i.e. the data analysis and subsequently the report writing. Granted, we did not find the “Holy Grail”, but we would like to share two examples of what is possible to improve your quality control, productivity, efficiency, and possibly make your life a little bit easier.

 Continue reading How Forest Carbon uses Ona with R to automate analysis and feedback...