Kicking off 2025 with another inspiring session!
Lightning talk: Digitalization of agricultural supply chains
We heard from @dast at CABOZ, who shared his experience using Entities and how he built an impressive system for supply chain management with ODK. He also shared valuable insights on how we might enhance longitudinal data collection even further—such as using repeat questions with Entities for recurring farm visits, automating workflows for analysis, and expanding polygon capabilities (e.g., alerting users when polygons intersect).
Daniel’s presentation sparked some great discussions, and one topic that stood out in the after hours section of the call was the balance between ODK and specialized software. While there are purpose-built tools for supply chain management and dashboards, ODK is intentionally designed as a flexible data collection platform. This allows users to tailor solutions to their organizational needs without being locked into rigid structures.
@LN shared this is an ongoing tension—between structured, long-lived workflows that benefit from specialized tools and the need for adaptable, evolving workflows—highlights one of ODK’s greatest strengths: flexibility. Please jump into the thread if you have thoughts on this topic!
Product updates
We also shared what we are working on now and what’s next. Follow along in the different feature threads to share your thoughts and feedback.
- Improving the draft form experience in Central
- Displaying media in the summary/hierarchy view in Collect
- Web Forms plan for releasing and new rank question type!
Resources
Next call: March 5th
Want to join the next @Insiders call in March? Learn how. Looking forward to more insightful conversations in the coming sessions! If you have ideas for future topics or want to do a lightning talk, let us know!