The deliverable 7.4, Monitoring and Evaluation Dashboard, was submitted by Future Analytics Consulting (FAC) in October 2019. Following, the executive summary of the deliverable:
“This report includes a description of the Monitoring and Evaluation Reporting Tool (MERT) (connected to Task 7.2 and Task 7.3) that was developed to store, manage, process, display and share project monitoring data. To enable these functions, the MERT was developed as an interactive web-based dashboard to analyse and represent the data.
An analytics dashboard is defined as a tool that manages, processes data through a collection of interacting widgets. As a result, users are able to generate data reports, visualise and share the data. In general, dashboards are customisable to specific user requirements, and present an easier way to apply analysis to data, interpret data from different sources and disseminate data appropriately – all of which to assist with important project decision making. The MERT was developed to be part of the ICT Ecosystem of the project and provide an online solution for capturing and managing quantitative and qualitative data and information according to the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Framework developed by the consortium and refined in Deliverable 7.1 – Approach and Methodology for Monitoring and Evaluation. The KPI monitoring data is submitted to the MERT through an automated or manual process, from where it is stored, processed and displayed in the MERT’s various summary and individual KPI interfaces.
The MERT was developed using a flexible NoSQL database structure to allow for future integration and necessary alterations to the functionalities of the MERT to ensure that it is able to provide the necessary and accurate data modelling, display and sharing required for each KPI. As this version of the MERT is in the prototype phase, there will be ongoing engagement with KPI/data owners and other project partners to develop the tool according to their requirements for end use and handover of the tool to cities in year five of the project. This ongoing process will ensure that the functions performed by the MERT are accurate and relevant to partners and the public. In addition to its own processing, the MERT will capture data that is to be transferred to the Smart Cities Information System (SCIS) Self-Reporting Tool (SRT). The data points will be captured according to the data requirements of the SRT at the frequency defined for each KPI, and will be aggregated in the MERT to be submitted annually to the SRT.
The various menu items and interfaces in the MERT are designed to introduce users to the project, the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) process, and the various functionalities of the MERT. Users landing on the homepage of the MERT are introduced to +CityxChange and the M&E of its data, navigate through the KPI framework, and view all 33 KPIs individually through KPI interfaces. These interfaces display the basic details of the indicator, and presents the user with its latest monitoring performance in a tabular and visual representation. As the MERT is a public-facing platform that is also used by project partners to submit monitoring data, partners have the ability to log in as accredited users of the MERT giving them the ability to securely add and edit KPI data for the KPIs that they take ownership of. Public users do not have this option. Selected data captured in the MERT is then available for export in ‘.pdf’, ‘.csv’ and JSON formats. Additionally, partners are able to add additional information in support of the data points captured to provide context and a better understanding of the data.
As the project progresses and more KPI monitoring data is generated, the MERT will evolve and integrate changes in an effort to improve its use as a data management, processing, and dissemination tool.”
