Ushahidi and Crowdmap training

INSTALLATION AND BASIC CUSTOMIZATION

Anahi Ayala [email protected]

World Bank ZambiaPPCR Mission – November 2010

Ushahidi builds tools for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering the barriers for individuals to share their stories. The Ushahidi Platform allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email, web, Twitter, Facebook and voice mail and visualize it on a map or timeline. Ushahidi’s goal is to create the simplest way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response, early warning, development and anything you may have in mind!

INSTALLATION

Installation

You have two ways you can have your Ushahidi platform up and running:

1.Downloading it and installing it on your server;

1.By going to Crowdmap server and have it hosted on the Ushahidi server.

Downloading Ushahidi and installing it on your server

STEP 1: go to http://download.ushahidi.com/STEP 2: Fill the formSTEP 3: Receive an e-mail with the link to the

platformSTEP 4: Install it on your server

NOTE: you need to have some PHP skills to be able to do this by yourself, otherwise you need an IT person or a PHP developer.

Crowdmap is designed and built by the people behind Ushahidi, a platform that was originally built to crowdsource crisis information. As the platform has evolved, so have its uses. Crowdmap allows you to set up your own deployment of Ushahidi without having to install it on your own web server.

NOTE: This installation is easy and simple but doesn’t allow you to customize your platform as much as the installation on your server.

How do you built your Crowdmap platform

STEP 1: Go to http://crowdmap.com STEP 2: Sign up

STEP 1:Create youraccountSTEP 2: Create your

deployment address (URL)

STEP 3: Enter your deployment details

STEP 4: Accept Terms of Use

STEP 5: Click on Finish & Create Deployment

Your deployment is now up and running!!To start the customization click on Admin Dashboard

and you are ready to manage your Ushahidi platform.

MODIFYING THE SETTINGS OF YOUR PLATFORM

Log In

STEP 1: Log into your platform from the http://yourdeployment.crowdmap.com/login

If you have the platform hosted on Crowdmap Or from http://yourdeployment.com/login if you have it installed in your

serverNOTE: If you have a crowdmap platform your username is you e-mail

address.

Go to Settings

STEP 2: From the main admin dashboard go to Settings to start modifying the settings of your deployment

Settings: The Site

STEP 3: Insert your Settings and click on Save Settings. Remember that the Twitter Hashtag you will put in the Twitter Search Terms will be the one that people will use to send you communication related to your platform.

Settings: the Map

STEP 4: Set up your map:1.Choose a location2.Decide which base map you want to use3.Configure the zoom of the map

Settings: the SMS sync STEP 5: Set up your SMS provider (if you have one). You

can choose in between FrontlineSMS and Clickatel.

Settings: the E-Mail

STEP 6: set up your e-mail account details.

MANAGING YOUR PLATFORM

Go to Manage

STEP 1: From the main admin dashboard go to Manage to start managing your deployment

Manage: The Categories

STEP 2: To set up the categories of your deployment you need to click on the Add/Edit button on the top of the page

Add or Edit a CategoryFrom the window that will open edit or insert all the

information relative to the category. Use the scroll down menu to decide if that category is a top level category or a sub-category.

Manage: Pages

STEP 3: Using the pages setting you can create additional pages in your Ushahidi platform.

Manage: New feedsSTEP 4: The news feeds section allows you to choose the

RSS feeds that you want to have displayed on the home page of your deployment.

Manage: LayersSTEP 5: The Layers button allows you to add

layers to your map.

Manage: CloudvoxSTEP 6: The Cloudvox button allows you to set up your voice

mail menu for people reporting to you using voice mail.

PROCESSING THE INCOMING INFORMATION

The Dashboard

ReportsReports is referred to incoming reports, entering the platform as web-submissions and

also reports already approved and created by other sources. To approve or delete or verify a report just click on the corresponding word. If the word id green than it means that that action has been already taken.

Messages: SMSIn this section you can see al the incoming SMS. From here you

can answer back to the sender, asking for more information, delete the message or create a report out of it.

Messages: E-MailIn this section you can see al the incoming E-Mails. From

here you can delete the e-mail or create a report out of it.

Messages: TwitterIn this section you can see al the incoming Twitter messages that are

marked with the hashtag related to your platform. From here you can delete the message or create a report out of it.

Messages: Voice MailIn this section you can see al the incoming Voice

Messages. From here you can listen to it, delete it or create a report out of it.

Create a Report

By clicking on create report you will be sent to a Create Report page where you need to insert all the information relative to that message. This process is the same for E-Mail, Twitter Messages and Voice Mail.

“Create Report” FormCreate Report page is where you will add a title [1], description [2], category,

location[3]. You can also mark if something is “actionable” [4], meaning that it needs an action to be taken, and return to update the report if action is taken.

Choosing a categoryCheck the box next to the category that best fits the topic of the report. Each

main category pulls down into sub-categories. Click the “+” next to the main category to access sub-categories. You can choose also more than one category.

LocationIf the report contains location information, you will need to find that location

on the map either manually (scroll and zoom) or using the “Find Location” search function. See the section of this Manual called “Find the location” for more information on how to map reports.

* If there isn’t enough information to map the report skip the report. You cannot save a report unless it has a location.

Date and TimeCheck the time and date, and make sure they correspond to the time and

date of the event you are reporting. If you need to, change it.

APROVE AND VERIFY• To approve the report, go to the “Information Evaluation” box in the lower left

corner.• Where it says “Approve this Report?” [1] choose “Yes.”• Where it says “Verify this Report?” [2] leave it as “No.” Only if you have the

assurance that the information reported is 100% true you should mark report as verified.

• You can leave “Source Reliability,”[3]and “Information Probability” [4] blank or add there your impressions on the reliability of the source and the likelihood of the information reported.

Now you are ready to go!

For additional information look at:http://blog.ushahidi.comhttp://www.ushahidi.com/community_resourceshttp://wiki.ushahidi.com/doku.php

ENJOY YOUR USHAHIDI PLATFORM

THANK YOU!

Anahi Ayala [email protected]