Page Comparison

We recommend you consider carefully what types of usernames you want to use. Here are some different approaches:

• First name - this is simple for people to remember, but if you have multiple users mobile workers with the same name, you will have to devise a strategy, such as serials (laxmi, laxmi2, laxmi3) or use of a second initial.

• Phone number - is a unique number and easy for most people to remember.

• First.last name - is longer and more complex but more likely to be unique for each user.

• Sector/Coverage area name - this has the advantage that if there is lots of turnover, multiple people can use the same username; however, you will not be able to tell which individual person has submitted the data when analyzing later.

Best practices for Mobile Worker Usernames:  

• Design the username so that it is meaningful for the Mobile Worker entering data. 

• If you are tracking the performance of each Mobile Worker individually, we recommend that each Mobile Worker have their own username even if they are sharing a device. CommCare HQ will give you reports on the performance/productivity of your Mobile Workers. If you have multiple Mobile Workers sharing a username, then the performance reports on CommCareHQ will reflect team performance and not necessarily individual performance.

• You may not have duplicate usernames. According to your format, if there is a duplicate username, then you should add some distinction. For example, if there are two Kherunishas in this mobile project, assign one with the username “kherunisha” and the other “kherunisha2.”

• You may use periods ‘.’ in the username.

• You may not use ‘_’ in the username.

• You may not use special characters apart from periods '.' as mentioned above.

• You may use numbers and/or letters in your username.

• All characters should be lowercase in the username.

• All usernames should be in English (Roman Alphabet).

Best practices for Mobile Worker Passwords:      

• Avoid setting the Mobile Worker’s passwords the same as the Admin password. Technical staff associated with your project will have access to the Admin password and may log in in Admin mode for installation and troubleshooting. The default Admin password is 234. (Note that the Admin password is configurable).

• We recommend keeping passwords simple, so Mobile Workers do not forget the password and thus face a barrier in using the application.

Sample bulk users excel template

***user_id will be blank if this is a new mobile worker

Tips

• Your first column in excel should say "username", with no spaces. Note that username is required.

• Your second column in excel should say "language". Use the language codes in CommCare, (ex. English = en, French = fra) 

• Name and phone number are optional (but recommended!) fields.
  

• For any new usersmobile workers, the password is required.  For existing users mobile workers that are in the download, the password will be listed as a *********.  When uploading the file again, the password for these existing users mobile workers will not be changed as long as that column contains only *s. If text is set in this column, then the password for the user will be updated to match the text string.  
  

• Remember to add the international country code to the phone numbers. 

• Add a space between the first and last name of your CommCare user. Do not need to use periods or other punctuation to separate.

Advanced

• Any additional data can be stored by user by adding columns with 'data: xxxx' in the first row of the column.  For instance, village, block, etc can be added, and will be stored. For more information, see https://dimagi.atlassian.net/wiki/x/3DTKfw.

• Mobile workers can be assigned a phone number or multiple phone numbers during bulk upload. To do this, add one or more columns with ‘phone-number xxxx’ in the first row of the column, where ‘xxxx’ is a sequential number (not the phone number). For example, if a user has more than one phone number, this can be sequential numbering, such as “phone-number 1”, then “phone-number 2” and so on. For a user with only one phone number in the “phone-number 1” column, that phone number will automatically be marked as ‘primary’ in CommCare. For a user with several phone numbers, the phone number in the “phone-number 1” column will be marked as ‘primary.’ Inversely, if at least one mobile worker has more than one phone number in CommCare, downloading the user.xlsx file as explained above will generate a file that contains N “phone-number” columns, N being the maximum number of phone numbers that a mobile worker has.

• A web user is able to update or delete an existing phone number via bulk upload. To update an existing phone number, the web user needs to edit the phone number in the appropriate cell, save the excel file and upload it. To delete a phone number, the web user simply needs to delete the number in the appropriate cell (leave the cell blank), save the excel file and upload it.

• If you neither want to delete nor update the phone numbers for any mobile worker, you can simply remove any "phone-number" columns from the upload. This will cause the phone numbers associated with the mobile workers to remain unchanged.
  

• Users mobile workers can be pre-assigned to groups during bulk upload.  To do this, any column needs to have the syntax 'group (xxxx)' in the first row of the column. (Note that the 'xxxx' is any identifier, and is not the group name. To keep things simple, this can be sequential numbering, such as "group 1" then "group 2" and so on.)  Any user can be a member of multiple groups of different types by simply adding columns with the correct group syntax.  For groups, make sure you define the group on the 'groups' tab of the spreadsheet and indicate which type of group it is. For more detail see https://dimagi.atlassian.net/wiki/x/1SrKfw .

• For groups, make sure you define the group on the 'groups' tab of the spreadsheet and indicate which type of group it is: There are two types of groups: 1) Reporting groups - these groups users to view by group in the Filters on the Reporting section of HQ.  For example, you can group all mobile users workers within one Village or SubCenter. 2) Case sharing groups - these groups allow cases to be shared by different users.  For instance, if two mobile users workers were sharing the same catchment area, case information could be shared between these two usersmobile workers.

  See sample excel file.