Application Polishing & Final Checks

Owned by Erin Quinn
Dec 19, 2024
2 min read

After you have gotten through all of the rounds of application development and testing, you will want to do one more round of “app polishing” to make sure that everything is as it should be. Remember that before you launch your app it is easy to make changes without any consequences to your data or workers: but once you launch, making those same changes will be much, much harder. And of course, the power of a good first impression is immeasurable!

Before your application goes live, you should check to see:

  • Data

    • Case Property Names should be concise, and easily readable, with no duplicates (e.g. dob and date-of-birth).

      • Hint: Review the Data Dictionary to clean up the old case properties and identify and potential duplicates / misspelled properties, etc. Deprecate old properties that aren’t needed.

    • Question IDs should be concise and easily readable.

    • Review Export Columns in your case and form exports. Make sure that they are readable and recognizable to you and your team.

    • Indicators that need to be reported out on are included in your application, and mapped with right question IDs.

    • Confirm you’ve saved the ‘name' property in all of your registration forms as an actual name or ID (CommCare will autosave a question as the “name” if you don’t assign it, so make sure that the “name” makes sense!)

  • User Experience

    • Review Question Lists to ensure that the same types of questions all come on the same screen on the mobile device.

    • Icons for each form and module.

    • Translations exist for both CommCare UI as well as App Translations (for multi-language apps).

    • Review the case list and case details for each module to ensure the best set of information is being displayed to users.

    • Review End of form navigation to confirm users are being routed where you think they should be after completing a form.

    • Ensuring clear validation conditions messages that allow the user to quickly see how to fix their answer to the question they have answered incorrectly.

    • Test for performance issues if data from other systems is imported or if you anticipate high caseloads in your application

  • Editing and Polishing

    • Spell Check and make sure there are no errors in spelling and grammar

    • Consistency in things like capitalization, numbering, using bullets for lists, etc.

    • Icons and color scheme should be consistent throughout the application, and icons should exist, if possible.

  • Device and User Setup

    • Ensure mobile device Compatibility by confirming if any of the devices that will be used fall in this table.

    • Review Mobile Users locations or case sharing groups if case sharing is being used.    

    • Review User roles and permissions to make sure everyone has the lowest level permission they can have while still being able to fully function at their job.