Tablet Provisioner App

If the concept of census tablet provisioning could be summarized in one sentence, it would be “getting the tablets from factory state to enumeration readiness”.

While that one sentence might make it seem like a simple process, it isn’t!

There is a lot of complexity involved in making sure that each tablet is loaded with all the necessary resources that it requires to be able to be used by enumerators to collect and transmit data.

In general, mobile apps required for the enumeration, such as CSEntry, might be required to be installed. Secondly, various data files, such as the questionnaire, user manuals and navigable maps might need to be put on the tablets. As resources such as maps are specific to an area, each tablet might have to receive different maps and that is one of the requirements that will complete the provisioning process.

To help with the distribution of customized data to each tablet, one might have to first assign unique identifiers to each tablet and then use those on a computer system to “assign” each tablet to a respective area. Then the provisioning process would have to look at assignments and then deploy the respective payload for each tablet.

UNECA have developed an end-to-end provisioning system with is made up of a back-end system, mobile apps for copying data and quality control and also a tablet decommissioning system which will reset all tablets to factory state.

The system works over WiFi and requires little intervention from humans. It is capable of provisioning multiple tablets at once thereby cutting down on the time it takes to get the tablets ready.

Tablet Provisioner App

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