General information about the project

When you create a new project (when you start up Logframer or by pressing the New Project button of the File toolbar), you can use the Project Information window to give the project a title and to determine from when to when it will run.

Set your project's title, when it will start and how long it will take

  • Project title: use this field to enter the official, full title of your project.
  • Short title: often the official title of the project is rather descriptive and long. Often you will not refer to the project with its official title, but rather something like ‘Uganda 2020’ or ‘ECHO Haiti’.
  • Code: donors often refer to projects using a code, which has to be mentioned in all communication. Alternatively, you can use this field if you use a code internally to refer to the project.
  • Financial code: sometimes the accountancy department uses a specific accountancy code for the project

When you save the project for the first time, Logframer will use the (short) title of the project to suggest a file name. But you are free to change this file name to anything you want.

  • Duration: determine how long the project will run (in years, months, weeks…)
  • Start date: choose the start date of the project
  • End date: this will be calculated on the basis of the start date and duration. If you change this date, the Duration field will be modified.

The project's start and end dates are very important, because you can refer any other date in the project to these two dates. For instance, you can say that an activity starts three weeks after the start of the project. Or plan a key moment two months before the end of the project. Or plan an evaluation one year after the end of the project.

The advantage is that when for some reason you have to postpone the start of the project your whole planning will move with it (on the condition that you've used relative dates of course). This means you won't have to modify every other date manually!

On the right you can see the logo of your organisation. To include this in your Project Information window, you need to upload it using the My organisation button of the File toolbar.

You can use the various tab pages below to include additional information:

  • Description: what is the project's current status; what type of project is it; in what sectors does it fit? You can also provide a narrative description of the project and of the context in which it will take place.
  • Target groups: identify your different target groups, their characteristics and where they are located on a world map. Indicate which information you need to gather from your beneficiaries.
  • Intervention zones: in what countries, regions or locations will you work? Identify the different zones and indicate them on a world map.
  • Partners: which organisations will assist you in the project (partners, donors, suppliers…) and who are the people you are in contact with?
  • Funding: who will provide funding for your project? What transactions are planned or have been made?
  • Monitoring deadlines planning: this allows you to determine when and how often monitoring of results and risks should happen.
  • IATI specific information: if you want to create an IATI activity file for your project, you need to complete some additional information (IATI identifier; international aid type; budget status...)

The Project Information window with the various tabs at the bottom

Description of the project

On the Project Description tab of the Project Information window you can create a resume of what the project is about.

On the General information tab you can specify the current status of the project, i.e. in which phase of the project's lifetime (Identification; Implementation; Completion; Post-completion). If you're working with donors (see Funding tab), additional phases for proposal writing and approval are included. You can also specify whether a project is suspended or in the worst case cancelled entirely.

Below you can indicate which type of project this is, according to four main categories: International aid projects; Non-profit projects; for Profit projects or Government projects. You can select more than one type if you want. If you indicate that the project is about Humanitarian assistance, you will see that an additional tab page appears next to 'Context'.

On the bottom of the first tab you can add different economic sectors. Just click in the list and then in the Items toolbar click on the Add button. By default Logframer uses the UNDP DAC (Development Assistance Committee) 5-digit codes.

The Project Description tab

On the Project description tab you can write a descriptive text about what the project is about, for instance a short introduction or if you want a longer narrative description.

Similarly on the Context tab you can describe the context in which the project will take place. By this we mean the social, economic, cultural, political... environment in which the project will take place. Generally, this text provides the reader with an understanding in why the project is necessary and how it will contribute to improve the situation in the country or areas where you will work.

Identification of your target group(s)

Logframer allows you to specify one or more target groups for each main purpose of your project. You can add target groups on two places:

  1. In the Project Information window, click on the Target Groups tab
  2. In the Logical Framework window, make sure that the Details pane is visible. If not, go to the Lay-out toolbar and click on the Show Details button. Then click on a purpose.

The Target Groups tab of the Project Information window

To add a target group, click into the list. This will select the Items toolbar. Then press the Add button. You will get the following dialogue window:

The Target Group dialogue

  • Target group name: description of the target group
  • Purpose: select the purpose to which the target group belongs. You can move a target group from one purpose to the other using this list.
  • Type: are you working with individuals, families, extended families, communities, associations, enterprises, local authorities, (national/regional) authorities or other types of beneficiaries?
  • Statistics: this section allows you to identify the size of the target population
    • Number: the number of families, communities, associations… you expect to be working with. If you work with individuals, this number will be the same as the total number of people.
    • Number of people: on the right you can specify three numbers:
      • Number of women
      • Number of men
      • Total number of people

Below, you can specify which fields should be included in the Target Group Identification form. Depending on the type of beneficiary you choose, Logframer will include default fields such as the name of the person or organisation, the address, etc. You can remove items that you don't need and add your own (see Tools: Target Group Identification Form).

Indicate the location of your target group on the map

On the Map tab page, you can indicate the location of the target group on a map. You can use the different drawing tools to pinpoint individual locations, or to draw a rectangle, circle or polygon (shown here) around the area where the target group is located.

On the Location tab page, you can provide other geographic information about the location of the target group, including information that you may want to include in the IATI activity report. You can for instance add a description of the area or explain what activities you will do in this area with this target group.

Additional information about the location of the target group (requested by IATI)

 

Tools: Target Group Identification Form

The Target Group Identification Form is a report that you can either print or export to MS Word. You can make a specific form for each target group.

Print preview of the Target Group Identification Form

Intervention zones

You can add one or more intervention zones to your project. You can add three types of intervention zones:

  • Countries
  • Regions, meaning groups of countries
  • Areas: these are locations or zones on sub-national level

List different intervention zones and indicate them on a map

To add an intervention zone, click into the list. This will select the Items toolbar. Then press the Add button. You will get the following pop-up window:

The Intervention Zone dialogue

On the Location tab you can give a name to the intervention zone and select whether it is a country, a region or an area. If it is a country or region, you can select it from the drop-drown selector. On the bottom you find the map. If you select a country Logframer will automatically indicate its capital. But you can also pinpoint a location or draw a rectangle, circle or polygon around the area of your choice. If you have multiple intervention zones you will get an overview of the location of the different zones in the map of the project information window.

On the Area information tab you can include more geographical information about the intervention zone or write a short description of the IZ or about the activities that will take place (see also the location of the target groups).

On the last tab you can give an approximate indication of the proportion of the budget that will go to the intervention zone.

Who’s involved? Project partners, suppliers, donors and contacts

You can add people and organisations that are involved in your project to the list of partners and contacts. This way everyone that is involved can easily find each other's contact details.

The Partners tab of the Project Information window

If you don't select a particular organisation, you will see the list of all your contacts below. If you do select an organisation in the top list, you will see it's details below:

In the bottom pane you can see the details of the organisation you selected in the list above

To learn how you can add a new partner to your project, continue reading here.

In the bottom section, you can add:

  • A short description of the organisation
  • Contact information about people working for the organisation
  • General contact information about the organisation's office, its website, etc.
  • Indicate the location of the organisation's office on Bing Maps™
  • Include financial information / donor information such as available budget lines, open calls for proposals, etc.
  • IATI related information

Using the Collaboration toolbar you can quickly enter in contact with people and organisations that work on the project.

Add a new Project Partner

To add a new partner, click into the top list. This will select the Items toolbar. Then press the Add button. You will get the following pop-up window:

The New Project Partner dialogue

Here you can register:

  • The name of the organisation (mandatory)
  • The organisation's acronym
  • Select the type of organisation (not-for-profit, company, medical institute…)
  • The role of the organisation in the project: is it the lead organisation, a (implementing) partner, a donor, a supplier, an auditor…
  • If the organisation has a IATI identifier (International Aid Transparency Initiative) then you can register it as well
  • Whether the organisation provides funding or not. If you indicate that it does, you will be able to include additional information such as budget lines, calls for proposals, etc.

Click OK to add the organisation to your partner list. When you return to the main window you can add the organisation's address(es), telephone numbers, (general) e-mail address, website, contacts, etc.

 

Description and role of the organisation

When you click on the name of an organisation in the top list, you will see its detailed information in the bottom.

On the Description tab you can modify the organisation's name and acronym, it's role in the project and provide a short description of the organisation.

Identification and description of the partner organisation

Add a new contact

When you click on the name of an organisation in the top list, you will see its detailed information in the bottom.

On the Contacts tab you add people or see their details. To add a contact click in the list and then press on the Add button in the Items toolbar. This will open the following pop-up window:

The contact dialog allows you to complete detailed information about a person

Here you can add personal contact information, such as:

  • Mail addresses
  • Skype account
  • Telephone numbers
  • E-mail addresses
  • Web pages

The toolbar above this information allows you to create a new e-mail message or start up a Skype conversation (see also the Collaboration toolbar).

For IATI activity reports, the contact information of the people in your list will not be included by default. If you do want a person to be included as a contact person in an IATI report, go to the IATI tab and check the 'Include this contact in the IATI report' box.

General contact information

When you click on the name of an organisation in the top list, you will see its detailed information in the bottom.

On the Contact information tab you can add:

  • Mail addresses
  • Telephone numbers
  • E-mail addresses
  • Web pages

Include general contact information about your partner organisation's office

 

Location of the office(s)

When you click on the name of an organisation in the top list, you will see its detailed information in the bottom.

On the Location tab you can indicate the precise location of the organisation's offices on a map. You can only pinpoint the location, you cannot indicate an area on this map like you would for a target group.

Put a pushpin at the location of the organisation's office

 

Donor information and financial info

When you click on the name of an organisation in the top list, you will see its detailed information in the bottom.

On the Financial information tab you can register bank details if you want. You can also indicate whether this organisation provides funding (if you haven't done so already when adding the organisation to your project).

If the organisation provides funding, you can add budget lines and calls for proposals (CfP-s). You can use this information later in the Funding tab.

Add budget lines

To add a new budget line, click into the list. This will select the Items toolbar. Then press the Add button. You will get the following pop-up window:

The Budget Line dialogue

To add a call for proposals, choose the second tab and click into the list.

Add calls for proposals

Then press the Add button. You will get the following pop-up window:

The Call for Proposals dialogue

 

IATI information

When you click on the name of an organisation in the top list, you will see its detailed information in the bottom.

On the IATI tab you can register the organisation's unique IATI identifier code if you know it. For each partner you can choose whether you want to include this organisation in the IATI report.

If you produce an IATI activity file about a project, you can do so as the primary reporter. This means that the file will be published with your own organisation's reference as the author of the document. But you can also report on a project if you are not the lead organisation but a secondary reporter. In this case you should check the 'Secondary reporter' box.

Register the IATI identifier of the partner organisation

 

Funding sources and transactions

On the Funding tab of the Project Information window you can include information about your funding sources; list important contractual obligations in terms of reporting, auditing, etc. and create an overview of different financial transactions.

The Funding tab of the Project Information window

Before you can add funding sources, you need to have funders, i.e. organisations that provide funding. If you haven't included donors or other financial providers in your list of partners yet, you have to do this first.

To add a funding source, click into the list. This will select the Items toolbar. Then press the Add button. You will get the following pop-up window:

The Funding Source dialogue

  • In the first drop-down list you have to select the funding organisation. Next you can select a budget line and indicate the call for proposals if you want (you need to add the available options to the funding organisation's information first).
  • In the section below you can add information about the contract with the funder, such as the title of the contract or the contract number.
  • Next you can indicate the value of the contract (and how much you've requested initially).
  • The final section contains important dates such as the date of approval and the actual duration of the contract.

Once you've added a funding source, you can add contractual deadlines that you have to respect, such as the dates of intermediary and final reporting; audits and evaluations; etc.

 

Contractual obligations (deadlines)

For each funding source in the top list, you can add contractual deadlines. These include things like intermediary and final reports, financial reports, evaluations and audits.

Contractual obligations (bottom list) of the funding source selected in the top list

To add a contract date, click into the bottom list. This will select the Items toolbar. Then press the Add button. You will get the following pop-up window:

The Contract Date dialogue

Here you can set the deadline, select the type of contractual obligation and give a short description.

 

Transactions

Transactions are transfers of funds from one partner organisation to another. There are two main types of transactions: planned transactions and actual transactions.

List of planned and realised transactions

To add a transaction, click into the list on the Transactions tab. This will select the Items toolbar. Then press the Add button. You will get the following pop-up window:

Adding a planned transaction in the Transaction dialogue

To make this a planned transaction, choose 'Planned' from the Transaction type list. You will then be able to determine in which period the transaction will take place. Below, you can indicate the (approximate) amount of the planned transaction and the partner organisations that will make and receive the transaction.

Adding an expenditure

For actual transactions, you can also click in the list and then press the Add button to open the same window. You can either have a completely new transaction, or change the Transaction type from 'Planned' to any of the following options:

  • Incoming funds (for instance when you received a payment from a donor)
  • Disbursement (for instance when you transfer money from the main project account to the account of a partner organisation or a local office)
  • Expenditure (when you actually buy something or pay for services)
  • Interest repayment
  • Loan repayment
  • Reimbursement
  • Purchase of equity
  • Sale of equity
  • Credit guarantee
  • Incoming commitment

In most cases you will use the first three. The idea here is not to list every single small purchase, but to focus on the transfer of important sums. In other words, this is not meant to do (or replace) your accountancy but to enhance transparency. Transactions are therefore very important in the framework of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).

IATI and transactions

Transactions are central to the idea of international aid transparency. If you want to create an IATI activity file of your project, it is important that you pay sufficient attention to transactions. Overall, the idea behind IATI is that you can trace the money that donor countries give to recipient countries through transactions. Transactions allow people to see how money flows from one organisation (agency) to the other until it finally arrives in the recipient countries and is spent in the form of investments, delivery of goods and services, provision of credits, etc.

If you want to support the IATI initiative you have to make sure that the transactions that you include in your project file make it clear how the money you received from various sources makes it way to the target groups/beneficiaries it is intended for. IATI asks you to provide certain information for each individual transaction. You must provide this information on the IATI tab of the pop-up dialogue:

The IATI tab of the Transaction dialogue

This image shows the default settings of Logframer for individual transactions. They are optimised for aid delivery by Non Governmental Organisations:

  • Official Development Assistance
  • via aid grants (donor grants)
  • implemented through projects or programmes that have a specific purpose (specific objective/outcome)
  • expenses are made through partially tied procurement, which generally means that for expenses above a certain amount you need to follow a procurement procedure inviting suppliers to make offers and then make a selection based on open criteria (organise a market).

On top you can enter the code of the Sector for which this transaction is destined, although a typical NGO project will focus on one specific sector, which you can also indicate in the Project Description. You can indicate whether this transaction concerns humanitarian assistance - again something that you can also indicate in the Project Description. The Channel field is more suited for assistance from one government to the other (not set by default).

Setting monitoring deadlines

Before you start detailing your indicators, it's best to set the monitoring deadlines first. When you design your logframe, you can add indicators and verification sources. But before you start to specify the details of the indicators (question type, value range, baseline and targets…) it's best to set these deadlines first.

The Monitoring Deadlines tab of the Project Information window

For each level of the logframe (goals, purposes, outputs and activities) you can specify when and how often the indicators will be measured. For indicators that use values or scores, this means that you can set targets.

You can set:

  • A single target: if you want to achieve a single target by the end of the project
  • A yearly target: you can specify a target for each year of the project. If the project runs 3 years from 2017 until 2019, you will be able to specify 3 targets
  • A twice yearly target: specify a target for each 6-month period
  • A quarterly target: specify a target for each 3-month period
  • A monthly target: specify a target for each month
  • User defined targets: if the previous options are not convenient, you can specify the exact dates on which you want to measure the indicators

Depending on the type of project you design and the level in the logframe, you will want the frequency to be higher or lower. Emergency aid projects may need monthly follow-up; development projects typically use yearly or twice yearly targets. You may want to monitor your outputs yearly (or more regularly) but the indicators of the project's purpose and impact only at the end of the project.

These settings do not affect the baseline: for each indicator you can set the baseline.

After setting the frequency of the monitoring, you can choose when it will start and end. You can choose a date relative to the start or end date of the project, or you can specify a fixed date. Based on your preferences, Logframer will generate a list of the monitoring dates in the overview on the right.
 

IATI specific project settings

The IATI specific information tab is only visible when you set the view mode to IATI activity or IATI organisation view mode. Use this if you want to create an IATI activity file from your project.

  • On this tab you can register the unique IATI identifier code for your project, which must be included in each IATI file. Beneath you can list relations with other projects.
  • On the second tab you can provide more information about the type of international aid this project is about.
  • Finally you can include document links to related documents available on your website.

The IATI specific tab of the Project Information window

 

IATI identification

If you want to publish the information of your project as an IATI activity file, you have to get a valid IATI identifier. Once you have this code, you must enter it in the Project identifier field:

Register the IATI identifier of your project

The hierarchy level is used for complex programmes to indicate at what level this current project is situated. For instance, you may have a regional programme for West-Africa (hierarchy level 1) with sub-programmes for Senegal and Guinea (hierarchy level 2). How you structure your programme (hierarchy) is up to you.

Next you can list the programmes to which this particular project is linked. To do so, click in the top list and press the Add button in the Items toolbar.

The Related Project dialogue

In this dialogue window, you can provide the title of the related programme, its specific IATI indicator code and the type of relationship it has (parent project, child project, sibling project, co-funded project or third party project).

In the bottom list, IATI asks you to indicate to which DAC (Development Assistance Committee of the OECD) policies your project makes a contribution. Click in the bottom list and press the Add button in the Items toolbar to create a new item.

The Policy dialogue

The DAC policies your project can contribute to are:

  • Gender equality
  • Aid to environment
  • Participatory Development/Good Governance
  • Trade Development
  • Aid Targeting the Objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity
  • Aid Targeting the Objectives of the Framework Convention on Climate Change - Mitigation
  • Aid Targeting the Objectives of the Framework Convention on Climate Change - Adaptation
  • Aid Targeting the Objectives of the Convention to Combat Desertification
  • Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (RMNCH)

For each topic you select, you can indicate how significant it is for your project:

  • Not targeted
  • Significant objective
  • Principal objective
  • Principal objective AND in support of an action programme(desertification-related aid only)
  • Explicit primary objective

International aid streams

On the International aid streams tab, you need to indicate under what type of aid your project falls (see also Transactions where you can specify this for every financial transaction you make). The default settings of Logframer (shown before) are optimised for aid delivery by Non Governmental Organisations:

  • Bilateral funding
  • Official Development Assistance
  • via aid grants (donor grants)
  • implemented through projects or programmes that have a specific purpose (specific objective/outcome)

Information on the type of aid stream the project belongs to

Below you can indicate the status of your financial figures: is this the original budget? Is the budget already committed or just indicative? Are procurements dependent on a tied procedure, a partially tied procedure or untied?

Finally you can list any conditions that may apply to the project as a whole. These conditions may be imposed from a certain policy or can be financial or performance related.

Document links

Once your IATI activity or organisation file is ready, you have to publish it on your website and register it in the IATI registry. But there may be other documents that are relevant to your project. You can also publish these on your website and indicate their specific location in the Document links table.

Overview of the document links

To add a document link, click into the list. This will select the Items toolbar. Then press the Add button. You will get the following pop-up window:

The Document Link dialogue

Here you can provide the title of the document and its location on your website (or another publicly accessible site). It's also important to indicate the language of the document. This also means you can include multiple versions of the same document in different languages for instance.