From an XLSForm to findings you can explain

Miqyas follows a study from survey design through collection, review, quality scoring, and analysis. The sections below also call out work that is still in progress.

Build the survey

Surveys are XLSForm spreadsheets, an open standard used by ODK, KoboToolbox, and SurveyCTO. Miqyas does not include a drag-and-drop builder. Your form remains a portable, versioned file that works across the ODK ecosystem.

A guided path to launch

The study wizard covers study details, form upload, compliance, review, and launch. It saves each step as you go, so closing it partway does not lose the work.

Stage new versions safely

A new XLSForm upload becomes a draft revision that you can preview, download, or discard. It does not change the live survey. Miqyas catches version conflicts that ODK would reject before the form reaches the field.

Inspect the whole form

Review every section and question with its type, required status, and labels in each authored language. Open the raw XForm XML when you need to check exactly what ODK parsed.

Track every attachment

Miqyas tracks each image, audio prompt, and choice-list file referenced by the form. A survey with a missing required attachment cannot be published, so a missing file is caught before fieldwork.

Screen the form for compliance

Miqyas checks the form fields for patterns that may identify people and uses the results to pre-fill the data-collection checklist. You can review every suggestion before saving it.

Share registries across surveys

Miqyas detects forms that create or look up shared ODK records. Each registry has a searchable table, per-record history with attributed changes, spreadsheet import with a validated preview, and links between records and the submissions that reference them.

Protect respondents

Privacy starts with the survey settings. Each survey declares what it collects before creation, contradictory settings are blocked, and anonymous mode cannot carry identity data.

Anonymity you can verify

In anonymous mode, no name, device ID, or session identifier is stored with a response. Miqyas scrubs the submission, and the stored record has no link to an identity table. The re-identification rate is zero.

A required compliance step

Before a survey can exist, choose anonymous or identified mode and complete a checklist covering contact, health, financial, location, sensitive, and user-content data. You can also state that none of these categories apply.

Contradictory settings are blocked

Selecting a directly identifying data type forces identified mode. The platform will not create an anonymous survey that collects phone numbers.

Special-category data requires consent

Health and sensitive data types trigger a heightened consent screen. A submission without that explicit consent is rejected before anything is written.

A fixed data region

Your organization’s legal country determines its data region, which each survey inherits. The region becomes immutable when the first response arrives. Respondents elsewhere see a cross-border consent step, or a block where the law requires one. Every deployment currently runs in the EU, with more regions planned.

Roles with limited permissions

Members can build, publish, review, and export studies without deleting data or changing its structure. The server enforces each permission and the interface reflects it.

Distribute

Share a survey through links you control. Create one for each site, wave, or partner, with its own language, branding, and limits, without duplicating the survey.

Set both languages per link

Set the interface language for buttons and consent separately from the survey language that opens by default. Both remain fixed regardless of the visitor’s browser settings.

Control the look of each link

Set the organization name, logo, banner, welcome and thank-you messages, and an accent color for the fill page. A link shared under a partner’s name can use that partner’s identity throughout.

Prefill from the form

The wizard reads the form’s prefill references and offers type-aware inputs. A site name or cohort can be added to every submission from a link without showing it to the respondent.

Set quotas and expiry

Cap responses, set an end date, and optionally discourage duplicates. The browser-local, best-effort lock stores no identifying data and takes no fingerprint, so it does not change the anonymity guarantee.

Pause and resume a link

Pause a link and resume it later with its configuration, history, and analytics intact.

Collect on the web

Many respondents arrive once, on a phone, and often in Arabic. They do not need an account, and the fill experience keeps the path short.

Start with one tap

There is no login or app to install. The landing screen shows the title and a fill-time estimate based on question types, skip logic, and real median times while the form loads in the background.

Keep consent clear

Show an identifiability notice when it applies. The respondent chooses their country instead of having it inferred from an IP address, and sees a cross-border consent checkbox only when their country differs from the storage region.

Progress follows the questions that apply

The progress bar compares answered questions with the questions currently in scope and updates as skip logic reveals or hides follow-ups. Repeat instances are numbered, and each section has its own completion ring.

Save answers on the device

Answers, repeats, photos, and conditional questions save to the respondent’s device. A lost connection, closed tab, or failed submit does not erase the work. The draft stays on the device and deletes on submit or after seven days.

Report a problem mid-survey

An always-visible control lets a respondent report a broken question or unexpected data request. The report is separate from the submission, and their progress remains intact.

Collect in the field

The field channel uses trained collectors with ODK Collect on a phone. They work offline and sync when the signal returns. The platform remains the public surface, and ODK Central stays behind it.

Collectors have separate accounts

A field collector has a separate, limited account type and cannot access the researcher app. One person cannot be both a collector and an organization member.

Access follows the assignment

Invite a collector to a specific survey, and their device shows only the surveys assigned to them. Miqyas manages the credentials. Ending the last assignment revokes them, and archiving a study suspends them.

Connect with one QR code

The collector accepts the invitation in the mobile portal and connects ODK Collect with one scan. The code carries the server address, credential, and locked settings, so nobody types a URL or password.

Route devices through a validated proxy

Devices talk only to Miqyas, which validates each credential before contacting ODK Central. Unknown, revoked, and suspended credentials are rejected, and anonymous-mode scrubbing applies here as it does on the web.

Track targets and fees

Set a response target, fee per approved response, and deadline for each assignment. Both sides see approved and under-review counts, fees earned, and overdue status. Only approved work counts toward payment.

Review

Submissions mirror from ODK within seconds and enter a triage workflow designed for field teams, not a raw data table.

Filters for triage

Filter by date range, review state, fill-duration bucket, quality-score band, collector, or suspicious status. The filters live in the URL, so a view can be bookmarked and shared.

Review quickly without losing your place

Open a row in a side panel to see its key facts. Bulk actions change the review state for a selection and confirm the count. Your position and filters remain in place.

A detail view for close reading

Switch between question labels and field keys, choose the survey language, collapse repeat groups, review unanswered questions, and preview photo, audio, and file answers inline.

Comments that point to an answer

Every answer has a copyable reference token. A comment containing one becomes a link that scrolls to and highlights that answer, including an answer inside a repeat instance.

Map locations with measurements

View points, paths, and areas on an interactive map with accuracy, length, and area measurements. Download GeoJSON and overlay multiple answers.

An audit trail that preserves history

Each ODK-side edit is preserved as a superseded version that remains viewable. A correction never erases the original submission.

Exports with one clear rule

CSV and attachment exports include only approved submissions. Each row carries a traceable source ID, and headers stay untranslated so R, Stata, and Excel pipelines continue to work.

Score quality, catch what isn’t human

Every submission receives a 0 to 100 score on arrival, without setup. Web responses are also checked for signs of automation or implausible speed. The signals inform your team, which makes the decision.

Three independent metrics

Check completeness without counting hidden skip-logic fields, compare fill duration with the estimate shown to respondents, and detect straight-lining across related questions.

Tune named configurations

Keep up to three configurations per survey, such as a strict version for a funder’s audit and a lenient version for daily triage. Preview weights against real submissions before saving.

Re-score history in the background

Change the weights and re-score the history in a resumable background job with live progress. It supports 50,000 to 500,000 submissions.

Explain each score

Open "Why did this score low?" for any metric in your interface language. You see the reasoning as well as the number.

Detect automation without surveillance

Miqyas checks hidden trap fields, stale page sessions, self-declared automation, byte-identical duplicates, and implausible speed. It stores no IP address, user agent, device fingerprint, or cookie.

Flag suspicious responses without deleting them

Miqyas accepts, stores, and labels suspicious responses. The signals do not change the score, review state, or exports, so a false positive leads to a second look instead of lost data. Uncovered channels are marked unevaluated, not clean.

Analyze

One self-serve analytics engine powers the charts. It needs no SQL or export-and-pivot step, and it understands ODK repeat groups.

One query model for every chart

Build pie, bar, line, scatter, heatmap, and KPI charts with grouped or stacked variants. Create time series from the submission date or any date question in the form.

Keep repeat instances together

Pair answers from the same repeat instance, such as the age and weight of one child, instead of creating the cross join common in generic tools.

Chart answers and metadata together

Chart review state, respondent country, fill duration, and collector alongside any survey question.

Put locations on a map

Use clustered points, category or gradient colors, repeat-aware pairing, and a density mode for large sets. Open the submission from any point.

Group by administrative region

Point-in-polygon matching against reference boundaries makes region a regular dimension. Render a choropleth or group a chart by governorate, with a separate bucket for submissions outside every area.

Arrange your dashboard

Resize and rearrange charts on a 12-column grid. Use a shared date range and display language, then export each chart as CSV or PNG.

Ask in plain language

Connect Claude, ChatGPT, or another Model Context Protocol assistant to surveys you can already read. The agentic queries page has worked examples and the full data-protection details.

Use it inside your existing assistant

Add Miqyas as a connector in the assistant your team already uses and authorize it with OAuth 2.1. There is no key to paste or separate chat interface to learn.

Miqyas computes the aggregate

The assistant asks for a specific figure and Miqyas computes it. It cannot return an individual submission, free-text answer, or coordinate.

Your access is checked every time

Miqyas recomputes permissions from your current role for every request. Special-category surveys stay out unless an administrator grants a recorded exception.

You approve and withdraw access

Approve each assistant inside Miqyas on a screen that names it and the address it will use. Your profile lists connected assistants and their last use. Withdrawal applies to the next request.

Every request leaves a record

Each request records the assistant, researcher, survey, and questions it touched. Filter values stay out of the log because respondent answers are not audit data.

Arabic from end to end

Arabic is the platform’s base locale. Unprefixed URLs serve Arabic, while English lives at /en/. Arabic was part of the product from the beginning.

Keep both locales in sync

All 1,100+ interface strings exist in both languages, and the build checks the pair. A string cannot ship in one locale without the other.

The form engine speaks Arabic

The embedded ODK rendering engine does not provide Arabic upstream, so Miqyas supplies Arabic buttons, upload prompts, and validation messages. They remain Arabic even when the questions use another language.

Right-to-left layouts

Logical spacing, direction-aware icons, and bidi-safe mixed content keep Latin dates in the right place inside Arabic text. One typeface covers both scripts, so bilingual screens stay stable.

Use the selected locale everywhere

Dates, relative times, and country names follow the current locale. CSV headers stay untranslated so downstream tools continue to work.

Coming next

These items are in progress, not just ideas.

Chart filters and multiple measures

The engine already supports per-chart filters and up to three measures per query. The editor will expose them next, including queries such as "average weight by city for girls only".

Self-serve team invitations

Organization admins will invite existing accounts by email instead of using back-office provisioning.

Study and survey archive

The permissions and services exist. The remaining work connects them to the interface.

Encrypted-form export

The export service already decrypts with a passphrase. The export menu will add the prompt.

Score-based charts

Add score distributions and average scores by segment to the analytics engine.

Shared dashboards

Move dashboards server-side for cross-device use, organization sharing, and view-only links.

What Miqyas does not offer

Miqyas does not have a drag-and-drop form builder. Surveys are authored as XLSForm spreadsheets. That keeps them portable and versionable, but it also creates a learning curve if XLSForm is new to you.

Miqyas does not offer a respondent panel, audience marketplace, Conjoint or MaxDiff suite, public API, or third-party integrations yet. Data leaves through CSV and attachment exports. If your study needs those capabilities today, Qualtrics or SurveyMonkey may be a better fit.

Every deployment currently runs in the EU. Additional regions, starting with Saudi Arabia, are planned but not dated.

Try it with your study

Miqyas is in open beta and free during the beta. Bring an XLSForm you already use, or start with your research question, and we can show you how it fits.

Talk to us