Unified Data Collection

[Sheps]

So, I finished my wife's sponsorship application and sent it in. Now, on to my next project. One thing I see is a lot of spreadsheet's here and there with various visa information. I am a programmer by education and hobby (I am a Network Administrator for a University in my day job), I was thinking this could be solved with a nice database for tracking everything.

That way, custom reports could be run, comparisons could be done, etc. It would also allow for more information collection then a simple spreadsheet and the system could "nag" if there hasn't been a update (I see so many spreadsheets that are not updated) and drop data should the system deem the user "abandoned" the updating, so it clears out any bad data to allow a more accurate picture to be presented.

If this is something people would be interested, I would be more then open to programming it and hosting it for free. I would also be willing to open the source(except for my proprietary MVC framework) so that people could see how the data is stored/collected.

So, what does everyone think?

 

[BeShoo]

It's good in principle, but the majority of participants on this forum lose interest to a great degree once they have landed. Who will maintain the data and do you intend to support this system in the long term? For most of the spreadsheets, a few volunteers keep them updated, but if those volunteers become less active, that system breaks down. If you open the updating to everyone, the data can get corrupted (maybe accidentally), by someone who doesn't understand how it works, but it can be quite a bit of work if one or a few people are involved.

 

[Sheps]

I understand the breakdown, which is why I said one of the big advantages was the ability to nag. The one thing I noticed, was quite a few spreadsheets(for Ottawa) listed their AOR date, and nothing else, presumably because they landed and didn't care.

I was planning on having it "self-updating". Someone would have to contact an administrator and get the data updated if they wanted to add something. This is something I am interested in myself, I am interested in it from a knowledge standpoint. Basically, I am interested in the "did this person have their DM take longer because they were x age, or from y country, or z citizenship. Other demographics such as type of relationship (marriage, common law, conjugal, etc), length of relationship, etc.

I know that is a lot of information to request, but, it would be optionally anonymous and you would receive a "key" to update your information should you opt for that anonymity (optionally, you could use a username/password -- Some of these people may be trusted to add data to the database). To prevent accidental edits it would be fronted by a nice web interface for everyone to enter their data. For one aspect, if people select something with a "other" field, it will dump it into a temporary location and if there is more then a couple that show with that same info, it would merge it into the existing database.

I have already modeled a database for it, the web frontend will be the big part of this. I don't mind supporting it long-term, however I hope it will be fairly self-sufficient.

 

[RajaJi]

It is a good idea. Lot of applicants use http://www.trackitt.com

 

[rhcohen2014]

great idea! let us know when it's up and running. i suspect it will be a good way to squash misinformation and assumptions about the processing.

my one recommendation would be to break down the info by year and visa office, and if possible identify any "trends" found.

 

[Sheps]

I was planning on having the following demographics available (all optional):

Race
Citizenship
Residence
Age
Sex
Status (Married, Common-Law, etc)

The following relationship details:
- First Meeting
- Engagement
- Marriage
- Cohabitation
- Average Time between visits
- Average Duration of visits

And then the following application options:

Inland/Outland
Visa Office

Evidence Provided (Whether this was provided or not, not the actual content):
- "Date" Photos
- Wedding Photos
- Letters
- Texts
- Call Records
- Joint Bank Accounts
- Joint Credit Accounts
- Tenancy Agreements
- Utility Agreements
- Affidavits (Family)
- Affidavits (Friends)
- Skype
- Line
- Whatsapp
- Etc



It will automatically purge non-updated data from the "active" database so it doesn't factor into calculations if the data appears abandoned (but if someone updates it, it will go back).

I think having this information could be useful for both a applicant to get an idea of their "case" as well as to perhaps identify any trends.

 

[rhcohen2014]

will it also be tracking application progress? so that people can determine the "trends" for processing in a specific visa office (ie: total time, how long between document request and ppr, ppr to dm, etc)? I think also showing the cyclical nature of visa office applications will be helpful. even though some visa offices work fast for a certain period of time, it certainly doesn't mean it will all year. you know what i mean?

 

[Sheps]

This is fairly old, but it is my topic, so I just wanted to state.

I have a prototype working with some imported data from January.

Over the next few weeks, I should have the UI for people to edit their own stuff (almost done) and hopefully it will be useful.

http://immigration.dansheps.com/

 

[Omegabyte]

This is fairly old, but it is my topic, so I just wanted to state.

I have a prototype working with some imported data from January.

Over the next few weeks, I should have the UI for people to edit their own stuff (almost done) and hopefully it will be useful.

http://immigration.dansheps.com/

I'm interested in seeing this become active. I agree with you about the various spreadsheets idea, in that it's not that workable in present form.

Please let me know when I can enter my info?

 

[Sheps]

You can enter your info now, just contact me VIA PM.

 

[Sheps]

Enabled SSL on here, so if you want, you can now use SSL.

Will be adding the ability to "Register" shortly.

 

[Sheps]

Registration enabled!

 

[Sheps]

Please send bug reports, feature requests, metric requests to: immigration.bugs [at] dansheps.com