International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) Publishing

Overview

In this user guide, Amp Impact users will learn how to do: 

1. A preliminary Org setup for IATI

2. Entering IATI data

3. Validate IATI data 

4. Access the public link to download IATI XML file(s)

5. Validate the public link to IATI XML file(s)

6. Upload the IATI XML file(s) to their website and/or IATI

Track IATI Reporting Data

The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) is an initiative that works towards providing transparency regarding aid, development, and humanitarian resources. Organizations use the IATI Standard to collect and report on data for their internal reporting and for external stakeholders. 

Objects and Fields used for IATI reporting are built into Amp Impact. The following custom objects function solely to create data that is compatible with IATI:

1. ampi__IATI_Policy__c

2. ampi__Project_IATI_Policy__c

3. ampi__IATI_Sector__c

4. ampi__Project_IATI_Sector__c

5. ampi__Transaction_Project_IATI_Sector__c

The following objects have fields that may be added by the user to the object’s fieldset or page layout to account for IATI compatibility:

1. Account

2. ampi__Project__c

3. ampi__Project_Indicator__c

4. ampi__Geographical_Area__c

5. ampi__Project_Geographic_Area__c

6. ampi__Disbursement__c

7. ampi__Financial__c

8. ampi__Budget__c

9. ampi__Organization_Role__c

10. ampi__Project_Role__c

11. ampi__Project_Geographic_Area__c

12. ampi__Allocation__c

13. ampi__Objective__c

There are two types of IATI Standard XMLs:

• The Organisation XML Standard: The Organisation Standard talks about an Account/Organisation’s basic details and finances. It is also used to report links to relevant public documents. Organisations publish this data in an Organisation XML file. It is expected that every organisation publishing IATI data should include one Organisation file, which is updated at least annually.

• The Activity Standard:The Activity Standard is more detailed with information from a Project/Activity, its transactions, indicators, targets and actuals, etc. Organisations publish this data in an Activity XML file. It is expected that every organisation publishing IATI data should include one at least Activity file. An Activity file can detail one or many activities, and an organisation can publish one or many files.

Amp Impact supports the download of an XML for both Organisations and Activities.

IATI Terminology

For more information, reference this IATI page.

IATI Organisation Standard

Every IATI publisher needs to set up an Organisation Standard XML file to hold core information about their organisation. In Amp impact, the organisation refers to the Account object. 

1. Set Up an Amp Environment for IATI Reporting

Prior to entering IATI data, the user needs to take certain preliminary steps to set up a Project record for preparing to create an IATI Organisation XML.  

Refer to the steps mentioned in the General User Guide of Amp Impact for setting up the following: 

1. Create a Project record

2. Create Reporting Periods (RPs)

2. Enter IATI Data

In order to set up data for an Organisation XML to be downloaded, Budgets and Financial Line Items must be added. 

I) Adding Budgets

Refer to Amp Impact General User Guide to know more about how to create Budget records. 

Amp fields on the Budget object, mapped with corresponding IATI Elements and Attributes, that will print on IATI Organisation XML can be found on this mapping sheet.

II) Adding Financials Line Items

Refer to Amp Impact General User Guide to know more about how to create Financial Line Item records using Budget Excel upload and download. 

Amp fields on the Financial object, mapped with corresponding IATI Elements and A ttributes, that will print on IATI Organisation XML can be found on this mapping sheet.

III) Adding Attachments 

Salesforce enables users to generate a URL for a public link to any attachment/supporting documents, which can be published in the IATI Organisation XML. For instance, users can leverage this feature to generate a URL for creating a public link to an excel sheet that contains a budget with related assumptions (and/or photos of the program) to increase transparency around the usage of funds by their organisation.

To generate a URL for the public link, follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to the Account object. Open an Account record.

2. In the Related list, scroll down to Notes and Attachments section

3. Click on the Upload Files button (see screenshot below). Select the desired file to be attached.

4. Click on the link to the attached document to open the file preview of the attachment.

5.Click on the Public Link button (see screenshot below).

6. In the Public Link Sharing popup, click on the Create Link button (see screenshot below)

a. The Create Unrestricted Public Link popup warns the user that anyone with the link can view and download the document on the internet. Click on Create (see screenshot below).

b. The Public Link Sharing popup displays again (see screenshot below). It contains the URL to the public link. 

i. If a user wants to copy the link to the clipboard, click on the Copy Link button (see screenshot above).

ii. If a user no longer wants to share this attachment, click on Delete icon (see screenshot above). This will delete the public link permanently. Anyone with this URL will not be able to access the file. A new URL will have to be generated to create a new public link. 

To publish the URL into an IATI Organisation XML, follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to the Accounts object. Open an Account record.

2. In the Related list, scroll down to Notes and Attachments section.

3. Click on Upload Files button. Select the desired file to be attached.

4. In order to see a preview of the attachment, click on the link to the attached document. 

5. In the preview, click on Show More dropdown arrow, adjacent to the Public Link button (see screenshot below).

a. Select Edit File Details (see screenshot above).

b. In the Edit popup, fill all the fields (see screenshot below).

i. Title is the only required field

ii. Select the Include in IATI? checkbox. This field indicates that the URL for public link must be added to IATI Organisation XML.

iii. IATI Publication Date is a date field. This will populate the @iso-date attribute in the document-date element of document-link parent element. The user can enter a desired date for when the attachment is expected to be published on IATI. 

iv. IATI Document Category field is picklist field. This will populate the @code attribute in the category element of document-link parent element. The user can select the type of document that is being attached with the IATI Organisation XML. 

6. IATI Elements/Attributes which map to these attachments can be found in this mapping sheet.

3. Download the Organisation XML

To generate and validate the Organisation XML, the user has to do the following steps.

1. Navigate to an Account record. Click on the Generate IATI XML button.

2. Select the IATI Organisation Standard in the popup and click next.

3. The user will get a confirmation for the XML being generated and validated.

4. An email notification will be sent to the user when the XML is generated.

a. This email may contain a summary breakdown of the types of validation errors that the file may face, according to the IATI Public Validator.

5. Navigate to the Account record page.

6. The IATI Organisation XML Link field will contain the URL of the public link of the XML that is generated.

7. Click on the URL. This would open a new tab with a preview of the XML.

8. Click on Download.  After the XML has been downloaded, choose a compatible platform to open the file.

4. Validate the IATI Organisation Standard XML

Automatic Validation

1. Apart from the summary of XML validation in the email, the users can also find the log of validation errors in the Account record in the field “IATI Organisation XML Error Log”. This log stores the validation errors that occur if the XML was passed through the IATI Validator.

   

2. The user can download the error log and open it to see the errors in the validation of the XML and the row in which the error occurs. The user can then use the XML to resolve any validation errors before publishing to IATI. 

3. If there are no errors in the XML, the field “IATI Organisation XML Error Log” would be empty. The XML can be downloaded and published to the IATI Registry.

Manual Validation

The XML generated can also be manually validated on the IATI website following the steps bellow:

1. Open IATI Public Validator tool.

2. Click on Browse button (see screenshot below).

3. Select the downloaded copy of IATI Organisation XML. 

4. Click on the Upload button on the website (see the screenshot below step 2).

5. Click on the View Progress and Reports button. 

If the XML file uploads successfully then the URL for public link is ready to be published on IATI website.

5. Upload the Organisation XML file

Upload the IATI Organisation XML file on this page IATI data publishing. Note that the link to the XML must be a publicly accessible link ending in “.xml”.

IATI Activity

IATI defines an 'activity' as any piece of work an organisation does. Any humanitarian work undertaken by a development cooperation can count as an activity. An IATI Activity is equivalent to a Project record in Amp Impact.

1. Set Up a Project for IATI Reporting 

Prior to setting up IATI data, the user needs to take certain preliminary steps to set up a Project record for preparing to create an IATI Activity XML. 

Refer to the steps mentioned in the General User Guide of Amp Impact for setting up the following:

1. Create a Project record

2. Create Reporting Periods (RPs)

3. Create Geographic Areas (GAs)

   1. Create Project Geographic Areas (PGAs)

4. Create Project Indicators (PIs) related to RPs and GAs

   1. Add Project Indicators from Indicators Catalog tab

   2. Create custom Project Indicators from Selected Indicators tab

5. Entering Result Values for a Project Indicator

2. Enter IATI Data

The first step of creating an XML for IATI Activity is to ensure that data is created. In order to set up data for an Activity XML to be downloaded, data in the table below can be entered. For full details of all the IATI data that can be published via Amp Impact, please see the IATI Data Entry Mapping Sheet.

3. Download the Activity XML 

Once the user has reviewed IATI data for publishing, follow the steps below to generate the IATI Activity XML:

1. Navigate to an Account record. Click on Generate IATI XML button

2. Select the IATI Activity Standard in the popup

3. If the user wants to include only projects that have been marked Ready for IATI Reporting make sure the checkbox named “Filter Projects Marked as ‘Ready for IATI Reporting’” is checked. To select all projects (i.e. without filtering any other checkboxes out) uncheck the checkbox.

4. The user can select the specific projects from the list of projects to generate Activities XML for.

5. Or if the user wants to select all projects marked listed and generate the XML they should turn the toggle on and click on next.

6. After clicking on next users will see a confirmation message on the screen.

7. An email notification will be sent to the user when the XML is generated.

8. Navigate to the Account record page.

9. The IATI Activity XML Link field will contain the URL of the public link of the XML that is generated.

10. Click on the URL. This would open a new tab with a preview of the XML.

11. Click on Download.

4. Validate the IATI Activity Standard XML

Automatic Validation

1. Apart from the summary of XML validation in the email, the user can also find the log of validation errors in the Account record in the field “IATI Activity XML Error Log”. This log stores the validation errors that occur if the XML was passed through the IATI Validator.

2. The user can download the error log and open it to see the errors in the validation of the XML and the row in which the error occurs. The user can then use the XML to resolve any validation errors before publishing to IATI. 

3. If there are no errors in the XML, the field “IATI Activity XML Error Log” would be empty. The XML can be downloaded and published to the IATI Registry.

Manual Validation

The XML generated can also be manually validated on the IATI website following the steps bellow:

1. Open the IATI Public Validator tool.

2. Click on Browse button (see screenshot below).

1. Select the downloaded copy of IATI Activities XML. 

2. Click on the Upload button on the website (see the screenshot below step 2).

3. Click on the View Progress and Reports button to check the errors in the IATI Activity XML. 

5. Upload the Activity XML file

Upload the IATI Activity XML file on this page IATI data publishing. Note that the link to the XML must be a publicly accessible link ending in “.xml”.

Appendix

Validate Data in a Report

Users can validate the data before generating the XML by reviewing the following Salesforce Report: IATI Activity Required Fields (see steps below). This will allow the user to check whether the information in the XML is correct or not, and whether there are any formatting or data issues which would cause the XML to be rejected upon upload to the IATI Registry. 

If an issue is found during the XML review, then the user would need to go back and update the necessary information in Salesforce. Subsequently, the XML would need to be generated again.

The report has 66 fields (see below) because only these IATI fields are required to consider the Activity Standard XML as complete. However, an organisation may choose to have more required fields to consider the Activity Standard XML as complete. The user can modify the report accordingly. The report will indicate where the information is missing. Reports are filtered to only the current Project. 

In order to review IATI Activity Required Fields report record, follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to Reports object

2. Click on the Report Name record called  IATI Activity Required Fields