Predicting monitoring costs is difficult because they can vary from activity to activity, with some requiring no additional financial resources and some requiring significant additional resources.  Potential costs include licenses for data collection software or additional labor hours for data collection on the part of implementing partners.  The good news is that the Department already has a number of free tools that you can use for monitoring and data collection: 

• Data collection:  Google (FAN) Forms and Microsoft Forms are both approved to store information up to SBU and are approved for collecting PII.
• Data storage:  shared cloud storage such as Sharepoint, OneDrive, Network Drives, and Google (FAN) Drive can store information at the SBU level and can store PII.  
• Data analysis and visualization:  Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and PowerBI,can store information (including PII) at the SBU level.  

In some circumstances, you may need access to additional tools or resources that would require a post’s or a PD section’s budget resources, such as:

• Data collection
  • Survey administration platform licenses:  SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics, etc.
  • Contracting out a local market research firm to translate and administer surveys to audiences or participants.
  • Contracting out a local market research firm to conduct interviews or focus group discussions.
• Data analysis or data visualization
  • Stata or SPSS licenses for quantitative data analysis.
  • NVivo, Atlas.ti, Quirkos, or Dedoose licenses for qualitative data analysis.
  • Tableau license for data visualization.

Before expending resources for monitoring, consult a R/PPR M&E expert to see if there are alternative tools available.