In recent weeks, we launched a large update to our African pastor resource hub and training library app, eVitabu. Our volunteer app developer, Jonathan Haddock, explains some of the biggest changes.
It feels like ages ago now, but back in March I spent a week with Geoff (APF Projects Coordinator) at his home in rural Herefordshire focusing on making some improvements to eVitabu. Thank you Geoff and the Holder family for their hospitality and making me feel welcome!
My priority for the week was to (finally!) finish building the registration process into the app. Previously it was necessary for our partners to fill in a form on a webpage before they could use eVitabu, which was “clunky” but was the quickest we could do prior to the 2018 launch. Unfortunately this step didn’t always work on African devices, which can be configured in some very unusual (to us) ways.
Building in the registration process would make using eVitabu for the first time a much smoother process, and is something APF partners have been asking for for some time. Some readers of Impetus may recall I started building this back in 2020!
After much tweaking, and fixing a problem where sometimes the eVitabu user’s profile photo was rotated 90° during registration, work on this feature was complete. I needed to put it through some security testing prior to launch, but I’m pleased to say that integrated registration was available ahead of Dave’s trip to Rwanda and Uganda in May. Feedback was very positive.
I also took time to perform some maintenance on both the app and the website which we use to manage eVitabu. While not the most glamorous chore, this is an important part of the process to make sure eVitabu continues to work well.
My next task is to improve eVitabu’s reporting – hopefully that won’t take me almost three years!