Government of India — MOSPI: national survey coordination on a custom Frappe Framework application
India
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation coordinates national surveys across every state and district. ATS built the Frappe Framework application that runs that coordination — survey programmes, field officer assignment, multi-level data validation, geographic progress dashboards and automated ministry reports — on secure, government-compliant hosting.
The challenge
National surveys coordinated by phone calls and spreadsheets
MOSPI runs the statistical surveys that national policy planning depends on. Coordinating them means assigning field officers and workloads, collecting data from states and districts, validating it, tracking progress and producing standardised compliance reports — at national scale. The existing manual processes were causing data delays and reconciliation errors as volumes grew, and progress was tracked through weekly status calls rather than from the data itself.
The ministry needed a secure, scalable platform for the whole cycle: survey programme management, field data collection workflows, progress tracking by geography, and report generation for policy planning. It had to enforce the ministry's hierarchy in who could see and approve what, and it had to run on infrastructure that met Government of India data residency and security requirements. ATS built it as a custom Frappe Framework application.
Our approach
Validation as a workflow, progress as a dashboard
Delivered by our Backend Engineering practice.
ATS modelled the survey operation directly: programmes, geographies, field officers, assignments, submissions and reports became custom DocTypes with workflows attached. Survey programme management defines what is being collected and where; field officer coordination assigns workload by geography and tracks it. Every submission enters a data validation workflow with multi-level approvals aligned to the ministry hierarchy, so errors are caught and corrected before data is consolidated rather than reconciled afterwards.
Progress is visible in real time on dashboards by state and district, replacing the weekly status calls. Reports the ministry needs every month are generated automatically from validated data in the standard formats. Role-based access control mirrors the ministry's structure, and the platform was deployed on secure, government-compliant infrastructure.
- Survey programme management
- Field officer coordination and workload assignment by geography
- Data validation workflows with multi-level approvals
- Real-time survey progress dashboards by state and district
- Automated report generation for ministry reporting requirements
- Role-based security aligned to the ministry hierarchy
Architecture
Custom DocTypes on Frappe, secure government hosting
The application is built on the Frappe Framework in Python on MariaDB. The survey domain is expressed as custom DocTypes, which gives the platform Frappe's permission model, workflow engine, reporting and REST APIs for free — the multi-level approval workflow and the geographic dashboards are configured against those DocTypes rather than coded from scratch. REST APIs support data exchange with the ministry's other systems.
Hosting and access control were treated as part of the architecture, not an afterthought. The platform runs on secure government-compliant infrastructure with role-based access control aligned to the ministry hierarchy, meeting Government of India data residency and security requirements. Our ERPNext and Frappe implementation work for public bodies follows the same principle: model the institution's hierarchy in the permission system from day one.
Building blocks
- Frappe Framework · Python · MariaDB · custom DocTypes
- Multi-level approval workflows on the Frappe workflow engine
- Geographic progress dashboards built as Frappe reports
- Automated government report generation
- REST APIs for integration
- Secure government hosting with role-based security
Technology stack
What changed
75% fewer data errors, same-day monthly reports
National survey coordination is fully digitised across all participating states and districts. Real-time progress tracking replaced the weekly manual status calls. Multi-level data validation workflows reduced data quality errors by 75%, and automated reporting cut monthly report preparation from 5 days to same-day generation.
The platform complies with Government of India data residency and security requirements. For another state-scale programme built as a custom Frappe application, see RKCL; for how we scope this kind of build, see custom Frappe app development.
Key results
National survey coordination fully digitised across all participating states and districts
Real-time survey progress tracking replaced weekly manual status calls
Multi-level data validation workflows reduced data quality errors by 75%
Automated reporting reduced monthly report preparation from 5 days to same-day generation
Platform complied with Government of India data residency and security requirements
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