As of 1 September 2023, Kobo, the nonprofit organization behind KoboToolbox, has assumed full responsibility for the KoboToolbox server previously owned by UN OCHA (the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs). This transfer was previously announced via email, community webinars, and messages within the KoboToolbox platform.
This transfer ensures the continued accessibility and long-term stability of the server. This change also enables KoboToolbox to continue to grow and develop innovative data collection tools for all our users.
The main server for signing into KoboToolbox is now accessible via eu.kobotoolbox.org and is now referred to as the “European Union KoboToolbox Server”. During a transition period from 1 September 2023 to 29 February 2024, all existing URLs will forward to the new URL, so there won’t be any immediate changes to how you access the server or how you collect data, whether with KoboCollect or through web forms.
Other URL changes:
If you use Collect, set the server URL to https://kc-eu.kobotoolbox.org/
If you use online-only web forms, your forms will automatically forward to https://ee-eu.kobotoolbox.org](https://ee-eu.kobotoolbox.org/...
If you use offline webforms, please update the first part of the URL from https://ee.humanitarianresponse.info/x/ to https://ee-eu.kobotoolbox.org](https://ee-eu.kobotoolbox.org/x/...
You can find more details in our dedicated FAQ page about the server transfer.
Hi Tinok, I hope you are well. We write from International Rescue Committed and we have been creating forms with kobotoolbox and we used API with this link: https://kc.humanitarianresponse.info/api/v1/data
But since today we cannot use it… Could you help us with that please?
@Dayana Can you send more details about the exact API path you are using? What is the server response? More detail will help us understand and address the issue
The old API paths still work as intended, so there should not be any interruption.
Because of the URL change all API scripts should be updated between now and March 1, 2024, but the old URLs still work and I just confirmed that this is the case.
Hi @tinok it would be magnificent if the docs on support.kobotoolbox.org could be updated with the recent server hosting/ownership + limits changes as well, when someone can - xref 44198
In this case I don’t think I’m across the detail enough to make the change directly in Github as a member of the community.
I’m using the Humanitarian Response server and so far, we’ve been using “https://kc.humanitarianresponse.info” as the URL to connect to, on ODK Collect.
The FAQ page you linked mentions eu.kobotoolbox.org as the new server address:
After the transfer, the main server URL will be changed to eu.kobotoolbox.org.
I know the above server address works because I had to update a Power BI report and it’s working correctly.
Hi @tinok
I went ahead and updated ODK Collect’s configuration on a test device that had the application already installed and a project already configured.
So it seems that the correct url is https://kc-eu.kobotoolbox.org . If this is the case, why is eu.kobotoolbox.org the address that was advertised in the server change announcement? And how come it’s actually working on my Power BI report?
@IAR You are right, the URL for configuring Collect needs to be https://kc-eu.kobotoolbox.org. The announcement only mentioned the main URL for signing into the web application. https://kc-eu.kobotoolbox.org is listed in the Forms page for each project on how to configure Collect, and as you point out, it’s in the documentation as well.
But the original announcement should have been clearer that there are, in fact, several URLs that were updated. I just updated this.
Your PowerBI queries still work because all of the API endpoints still work with the old URL – just like kc.humanitarianresponse.info also still works. All the old URLs will continue to work until 1 March 2024, so please update them as soon as possible to avoid interruptions at that point.
I had a question come up yesterday around an organisation that’s concerned about KoboToolbox going behind a paywall. They’re a small local humanitarian organisation, and most of the time have limited submissions on a monthly basis going to the servers. But they do hot-meal distributions periodically and are required to collect basic data during those sessions. They said that every once in a while they would be pretty close to the 5,000 per month limit.
Question: for local partners who would be close to that limit, does the server just stop accepting submissions at 5000? Would they be in a position to need to pay for a server? Your advice is helpful here, as I’m just fielding a few questions and not sure how to advise
Hi @janna, great question. Our mission as a nonprofit is to help organizations collect this kind of data, entirely for free or at the lowest cost possible. We very much do NOT want a paywall – that is why we keep giving 5,000 submissions a month for free to all nonprofits without even the need for an application or request process.
We are not a commercial company and have a lot of understanding for these kinds of cases. For now there is no strict enforcement yet and we rely on users upgrading voluntarily if they need to. We will be handling users going over the limit in an automated way in the future though, and if an account goes over the submission limit consistently it may not be able to collect more data until the next month. Users should therefore update to the Professional plan if they anticipate going over the limit, even if it is for just one month. They can also reach out to us if they want to discuss this further with someone on our team.
Keep in mind, that as an existing legacy humanitarian user they will continue to have 25,000 submissions per month available, as shown in their plans page and on the server transfer FAQ page, until 1 March 2024.
Please keep the questions coming, I’m sure this is very helpful for many others.
Just one thing. What I said about my Power BI report is that it’s actually working with the address eu.kobotoolbox.org. So I’ll ask again, is it normal that this address works with Power BI but it doesn’t work with the ODK Collect app ?
So it seems that the correct url is https://kc-eu.kobotoolbox.org . If this is the case, why is eu.kobotoolbox.org the address that was advertised in the server change announcement? And how come it’s actually working on my Power BI report?
@IAR Yes, it’s definitely normal that you need to use two different URLs here. eu.kobotoolbox.org is used to retrieve data and kc-eu.kobotoolbox.org is used to submit data with Collect (see the earlier post, that’s how it is documented too). KoboToolbox has always worked this way, so this has nothing to do with the recent server/URL changes for the EU server.
FYI: We are planning to integrate kobocat, the part of KoboToolbox that is now hosted at kc-eu. … into the same main application that is available at eu.kobotoolbox.org (i.e., kpi. So in the long run there won’t be a need for separate subdomains anymore.
But if you recently created an account on either server (now Global for the HHI and EU for the OCHA), you will have 5k submissions and 1 GB of storage. If you wish to go beyond this threshold, you must go with the paid plan. Feel free to contact us through info@kobotoolbox.org if you need any support to upgrade your account. We could help you there.
