A new smartphone app for civil affairs Marines may make the next humanitarian aid mission a little bit smoother.

By the beginning of next year, civil affairs units across the Marine Corps will receive Android Galaxy Note 3 phones equipped with the Marine Corps Civil Information Management System, an app designed to collect and store data and assessments from all sorts of missions, from disaster relief to civil assistance in combat zones.

Equipped with 27 different forms tailored for different mission types, the app is designed to allow Marines to ditch pen-and-paper reporting in favor of checking boxes and entering data on a touchscreen. When input to a web portal, the data collected in the field is then added to a searchable database similar to the online information hub Wikipedia. All the stored information is then available to inform future missions.

Maj. Mike Ohleger, the project manager for MARCIMS, said the app, with queries built into an XML-based data system, is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive for Marines.

"Let's say you wanted to look for an engineering-type action to rebuild a school or to paint a school," he said. "It will come up with every single assessment that has been done on a school wherever we might have conducted those actions."

Ohleger said the app will help civil affairs Marines move beyond the time-staking and error-prone manual methods of collecting data and making assessments, which requires them to transcribe and file hand-written notes once out of the field. It will also assist with prompts to make sure the info collected in the field is comprehensive, he said.

"It kind of cues you to ask the right questions," he said. "If you had gone out and done that assessment [without the app], you're kind of going on what you think are the right questions to ask."

Often, he said, that method leads to gaps in information when Marines are compiling a situation report later.

The system comes with some impressive technology. Each Galaxy Note 3 device is lightweight, waterproof, and comes with adapters that work in 150 countries. They are also equipped with external battery packs that boost the life of a standard battery.

The app can also record the geographical location of interviews and data collection and input photos, videos and voice recordings, which will appear with the assessment in the web portal.

While the app also works on tablets, Ohleger said the choice of device was a careful one. MARCIMS was designed for Android's open-source platform, ruling out Apple devices. When determining the smartphones to purchase for civil affairs Marines, he said he looked for something that would store easily and still be large enough to enter data with ease. The Galaxy Note 3's palm-sized 5.7-inch screen fit the bill.

"We talked to a bunch of Marines who would be using this," Ohleger said. "We wanted to go with something that could fit easily in your cargo pocket or your breast pocket on your cammies."

The civil affairs community will start getting their new tech very soon. In mid-October, 60 of the devices were fielded to the Marine Corps Civil-Military Operations School at Quantico, Virginia. Units within I and III Marine Expeditionary Forces will receive the devices in November, and II MEF will get its systems in January.

Each Civil Affairs Group will receive 42 of the devices, Ohleger said, while each active component civil affairs detachment will receive 24. In all, 300 devices will be distributed across the Corps.

Marine Corps Systems Command will wrap up development of the app in February with a final assessment that will include a software upgrade with minor performance improvements.

Ohleger said the goal is to keep the app focused on its original purpose of assisting civil affairs Marines, but to optimize it for all sorts of mission sets. When Ohleger worked in civil operations with 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade during the campaign in Marjah, Afghanistan, he said the gear would've been great to have.

"Any type of mission where Marines are involved," he said, "they can use this system to conduct the analysis."

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