Continuing the discussion from Improving reports to be more appealing
I would like to talk also open discussion about how to make the reporting form easier, faster and more fun.
One idea around is to have a mobile app you can check-in your activities, as you do with Foursquare/Twitter, quick and easy reports anywhere.
I would love an app! Yes!
One issue I have with reports is that I don’t understand the purpose of the information collected and how it improves the program. I do understand collecting a list of events in the portal, it allows us to show our impact as volunteers, where in the world we’re representing Mozilla as well as the size of audience we’re reaching.
The rest of the reports don’t have the same clear purpose to me. It feels more like their purpose is to make sure I am active enough to deserve budget/swag next time I request them, but I don’t think that’s really the best measure for whether someone deserves budget/swag.
I think if we can actually have a broader use for the data (like the events portal has) then that would inform a report form that felt much more intuitive and less burdensome to remember to fill out.
I also wonder if it would be good to have more guided forms based on the activity type, think of the event form as an example. I think a guided form for a mentor/mentee check-in would probably be easy to draft, and obviously there would be lots of opportunity for people to test it and give feedback.
If we can have the reports encoded to the Reps Portal directly and published as “blog” posts … plus a mobile app to go along with it 
All good points you raise.
I would argue that the purpose of the information collected is to enable Reps to simply keep a track record of their activity, not only for themselves but for their Mentor and anyone who could potentially be interested in knowing about their activities.
Regarding your point about “deserving” budget, I wouldn’t put it like that. Your mentor ultimately decides whether your budget requests are valid or not, based on various criteria, including your activities as a Rep which (s)he can learn about directly by engaging with you and/or by reading your reports
Now as for having a more intuitive , less burdensome form to fill or at least a much easier way of reporting, I’m 100% with you.