wisdom for a newb

[Bill Olander]

Hi Rapid-ers,

  I'm considering starting a project which aims to process and store SMS data recieved from rural locations.  From what I've read rapidsms seems to be ideal, but I'm wondering how much programming skill and time would be needed.  

  Basically from mulitiple locations every week, we would like to recieve a message string like 1*1*10*5*2 -- (locationid*reportingagegroup*numberofpatientstested*numberofpatientstestedpositive*numberofpatientstreated).  I would like to build in some error handling that wouldn't allow more patients treated than tested, etc.

  Could any one guess as to how long this might take to set up and if it would be really difficult for a non-programmer to try -- either encouragement or frank discouragement.

  I will jump into the tutorial to get a sense but I wonder if anyone has any wisdom in the meantime.

Merci,

Bill