 Observation of care at birth is challenging with multiple, rapid and potentially concurrent events occurring for mother, newborn and placenta. Design of electronic data (E-data) collection needs to account for these challenges. The Every Newborn Birth Indicators Research Tracking in Hospitals (EN-BIRTH) was an observational study to assess measurement of indicators for priority maternal and newborn interventions and took place in five hospitals in Bangladesh, Nepal and Tanzania (July 2017–July 2018). E-data tools were required to capture individually-linked, timed observation of care, data extraction from hospital register-records or case-notes, and exit-survey data from women.