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The OpenLMIS community has the pleasure to announce the 3.1 milestone release. In line with the version 3 series, 3.1 includes the release of entirely new features in OpenLMIS, including key stock management transactions, tracking lots, and spatial data support, as well as more administrative screens.

Stock Management

A highly requested feature for OpenLMIS, the all-new stock managementservice is a major milestone in the version 3 series. It is a culmination of many months of planning, discussion, and development, and represents a step towards the eventual achievement of a full-feature electronic LMIS that ministries of health and other organizations can utilize to manage their supply chains across programs. The 3.1 version is a first release of stock management transactions and we will continue to iterate on the initial set of features to support vaccines and make general improvements as the community suggests new features. The full vaccine feature set is planned for release late 2017.

Stock Management Features

• View and print individual stock cards or a summary of all stock on hand
• Perform a Physical Inventory (or Stock Count or Stock Take) to verify the electronic inventory records against physical stock quantities
• Enter a Receipt of stock received at a facility
• Issue (or transfer stock) from a facility
• Record an Adjustment, either an increase or decrease, in stock levels due to a configured set of reasons, which may include stock discarded/wasted due to expiry, damage, or an increase due to third party donations

Full details on the 3.1 release can be found in the Release Notes on the OpenLMIS Wiki

Contributions Back to Core
In addition to the feature set of version 3.1 developed by the core team, the community is also proud to announce that the first country to implement the OpenLMIS version 3 series has already begun contributing back features for re-use by other implementers!

The first implementer has contributed back many enhancements and modifications to the core code base. Their enhancements and extensions of the core code have been built in modules, ensuring both that the code will not be forked, and that they will be able to take advantage of upgrades and new releases without affecting their existing functionality.

By contributing back features to the core code, any country, project, or NGO that implements OpenLMIS in the future can take advantage of these enhancements, increasing the shared benefit of the OpenLMIS initiative.

Key Feature Contribution Highlight
Bulk Reference Data Upload – This first deployment on version 3 has contributed a tool to upload reference data in bulk via csv files. This new feature will assist other implementers in configuring the system through csv uploads.

We are excited to hear your feedback and learn from the global health community! Please don’t hesitate to reach out to share your comments and new feature suggestions.

The OpenLMIS Initiative’s mission is to make powerful LMIS software available in low-resource environments – providing high-quality logistics management to improve health commodity distribution in low- and middle-income countries. OpenLMIS increases data visibility, helping supply chain managers identify and respond to commodity needs, particularly at health facilities where lack of data significantly impacts the availability of key medicines and vaccines.

Learn more at openlmis.org, or by writing to info@openlmis.org

Want to get involved?

Contact the Community Manager 

The OpenLMIS Community is pleased to announce the beta release of OpenLMIS 3.0!

The initial offering to come out of the re-architecture effort for OpenLMIS, 3.0 Beta contains one slice of functionality, Requisitions, based on an all-new micro-service architecture. This release is the first to utilize the new architecture and is a strong step in the direction of “shared investment, shared benefit” that is the primary mission of the OpenLMIS Community. 3.0 Beta is a proof-of-concept for this architecture and is not a feature-complete release. It does not contain every feature that the eventual 3.0 OpenLMIS stable release will, and further features will be added to the system as we work toward the full 3.0 release scheduled for the end of February, 2017.

Please reference the Living Product Roadmap for the high-level estimated release schedule through version 3.3, and read the 3.0 Beta Release Notes for further details. Visit the OpenLMIS GitHub page to view the 3.0 Beta code repository.

Background

Early contributions to OpenLMIS by PATH, USAID, Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities, JSI, ThoughtWorks and others first helped shape the product and define its original code base (v.0.9) for deployments in Tanzania and Zambia in late 2013 under the name “eLMIS.” In 2015, eLMIS was also deployed in Cote D’Ivoire, and OpenLMIS software development continued with the v1.0 release, which was deployed by VillageReach to manage vaccine distribution in Mozambique and Benin.

As new installations of OpenLMIS were developed and deployed, a key challenge was the inability to easily extend the code base, which resulted in a “code fork” between the early implementations and the later v1.0 implementations. In an effort to address the fork the community agreed to begin working toward a common master branch, and at the September 2015 all-community meeting, the community also agreed that a single, “core” code line was required. This effort to re-work the OpenLMIS code is referred to as the "Re-Architecture" of OpenLMIS.

VillageReach and partners have worked to make the re-architecture process as transparent as possible through clear documentation available on the OpenLMIS Wiki. The OpenLMIS Re-Architecture Acceleration Brief outlines the plan and approach for this effort, the high level architecture is captured in the Architecture Overview (v3), and the Re-Architecture Concept Note provides a detailed, clear explanation of the re-architecture plan and approaches. 

Key Features

OpenLMIS 3.0 is built with an all-new architecture that better supports customizations and extensions. The goal is to enable multiple OpenLMIS implementations in different countries while still sharing one global, open source codebase. 3.0 Beta may look similar to version 2, but under the hood the architecture and technology are a leap forward.

Specifically, the key goals of the 3.0 Beta are to demonstrate:

• New micro-services architecture

• Ability to support extensions

• Basic feature set within requisitioning

  
  

From March 28 through April 1, VillageReach through the OpenLMIS initiative hosted a re-architecture design week in Seattle. The purpose of the workshop was to understand the current pain points in the existing OpenLMIS code base; document the existing domain model and bounded contexts; review and understand the pros and cons of various architectural approaches; select candidate architecture and document the architectural principles.

Attended by representatives from OpenLMIS community partners the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) and PATH, and facilitated by VillageReach and ThoughtWorks, the workshop was a collaborative effort on behalf of the community to provide feedback on the re-architecture process, and guide the development of the next phase of the OpenLMIS initiative. 

The agenda for the week is below, and a full re-cap of notes from each working session is available on the March 2016 Re-Architecture Design Workshop wiki page. 

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OpenLMIS 2.0 is now available! 

The OpenLMIS Community is pleased to announce the release of the 2.0 version of OpenLMIS! Many thanks to the individuals and organizations that contributed their time and effort to help make this happen!

Proposed and planned at the September 2015 community meeting, OpenLMIS 2.0 is a consolidation and stabilization of several major branches of OpenLMIS, including v1.0, eLMIS and 2.0-Mozambique.

Background 

Early contributions to OpenLMIS by PATH, USAID, Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities, JSI, ThoughtWorks and others first helped shape the product and define its original code base (v.0.9) for deployments in Tanzania and Zambia in late 2013 under the name “eLMIS.” In 2015, eLMIS was also deployed in Cote D’Ivoire, and OpenLMIS software development continued with the v1.0 release, which was deployed by VillageReach to manage vaccine distribution in Mozambique and Benin.

As new installations of OpenLMIS were developed and deployed, a key challenge was the inability to easily extend the code base, which resulted in a “code fork” between the early implementations and the later v1.0 implementations. In an effort to address the fork, the community began working toward a common master branch for the product – the “2.0” branch. As a refreshed master for the OpenLMIS project, 2.0 should be used as the basis for new projects.

Key Features

Some of the key features of the 2.0 release include

• Code consolidation

• Introduction of a basic modularization strategy

• Defined release numbering format

• Housecleaning of old/unused branches

• Bug fixes

• Feature toggling

Feature toggling is introduced in this release to support managing code contributions from existing projects. Features that are globally applicable are toggled-on by default, whereas features that were built to support the specific needs of one country are toggled-off by default. Toggle-on features have been tested as part of this release. Features can be toggled on or off by a system administrator. For more details on feature toggling, see the 2.0 Release Product Overview. 

For feature toggling, all users have access to a basic set of “toggled on” features. These features are the basis for the 2.0 release feature footprint, and if a feature is toggled off, by default none of the users will be able to access that feature.

Release Details

Details about the release can be found in the release notes available on the OpenLMIS wiki. As part of the 2.0 development effort, a refreshed demo server is available for the community to use. Two new demo servers are up and are running OpenLMIS 2.0 – see this public wiki page for access details.  

Associated Documents 

OpenLMIS 2.0 Product Overview 

OpenLMIS 2.0 Release Notes 

OpenLMIS Demo Server Wiki Page 

Many thanks to those who participated in the OpenLMIS Re-Architecture Webinar, held on Thursday, February 11. We received excellent questions and feedback on the presentation from a variety of participants. This webinar focused on progress made since the 2015 community meeting, the release of OpenLMIS 2.0, the re-architecture vision for the product, and ways that the community can participate in the re-architecture process. 

This webinar was the first of planned quarterly OpenLMIS Community Webinars, focused on providing updates on a broad variety of topics associated with the product, and the community. The next webinar will be held at the end of March. 

A PDF of today’s presentation, meeting recording, associated materials, and questions/answers asked during the presentation are all available on the OpenLMIS Re-Architecture Webinar page on the OpenLMIS Wiki. 

As a reminder, you can also sign up to participate in any of the Committee Google Groups (Governance, Technical, Product) by visiting the OpenLMIS Community page and clicking on the appropriate link. 

Any additional questions may be posted in any of the Committee group forums, during the regularly scheduled committee meetings, or sent directly to info@openlmis.org. 

Thanks again for your participation today, and for your ongoing interest in making OpenLMIS a vibrant product and community! 

The OpenLMIS Community is pleased to announce the first of a new series of quarterly webinars, The OpenLMIS Re-Architecture Webinar. These webinars are aimed at keeping the OpenLMIS community informed and up-to-date on recent accomplishments and major activities related to OpenLMIS product development, community governance, and technical milestones. 

 The OpenLMIS Re-Architecture webinar will be held this Thursday, February 11 starting at 8:00 AM PST via Webex. The primary objective of this presentation is to update participants on progress made since the 2015 community meeting, inform the community about decisions that the OpenLMIS core team will be making in the next few months, and describe how members of the community can provide input to this process.

 Details on how to join the webinar are listed below, and will also be sent to each of the Committee Google Groups. For further information on how to join one of these Google Groups, please visit the OpenLMIS Community Page. Information on the webinar is also listed on the OpenLMIS Re-Architecture Webinar page. 

Any questions about this and upcoming webinars, or the OpenLMIS Community in general, may be sent to info@openlmis.org. 

Hope to see you on Thursday! 

The OpenLMIS community is pleased to announce the release of the final Introduction to OpenLMIS overview document. The document is available for download below, both in English and in French. The document is also available for download on the HingX OpenLMIS Resources site, in both English and French. The document is also available on www.openlmis.org, under Links, in a new blog post on the website, and under the Overview tab on the website. 

Please feel free to share this document with country teams currently implementing OpenLMIS, as well as any interested country partners, US-based collaborators, and others who may be interested in learning more about OpenLMIS. The document is an excellent resource to help describe and understand the initiative and its benefits. 

La communauté OpenLMIS est heureux d'annoncer la sortie du document, la Présentation d'OpenLMIS. Le document est disponible en téléchargement ci-dessous, à la fois en anglais et en français. Un lien vers cette page wiki est également disponible sur www.openlmis.org, sous Liens, dans un nouveau blog sur le site Internet, et sous l'onglet Présentation sur le site.

S'il vous plaît partager ce document avec les équipes de pays mettant actuellement en œuvre OpenLMIS, ainsi que les pays partenaires concernés, des collaborateurs basés aux Etats-Unis, et d'autres qui pourraient être intéressés à en apprendre plus sur OpenLMIS. Le document est une excellente ressource pour aider à décrire et à comprendre l'initiative et ses avantages.

An Introduction to OpenLMIS (English)                      

Présentation d'OpenLMIS (français) 

• Increase country-level participation in OpenLMIS
• Building out a "to be" vision of the OpenLMIS Community 
• Strengthening responsiveness to OpenLMIS inquires, and inquiry follow-up
• Working with the governance committee to determine community development priorities for 2016

OpenLMIS committees are now meeting on a regular basis. Join the google group mailing lists to get updates on upcoming meetings, and meeting notes:

• OpenLMIS Governance Committee: http://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/openlmis-governance

• OpenLMIS Product Committee: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/openlmis_product_committee

• OpenLMIS Technical Committee / Dev List: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/openlmis-dev

The OpenLMIS Community gathering was held Sept. 28-30th in Washington D.C. Thank you to everyone for your participation! Notes from each session are available, as well as summary readouts from each track: 

• Governance Readout
• Technical Readout

The OpenLMIS Community will be holding it's 1st community convening September 28th-30th in Washington D.C. The meeting will include both technical and governance tracks. The agenda for the meeting is currently being created by the community. For the latest on planning for the meeting, see the meeting planning page.