Connecting Stock Management and Requisition Services

Goals/Scope

• The requisition and stock management services connect so that stock information gathered on the Requisition form is passed to the stock cards. This facilitates an implementer's ability to leverage data collected in requisitions when turning on the stock management features.

Background

OpenLMIS 3.1.0 introduced the Stock Management service, but it did not inter-connect with the Requisition service to share any data. Reasons for adjustments on the Stock Management screens used a totally separate Reason list in Stock Management that was redundant with the one used by Requisition service from Reference Data.

OpenLMIS 3.2.0 inter-connected the Stock Management and Requisition services. Both services now share the same adjustment reason list in Stock Management. The Requisition service now sends a number of data elements into the stock cards after any requisition is approved:

• (B) Total Received Quantity: maps to a Physical Inventory reason called 'Receipts' (this mapping is configured in the .env file)
• (C) Total Consumed Quantity: maps to a Physical Inventory reason called 'Consumed'
• (D) Total Losses and Adjustments: each adjustment maps to a Physical Inventory reason from the reason list; these are 'aggregate' numbers, a total for the whole period, not 'transactional' numbers with a different date for each
• (E) Stock On Hand: maps to the Physical Inventory quantity (this field maps regardless of whether it is configured to be displayed on the Requisition template; the other fields above do not map into the stock card for requisitions that do not have those fields displayed; this is configured in the Requisition & Report Template by Program)

Overall, the Stock Management screens provide a much more granular way to record adjustments and inventories compared to the Requisition form. Stock Management screens support Lots (different quantities by Lot); different dates for every line item or adjustment reason; recording a source/destination for issues and transfers, including free text explanations; and VVM status capture for Vaccines. The Requisition form, on the other hand, does not support Lots, only uses one date for all line items and reasons, does not capture sources/destinations, and does not capture VVM status.

The Requisition template can be configured to collect a "Date physical stock count completed" field (see the sub-section Setting up Requisition Date Physical Stock Count Completed). When enabled, this date will be collected during Requisition submission and authorization, and it will be used as the stock card date for stock data gathered on the Requisition form. When it is disabled, the last day of the requisition period will be used as the date on stock cards.

The upgrade from prior versions to 3.2.0 requires a data migration which is documented on the 3.2.0 Release Notes. In addition, Stock Management service is now a required component for any implementations using the Requisition service.

Future versions of OpenLMIS, after 3.2.0, may continue to improve the Stock-Requisition data connections. They may also support features to auto-populate monthly requisition forms using data from stock management. See the later phases documented in Phase 2 and Phase 3 of the grid below.

Assumptions

• Implementers may want to begin using the Stock Management "stock card" view to view stock data by product. They may also want to begin using the Stock Management screens to capture transactional, real-time stock activities including adjustments, transfers, issues, and physical inventories.

User Stories

Dependencies

Open Questions

Below is a list of questions to be addressed as a result of this requirements document:

Implementation Notes

Phase Zero:

 (new alternative #4 added July 7, 2017 from Josh, Mary Jo and Brandon)
(our discussion here was about how the Stock-Requisition connection really divides the Requisition Form into 3 parts: Blue is the Requisition Columns that are now owned by Stock service; Red is the columns such as Requested Quantity and Approved Quantity owned by Requisition; and Green is Program Data (future). These 3 parts are really separate entities "stapled together" when a requisition goes for approval. If the Requisition is Rejected, there are 3 ideas for what happens next with the different parts. Perhaps the blue part is read-only (because it was already submitted to stock service; and because we really don't expect the facility to conduct ANOTHER physical inventory for the same period dates as they already submitted last time). Or maybe there are cases where the blue needs to be revised or re-done. Corrections might be preferable to starting from scratch. There are usability questions about how an end-user would understand what happens if they had to totally re-do a new physical inventory blue part. We also may want to change the Rejection UI so when someone rejects a requisition, they can be clear about which parts they are rejecting (the blue? red? green?).

(additional notes from 16 June 2017 meeting with Josh, Brandon, Mary Jo)

(additional notes from 7 July 2017 meeting with Josh, Brandon, Mary Jo)

Usage Scenarios

Malawi 2017

Using the Requisition service in OpenLMIS 3.x.x, and Stock service is not present or not enabled (maybe not even in docker-compose file). So they are using a monthly R&R process, but not conducting physical inventories and not using "electronic bin cards" in the OpenLMIS stock service. They are likely doing bin cards and inventories on paper only.

Malawi Future

Turn on the Stock service to begin recording real-time adjustments on the "electronic bin card" and doing physical inventories in OpenLMIS.

• There are a few open questions about moving from Malawi 2017 to Malawi Future scenario: When they turn on Stock service, would they begin using it one program at a time, one facility at a time, or perhaps only for selected products but not all products in a program?
• When they turn on Stock service, would they want any of their historical Adjustments that were recorded on past Requisition forms to be visible within the Stock UI? Which ones? Why (what use will this serve?)

Mozambique 2017

Using two installations of OpenLMIS v1/v2, one for informed push with the Distribution Form (SELV; see https://openlmis.atlassian.net/wiki/display/OP/Program+Data+Example%3A+SIIL+and+SELV+Distribution+Form, especially the EPI tabs), and another to power the ESMS tablet app for stock management.

• Is there any overlap between these two installations in terms of programs and facilities?

Mozambique Future

Migrate both to one installation of OpenLMIS 3.

• Do we know any more? Would the ESMS app use only the Requisition service of OpenLMIS 3, or only the Stock service, or use both? The SELV Distribution Form does not exist in OpenLMIS 3 yet. That informed push functionality would likely be built into OpenLMIS 3.3 during the Vaccines work. Even then, Mozambique may still have a "gap" to migrating to version 3 that will be identified during the Gap Analysis project.

Modes of Operation

1. Requisition Only  (currently supported; e.g., Malawi 2017)
2. Stock Only  (Question: would any countries use this mode? Maybe they would use the Stock service in OpenLMIS 3.3 as part of Vaccines without using the Requisition service?)
3. Both Requisition and Stock  (experimental; would be used by Malawi Future)

Transitioning Between Modes

Some transitions are likely, and will be important for OpenLMIS to support. Meanwhile, other transitions are unlikely or may be difficult to support.

Big arrows show the most likely transitions. Small arrows are less likely. Some transitions without arrows are not supported.

Notes on pre-3.2.0 behavior

Requisition:

• Requisition service has data submitted monthly/periodically. 
• Has adjustments, but not recorded by Lot and not with a date.
• Has a stock-on-hand number for the end of the reporting period (similar to a Physical Inventory).
• Has transfers/issues/receiving, but all of that is "one-sided", meaning it records the local facility's perspective on what they received in, issued for use, or transferred out, but there is no data connection to the other facilities involved or to PODs or orders. If Facility A transfers 100 units to Facility B, each facility will record that adjustment on their Requisition form at the end of the month, and those two transactions will not be connected to each other in a machine-readable way.
• Requisition forms may be skipped or facilities may miss a period.
• Emergency Requisitions may also have some adjustments and an SOH balance recorded, but that data may have overlap with the Regular Requisition submitted at the end of the month/period.

Stock:

• Stock service has data that can be recorded in real-time or can be entered at the end of a month/period.
• Has adjustments, including with Lot and Date.
• Has physical inventories that capture a stock-on-hand number on a Date.
• Physical inventories may be skipped or facilities may miss a period. (no enforcement currently)
• Future: May have transfers/issues/receiving. The current system in development has a "one-sided" way to capture these, and a "two-sided" issuing/receiving process is a top feature we hope to achieve for the 3.1 release.

There is NO MATCH in OpenLMIS 3.1.0 between the Requisition and Stock service. Their data models are entirely different for the stock adjustments and stock-on-hand numbers. They both can refer to the same catalog of products, the same facilities and same programs, but the stock data itself is totally different. They have two different APIs for configuring Reasons and getting lists of valid reasons.

Out of Scope

Drop support for the simple version of Stock connection (to be determined if this will be done at a later date):
This would force all users/implementations to use the more advanced version of the UI the offers Lots, Comments, Sources/Destinations, Dates per adjustment/transfer. This would impact live country implementations, such as Malawi that has currently opted to keep the Simple version (because they are doing data entry from paper that has none of the granular details). We would probably need to provide a warning/error message when this version upgrade is applied that warns admins. The benefit is that it makes the product easier to support if we have fewer configuration options to maintain in perpetuity. Ultimately we want to encourage countries to move towards professionalization and more transactional, timely entry of this data.