PC: April 10 2018

Call Information

  • 09:00 PDT - Seattle
  • 12:00 EDT - New York, DC
  • 18:00 CAT - Zambia/Malawi (UTC+2)
  • 19:00 EAT - Tanzania/Kenya (UTC+3)


Last Meeting Notes: Last meeting was canceled due to the Version 3 Demo: Supporting Documentation

AGENDA

Item

Lead (Time)

Notes

Software Development Update

  • RoadmapLiving Product Roadmap
  • Current sprintBacklog Grooming Sprint 50
  • Upcoming sprintBacklog Grooming Sprint 51 (fixing demo data, implementing tagging to support reporting and stock based requisitions)
  • Release: RC was released on  
    • Test Plan (3.3 Regression & Release Candidate Test Plan): Community members are welcome to join the Release Candidate testing process.
    • Testing is underway and we are "aiming" to release either  or . As we all know, it all depends on testing.
    • Reminder: Batch Approval will continued to be released in its beta form and not accessible via UI given the performance and design issues. 
  • Reporting: Work is on pause until the Gap Project development starts up.

Mary Jo Kochendorfer (Deactivated)

  • Parambir: Can we include an overview of the testing process.
  • In the middle of release candidate process (release schedule updates in Slack #general channel). 
  • All bugs found and tested are documented daily - as Malawi is testing, no need to add additional requests; review current bug list and comment.  
  • Log all bugs (or comments on bugs) immediately.  Ideal to get testing done by tomorrow so dev have time to resolve.
  • Malawi team going to do internal testing tomorrow with VR - larger user testing at facilities being coordinated later this week.  Other coordinators will monitor the performance.  Team will log/comment on bugs immediately.
  • Note test plan includes all the labels for the bugs.
  • 9AM PST Triage tomorrow (led by Sam) - Malawi team should join to see which bugs have been reported; discuss.  Very important to join!
  • Daily conversations about this test plan are important.
Version 3 Demo: Supporting Documentation readout, see notes below in the additional reading section.Mary Jo Kochendorfer (Deactivated)
  • Presentation is available for anyone to use (see link left).  Highlights new features in 3.3.
  • Key takeaways are in additional reading (see link left).
    • People excited about focus on standards and discussion on integration (demonstrates commitment to long term sustainability to supply chain practices in country)
    • The word "Product" is confusing to non-technical people; may be good to say "Software" or "Application" in a demo setting so there is no confusion with commodity products
    • People asked about Third Party Evaluations (both of implementation and of the software) - Mary Jo following up with USAID to see if eLMIS evaluation can be made public
    • UNICEF team excited about Implementer Toolkit and Guide that will be published with 3.3 Release
    • Additional notes and follow up are included in link left
    • Additional country conversation takeaways will be shared soon
  • If you have questions - highlight text, use comment button and ask question using @
  • Let Mary Jo know if you want to do a demo - she can support

Gap Analysis Development Project

  • Estimation meeting is happening  -  
Mary Jo Kochendorfer (Deactivated)
  • Work funded by USAID via Digital Square - goal is to build features in V3 that are used in eLMIS in TZ and Zambia to get to feature parity with eLMIS; some additional features that are future looking will also be discussed
  • Meeting this week on the Gap Project (goals, schedule, attendees all in the link left)
  • Let Mary Jo know if you want to call in - they are arranging call in details. 
  • All notes and discussion will be shared with the community including schedule and LOE estimates (PC and GC will approve before development starts)

OpenLMIS Functionality within SCOR

Presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Ixpez53_PK_vP3WF3XIWSWN8QFRPTj_IlRcDR-pNaiE/edit?usp=sharing

Visualization: (draft) OpenLMIS and SCOR Framework

Former user (Deleted)

Mary Jo Kochendorfer (Deactivated)

  • Satish (CHAI) has been working on mapping OpenLMIS using SCOR, supply chain operation reference model.   What is SCOR?
    • Reference model that helps to use common language (supplier to customer)
    • SCOR is a simplified version of supply chain process (planning, sourcing, delivering etc).  SCOR looks at processes by level.
    • SCOR also defines processes with metrics 
    • SCOR helps you prioritize investments; define a supply chain strategy
  • SCOR and OpenLMIS
    • See draft Feature Overview (link left). Note we have not determined yet which of these OpenLMIS does - still mapping out the processes.
    • How can we use these best practices and come to some shared understanding on terminology etc to support community members?
    • Discussion warehouse management wording and sub-process.
    • Would like to get people with more experience to contribute feedback.

New Requests

Filter:  Getting issues...

  • As a committee we will review any new requests that come in. We will then ask follow up question or clarifications. Once the scope is clear, we will prioritize with the current work for development.
  • Roadmap status = still under discussion
  • ToDo status = ready for work
  • Once the feature is slotted for work, we will change the ticket type to a "story"
Mary Jo Kochendorfer (Deactivated)
  • We have a process for making new requests to the community - documentation on how to do this in Jira (Mary Jo Kochendorfer (Deactivated) add link)
  • This is a proof of concept process - we can refine this process.
  • We will review this more going forward in future PC meetings.
OpenLMIS Community Meeting UpdateTenly Snow (Deactivated)
  • All Community Meeting Planning - Tenly and Brandon have sent messages out with results from the survey and to request community members to join a planning committee.   Who is interested in helping?  Currently in early planning stages, looking for a good location. Ideally want to hold meeting in East Africa.  
  • If you have suggestions, comments, reach out to Tenly.
  • Last week of June 
Request for feedback on the Targeted Partner Profile (see email)Everyone
  • This was shared via listserv.  This will impact our GAVI evaluation of OpenLMIS. 
  • Now is our opportunity to provide feedback.  Send comments to Mary Jo by the end of the week.
Next PC meeting: non-functional requirements and 3.4 roadmap.


ATTENDANCE:


RECORDING:

Video:  


ADDITIONAL READING:

Geneva and Copenhagen Trip Overview

Jake, Vidya and Mary Jo traveled to Geneva and Copenhagen to demo the 3.3 features to the Gavi Secretariat and UNICEF Supply Division In addition, the team had one-on-one meetings with key Gavi Senior Country Managers representing 12 countries, and the Global Fund.

Key Trip Takeaways:

  • The OpenLMIS standards-based approach and focus on integration does set us apart; in every interaction, this was something that needed a bit of initial explaining, but then people really caught on to the idea and its importance, particularly when we named actual systems that OpenLMIS could potentially inter-operate with if the other system is also using standards. Everyone saw that we cared about the long-term sustainability of systems and meeting a country's needs.
  • Gavi operates at a super macro-level which means that all countries are painted with the same brush of infrastructure availability, people capacity, supply chain needs. We know this to be untrue and it’s on us to advocate for better automated solutions even when SCMs seem to only want a faster DVDMT-Excel tool because they assume anything more will not work in LMIC settings.
  • We need to differentiate better when we talk about “the product” because we noticed confusion in the audience -- we use it interchangeably to talk about products in a supply chain (as in medical commodities) and about the OpenLMIS product (as in the software). One  recommendation is to be consistent -- when referring to OpenLMIS, say “software supports XX features, has YY functionality”  instead of “the product supports…” etc
  • Integrated supply chains (in terms of Essential Meds with Immunizations): Stakeholders did not want to do that too much at this time, though we explained that they can run their own program on the same instance of OpenLMIS and keep it separate, thereby realizing some economy of scale in terms of hosting, support and maintenance, updates, etc. -- this is a key point worth repeating to any/all countries that cannot or do not want to have an integrated supply chain.
  • There is a need for a succinct and clear of way of letting people know how they can implement OpenLMIS and how much it will cost.  How do we clearly say which partners are available and willing to support a deployment? How do we clearly clarify how they move forward with that conversation? 
  • There clearly is quite a bit of opportunity to coordinate between Gavi, UNICEF, Global Fund and USAID. We were making connections and identifying places where the donors could potentially pool funds (Myanmar or Malawi).

Gavi Demo Notes and Feedback

Date: March 26 at 12:00pm

Attendees: The team did not pass around a signup sheet. The RSVP is here.

SummaryA full room of attendees that were engaged and asked many questions throughout the presentation. Overall seemed like participants followed the presentation. Folks were excited about the DISC indicators. There were a few questions on capturing data from paper and DVDMT. Similar to BMGF meetings, we weren’t really allowed to get past slide 3 before we the questions/bombarding began -- team had to be flexible in staying engaged and setting aside the script to go with the audience needs. Excellent post-demo follow-up conversation with the Gavi Country Performance Monitoring Unit team (Laura Craw, acting head and Carine Gachen, Sr Manager).

Rough Notes:

  • Implementer Toolkit is going to be very important and should include system evaluations and M&E recommendations for implementations. Participants asked multiple times if OpenLMIS has been evaluated by a third party. They meant both the system and implementations of it.
  • Participants would like to see costs broken down differently so they could be informed around costing models and ideas (ranges are fine). This is a consistent theme, people want to see more cost figures. 
  • The question was raised around how you can evaluate digital transformations. BMGF indicated this is something they are very interested in.
  • Participants requested Pre/post implementation costs and impact
  • Comment made: 90% is paid by the donors so hard to see ownership and care taken around managing supply chains.
  • Targeted partner profile will be key for Gavi.
  • OpenLMIS team asked participants: How do the donors coordinate and influence or ask countries to be mindful of technology evaluation and selection?
  • OpenLMIS team asked participants: Have you considered approaching “graduated” countries directly to see how your ToC/approach works in setting where countries have to pay for their own supplies and likely to care more about a good LMIS?

Follow-up: As if USAID could publish the third party evaluations of eLMIS in TZ and Zambia.

UNICEF D4M Team Meeting Notes

Date: March 28 at 12:00pm

Attendees: Gemma (tead lead), Innocent (works with Ken Legins and SCS Center and direct advising to country govts), (new) Theresa (forecasting focus), Modeste (D4M focus), ?? who is now the ViVa PM

Summary: Presentation very well received; Gemma in particular pleased with the data analytics portions of the presentation and what was possible. In general, between the two orgs, UNICEF SD “got it” more quickly than Gavi did, and are a wee bit closer to country supply chains than the SCMs.

  • Follow up on coordinating around the implementer guide
  • Gemma noted the toolkit is really more current for them than anything else -- doing similar work and advising countries on data systems
  • Were interested in the standards and asked quite a few questions about GS1, e.g.
    • can we provide more case studies of how/when/where to use GS1?
  • Figure out who is on the MIS or technology team and follow up
    • Can we train them (IT team + Program managers) on the use of OpenLMIS? Could be best practice users and train the trainers. May want to use the BI framework itself…

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