dhis2-devs team mailing list archive

[Lars Helge Øverland <larshelge@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,


DHIS version 2.14 is out. There are lots of new features this time, too:



- Events in GIS: You can now visualize events, or individual cases, on
maps. This means that you can easily drill down from mapping of the
aggregated data to the underlying cases. As an example, you can go from
viewing percentage of delivery by skilled health worker in the country, to
where those deliveries actually took place in a district. You can query for
events from a particular program using any number of data elements or
attributes, using both exact and partial matches.


Try it out on the demo - log in with admin/district - the event layer is
the leftmost layer on the top menu, e.g. for the "inpatient
morbidity/mortality" program.


Demo <http://apps.dhis2.org/demo/dhis-web-mapping/app/index.html> |
Screenshot <http://www.dhis2.org/images/214/gis-events-large.png> |
Documentation<http://www.dhis2.org/doc/snapshot/en/user/html/ch18s02.html#gisEventMap>



- Data approval: A work-flow where data must be approved at each level of
the organisational unit hierarchy is now supported. Data is approved per
data set, time period and organisation unit. Data may be approved for the
organisation unit for which it is entered, as well as for higher-level
organisation units to which the data is aggregated. It can be approved for
a higher-level organisation unit only after it has been approved for all
that organisation unit's children for the same data set and period. When a
data set is approved, the form will be locked and any further data entry
prohibited.


Data approval is configurable per data set, and can be set in the add/edit
data set screen. It comes with two new authorities: “approve data” and
“approve data at lower levels”. Data approval happens in data set report in
reports module. When a data set report shows data that is configured for
approval, it shows the approval status of the data in the report which will
be one of “ready for approval”, “approved” or “waiting for lower level org
units to approve”. The approval and un-approval buttons can be found below
the actual data set report. Note that approval must happen for the data set
collection period type / frequency.


Approval does not yet affect data analysis - we want your input on the
requirements before building the next step. Try it out on the demo for the
"ART monthly summary" and "Population" data sets.


Demo<http://apps.dhis2.org/demo/dhis-web-reporting/showDataSetReportForm.action>|
Documentation <http://www.dhis2.org/doc/snapshot/en/user/html/ch06.html>



- Data set categories: You can now link a data set to a category
combination in order to capture information which is common to the entire
data set. Typical use-cases are data capture for an implementing partner,
funding mechanism or project. Categories and category combinations can now
be of type “disaggregation”, representing the kind of categories used for
data element disaggregation, or type “attribute”, representing the new
categories for data sets.


By linking a category combination to a data set, those categories will be
displayed as drop-down boxes in the data entry module. Data captured in the
form will then be linked to the selected category options from those
drop-down boxes. As an example, you can let users select a specific funding
mechanism, a project or an implementing partner organisation, and then
capture data in a form against that selection. Try it out on the demo by
selecting the “ARV monthly summary” data set in data entry module.


Demo <http://apps.dhis2.org/demo/dhis-web-dataentry/index.action> |
Documentation<http://www.dhis2.org/doc/snapshot/en/user/html/ch05.html#d5e868>|
Screenshot <http://www.dhis2.org/images/214/data-attributes-large.png>



- Dynamic person attributes only: All fixed attributes for persons have
been removed and replaced with various new types of dynamic attributes,
including age, phone number and associate. This avoids previous situations
where the system required you to input gender, birth date and so on even if
this information was not being collected for persons. The idea is also to
improve the applicability of the tracker component and allow for tracking
of all kinds of entities, including commodities, logistics, medicines,
equipment, lab samples, boreholes, crops and students. We plan to further
generalize the system for next release by replacing "person" with a more
generic "tracked entity" and encourage you to be creative when considering
new use-cases for tracker.


Demo <http://apps.dhis2.org/demo/dhis-web-caseentry/index.action>



- Support for embedding pivot tables, charts and maps: By going to share >
embed as plugin in any of the data visualization modules you can now get
the code required to embed your analysis directly in a web page. This lets
you build attractive web portals with live data visualized as pivot tables,
charts and maps.


Demo<http://apps.dhis2.org/demo/dhis-web-visualizer/app/index.html?id=HDEDqV3yv3H>|
Screenshot <http://www.dhis2.org/images/214/plugin-config-large.png> | Plugin
documentation <http://www.dhis2.org/doc/snapshot/en/user/html/ch27s19.html>



- Context menu: The menu system for performing actions on objects in lists
has been much improved, and now appears as a nice contextual menu which
clearly identifies the available operations. This relieves the user of the
previous, confusing long row of similar-looking icons. Try it out on the
demo by clicking on any row.


Demo<http://apps.dhis2.org/demo/dhis-web-maintenance-dataset/dataSet.action>



- Google Analytics support: You can now set up Google Analytics for your
DHIS instance simply by entering the analytics key under settings > general
settings > google analytics key. This will let you learn more about how
people are using your system, like how many people are regularly logging
into the system, utilizing the analysis modules, which favorites are most
popular, what devices and browsers are being used, from where are people
logging in and what is the average loading time for reports.


Demo<http://apps.dhis2.org/demo/dhis-web-maintenance-settings/systemGeneralSettings.action>|
Google
analytics <http://www.google.com/analytics/>



- Pivot table sorting: Pivot table now supports sorting by columns by
clicking directly on the column labels, letting you sort ascending or
descending on any column in the table. This enables you to quickly find the
highest and lowest values for data elements, indicators and reporting
rates. Note that sorting currently works with only one dimension as rows.


Demo<http://apps.dhis2.org/demo/dhis-web-pivot/app/index.html?id=NBt7kGTOQTb>



- Forced password change: The system can be configured to require users to
change their password at regular intervals. From settings > access >
Require user account password change you can choose between "3 months", "6
months" and "12 months" intervals between each user is asked to update her
password. This feature is optional and you can leave it on "never" to
disable it.


Demo<http://apps.dhis2.org/demo/dhis-web-maintenance-settings/systemAccessSettings.action>



- Interpretations can be edited and deleted by the person writing it. This
allows you to modify or correct errors, or remove completely. You can click
on the gear icon next to the interpretation or interpretation comment to
edit.


Demo<http://apps.dhis2.org/demo/dhis-web-dashboard-integration/interpretation.action>



- Detailed meta-data export: You can now create meta-data export files
tailored to your needs. You can freely select from any type of meta-data,
and select individual items from any number of object types. This is useful
e.g. when you work on a staging server and want to move data sets,
indicators and reports over to a production server. Try it out from
services > import-export > meta-data detailed export.


Demo<http://apps.dhis2.org/demo/dhis-web-importexport/dxf2FilteredMetaDataExport.action>



- GIS has a new admin option for swapping longitude and latitude of points.
This is useful when cleaning up wrongly entered coordinates - a typical
source of error is users mixing them up.


Screenshot <http://www.dhis2.org/images/214/gis-long-lat-large.png>



- Cache problem fix: The system is now using the revision number to
retrieve fresh copies of static files on the web server. This will solve
the frequent problems we see caused by outdated web browser caches when
upgrading to new DHIS versions. The data entry module, which is entirely
stored in the browser local storage, will ask for permission to update
itself once a new version is available on the server and then download a
fresh copy of all files.



- The FRED module (Facility Registry API) has been improved and
externalized as a Web App. You can get it from http://appstore.dhis2.org,
and try it out on the demo by going to services > FRED UI.


Demo <http://apps.dhis2.org/demo> | App Store<http://www.dhis2.org/appstore>



- Lots of minor fixes to improve usability have been made: Allow for
self-registration of users without captcha for intranet contexts. Files
uploaded as resources can be flagged for download as attachment as well as
rendered inline in browser. Group sets can be configured to be used or
ignored as data dimensions. Organisation unit groups can be assigned
directly to data sets, allowing for more flexible associations. Data sets
can be associated with legend sets for automatic rendering in GIS and pivot
table. Content which is stored in the browser’s local storage is separated
by user, letting many people use the same computer to enter data without
clearing cache. The smartphone mobile client now displays the current data
set, period and organisation unit during data entry. Pivot table downloads
supports the hide empty rows and show org unit hierarchy options. There
have also been several fixes related to IE8.



For *developers*, it might be interesting to know that we are constantly
rewriting the application to improve the Web API and use it for our own
user interface modules. The pivot table, data visualizer and FRED modules
have now been rewritten as Web
apps<https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps/Quickstart/Build/Intro_to_open_web_apps>,
and the Web API has gotten several new resources: data
values<http://www.dhis2.org/doc/snapshot/en/user/html/ch27s10.html>,
data approval <http://www.dhis2.org/doc/snapshot/en/user/html/ch27s15.html>,
plugins <http://www.dhis2.org/doc/snapshot/en/user/html/ch27s19.html>,
translations <http://www.dhis2.org/doc/snapshot/en/user/html/ch27s28.html>and
svg
conversion <http://www.dhis2.org/doc/snapshot/en/user/html/ch27s30.html>.
The meta-data <http://www.dhis2.org/doc/snapshot/en/user/html/ch27s05.html>resource
supports deletion, and has a new option which speeds up minor
imports. The event
analytics<http://www.dhis2.org/doc/snapshot/en/user/html/ch27s23.html>resource
supports coordinates.



You can *download* the new WAR file and Live package and get the source
code and sample database from the web site here:


http://www.dhis2.org/downloads



You will find *documentation* here:


http://www.dhis2.org/documentation



We have made a web page for the *highlights* in 2.14 here:


http://www.dhis2.org/214



Full *overview* of features and fixes here:


https://launchpad.net/dhis2/+milestone/2.14



Enjoy the new features.



best regards,


the DHIS 2 development team